[Black Poetry\Black History\1619 Project]
Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club presents Black Poets on Black History: “The 1619 Project” on Tuesday, February 18. The event will be held at 6:30 pm in the Cafeteria of Building B on the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, 601 J.R. Thompson Drive, EStL, IL 62201.
Photo: Eugene Redmond
Using poetry to explore the origins of, and triumphs over, U.S. slavery, the Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club presents Black Poets on Black History: “The 1619 Project” on Tuesday, February 18.
The event will be held at 6:30 pm in the Cafeteria of Building B on the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, 601 J.R. Thompson Drive, EStL, IL 62201.
After digesting hundreds of pages of an August 18 (2019) New York Times on “The 1619 Project”—1619 being the year scholars say U.S. enslavement of Africans began in Jamestown, Virginia—writers examined slavery—and its “hand-me-downs”—in various poetic forms. “Poeting” on Feb. 18 will be Roscoe “Ros” Crenshaw, Charlois Lumpkin, Darlene Roy and Jaye P. Willis, with EBR as moderator.
The Writers Club, which turns 34 years old in March, was co-founded in 1986 by Sherman L. Fowler, Redmond, and Roy (president). For nearly two decades, the Club edited and co-published Drumvoices Revue with SIUE. Redmond, DR’s founding editor, is an Emeritus Professor of English who retired from SIUE in 2007.
Current Club Trustees are Avery Brooks, Haki R. Madhubuti, Walter Mosley, Quincy Troupe, and Jerry Ward. Deceased Trustees include Margaret Walker Alexander, Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Raymond Patterson, Barbara Ann Teer, and Dr. Lena Weathers.
The public is welcome to this free family-friendly program. For more information, contact 618 650-3991; EBRWC at P.O. Box 6165, EStl, IL 62201; or [email protected].
