On March 9–10, 2008, the Margaret Walker Alexander National Research Center for the Study of the 20^th Century African American will recognize a forty-year retrospective of Margaret Walker’s legacy and the Black Studies Movement in its first annual Africana Studies Conference. The event will review the historical context out of which Margaret Walker Alexander became a leader in the late 1960s and early 1970s Black Studies Movement, analyze Black Studies developments since 1968, and make projections for the future of Black Studies.

The Black Aesthetic, Negritude and the Black Arts Movements were among the concepts explored in the 1971 Black Studies National Evaluative Conference at Jackson State University. The March 2008 Conference will revisit these concepts and explore questions about their relevance in current Black Studies programs.

The Center

The Margaret Walker Alexander National Research Center for the Study of the 20^th Century African American is an important national resource for collecting, preserving, interpreting and explaining 20th Century African American history through material culture, the built environment, living memories and archival records. Its mission is to serve as an archive and museum for the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of African American culture.

The HBCU Partners Workshop

A one-day partners' workshop will use the Alexander Research Center's experience in creating research resources as a model in creating original Blacks Studies research resources. Two-person teams of Black Studies faculty and librarians/archivists are invited from ten HBCUs to initiate methods of sharing the collecting, archiving, exhibiting, and digitizing Black Studies Resources.

Funding

Mississippi Humanities Council, JSU General Funds, the MWANR Center's NEH Endowment Proceeds, the National Council for Black Studies, and other funding pending.

Photo: "Homage to African Aesthetics", Bronze, Harold S. Dorsey, Sr.