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| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 17, 2023 Media Contact: Zebulon Miletsky marketing@asalh.org ASALH President Issues a Call for a National Membership Campaign, Washington, D.C. Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney, President of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is announcing a National Membership Campaign to attract new members to the nation’s oldest African American history association. The Association seeks to attract new members to join its campaign to promote and support the teaching of Black History in the nation’s public schools and colleges in order to counter the “anti-woke” legislation that eighteen state legislatures have passed. According to Dr. Dulaney, ”We need more members in order to increase our capacity to fight the biggest challenge to the teaching of our history since the 1960s.” ASALH’s mission is “to promote, research, interpret and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to a global community.” Its mission is a direct contradiction and challenge to the “anti-woke” campaign supported and promoted by many of the nation’s lawmakers and conservatives. Founded in 1915, by the eminent African American historian Carter G. Woodson, ASALH is the founder of Black History Month and each year it announces the theme for the celebration of African American History by the nation’s schools and colleges, businesses, and government agencies. This year’s theme is “Black Resistance” and it is very appropriate for ASALH’s challenge to the “anti-woke” campaign in states such as Florida, Alabama, and Texas. In support of the celebration of Black History, each year ASALH publishes the Black History Bulletin and Black History kits to provide teachers resources and curricula material to teach African American history. ASALH welcomes new members to join its fight against the attempt to restrict the teaching of Black History and provides them access to its journal and a reduction in the cost of registration to its annual conference. ASALH publishes the Journal of African American History (JAAH), the premier journal in the field of African American history. New members can access the JAAH online or receive copies of each issue in the mail. ASALH offers members reduced registration to our annual academic conference, where they can attend sessions, meet people from all across the country, and learn the latest scholarship on the African American experience. Persons interested in joining ASALH can access information about the various levels of membership at www.asalh.org. Click JOIN ASALH. For more information on ASALH memberships call: 202-238-5910 — END — |
PAST PRESS
Read the article about Dr. Dorothy Fields by Audrey Peterman
Tuesday, December 21, 2021 on the ASALH South Florida Podcast
COVID-19 PANDEMIC
December 19, 2019, at AARLCC in Fort Lauderdale, FL
African-American Research Library Celebrates Black History Pioneer
Get engaged South Florida! Learn about Dr. Woodson’s vision and mission and how the South Florida Branch will join the cause.
Celebrate the 144th birthday anniversary of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, pioneer of Black history and multiculturalism in the United States, with an evening of entertaining education, live performances and refreshments on Thursday, December 19, 2019, from 6PM to 8PM at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC), 2650 Sistrunk Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311, 954-357-6282.
This cultural event for ages 21 and older presents history-centered poetry and interpretive dance from the Art Prevails Project and live jazz with the Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc.
The event honors the life of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, known as the “Father of Black History” and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), an organization dedicated to preserving and sharing U.S. Black history. This celebration promotes Woodson’s dream, reflected in the ASALH mission statement, “to continue a tradition of disseminating information about Black life, history, and culture to the global community.”
ASALH South Florida representatives will be in attendance to assist guests in signing up for membership.
Tickets for the event are $25 and can be purchased through Eventbrite. The event is co-sponsored by the Friends of the African American Research Library and Cultural Center, the South Florida ASALH Chapter, and The Spady Museum. For additional information, contact Roslyn Dean at 954-357-7496 or rdean@broward.org.
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Article in South Florida Times
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 30, 2017
Contacts: Dr. Tameka Bradley Hobbs, President
South Florida Branch, ASALH: 305-912-5332, asalhsouthflorida@gmail.com
Charlene Farrington, Director, Spady Museum, 561-279-8883
‘FATHER OF BLACK HISTORY’ TO BE HONORED IN
DELRAY BEACH CELEBRATION
A small but very significant historic institution in a small historic district of the historic city of Delray Beach will be both honoring and making history on Saturday, December 16, from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. when the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, 170 NW 5th Avenue, hosts a spirited grassroots celebration of the birthdate of remarkable scholar, educator, and activist Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the famous author of The Mis-Education of the Negro,who would become known as “The Father of Black History” because of his lifelong dedication to fostering knowledge and appreciation of Black achievements and contributions to the nation and the world including the establishment of Negro History Week, which would become Black History Month, and co-founding in 1915 the venerable Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the study of African American Life and History, ASALH).
In a fitting tribute, Saturday’s celebration will combine fun and treats, including a scavenger hunt, party games, and children’s activities with knowledge sharing and a stimulating panel discussion of past and present challenges, presented by the South Florida Branch of ASALH, featuring Dr. Rudy Jean-Bart (historian), Dr. Alisha Winn (cultural anthropologist), Emmanuel George (community activist), and Jasmen Rogers of the Broward Black Lives Matter Alliance.
Dr. Woodson’s own inspiring achievements are best understood by appreciating the time and circumstances in which he lived and worked.
He was born in material poverty to formerly enslaved parents on December 19, 1875, in New Canton, Virginia, and performed various kinds of manual labor on farms and in coal mines, and as a garbage truck driver, but would also commit himself to his studies, at Berea High School and College in Kentucky, and would ultimately become only the second African American to earn a doctorate degree from Harvard University, after the legendary Dr. W.E.B. DuBois.
Dr. Woodson came of age in the era when White Supremacy, following decades of Post-Civil War anti-Black violence, murder, and terrorism, especially (but not exclusively) in the South, became triumphant, with the successful exclusion of African Americans from voting, and rampant propaganda demeaning and denying the accomplishments and even the very humanity of Black people, in the era when monuments and namings of streets, schools, and other public properties in honor of Confederate heroes became rampant, as did lynchings and urban “race riots” to keep Negroes “in their place,” in the North as well as the South.
Much more importantly, this was also the era when African Americans, undaunted, served notice that “The New Negro has no fear,” and would give birth to such remarkable developments as the Anti-lynching movement largely led by journalist Ida B. Wells, the powerful Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) founded by Marcus Garvey, a disciple of Booker T. Washington, and the extraordinary blossoming of art, culture, and scholarship known as the Harlem Renaissance, in addition to the rise to prominence of such organizations as the NAACP and the National Urban League, among others, all of which encouraged, and was encouraged and helped by Dr. Woodson.
Although this remarkable assertion of Black pride and courage was largely the result of the Great Migration of millions of African Americans from the rural South (and Klan violence) to opportunities in the urban North and Midwest, those who remained in the South continued to produce excellence, especially in the field of education, in segregated but highly competent schools and colleges.
A product of that era was the brilliant Solomon D. Spady, who came to Delray Beach in 1922 as the third African American public school principal/teacher assigned to that community, upon the recommendation of George Washington Carver, chemist, researcher and teacher at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
His tenure lasted 35 years during which he became one of the most influential African Americans in Delray Beach, and his legacy is duly recognized and maintained at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, housed in his historic home, an institution that has been instrumental in beautifying and enhancing the surrounding area with historical markers in a park-like atmosphere, making this a most appropriate location for this year’s celebration of Dr. Woodson’s 142nd birthday.
The event is free and open to the public; for further information, call 305-912-5332
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ASALH South Florida 