MARIO A.J. BENNEKIN

BLACK HISTORY SYMPOSIUM

“A Black History Movement: Knowing the Past Opens the Door to the Future”

Feb. 21-25, 2022

With Education Comes Tolerance

Dr. Maya Angelou once stated, “The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are. We need to say we are still here, that we have grown, and survived, and done better than that, we thrived.” This quote means more today than when Dr. Angelou said it in 2012. We are committed to honoring the work of those who paved the way for all of us. This year’s Bennekin Symposium explores the intersections of African American art, education and politics. This year, we celebrate that we have and will continue to grow, survive and thrive.

PRESENTERS

Ms. Maria Clarke

“Musical Tribute”

Learn About Ms. Maria Clark

Ms. Maria Clark

Ms. Maria Clark, Director of Voice Studies at Spelman College as she prepares to perform a musical tribute. Ms. Clark has been acclaimed for her virtuosic skills of expressive singing across the idioms of opera, oratorio, and art song; and she has been critiqued as possessing “The Voice of An Angel.” Ms. Clark has performed concerts, as the lead soloist in her church, and has experience working with symphonies and small regional opera companies, all while improving her vocal technique and stage experience.

She appeared with the Irene Harrower Opera Workshop and performed the role of The Countess in The Marriage of Figaro and Annina in the Saint of Bleeker Street. It was while actively studying with a voice teacher and coach that Ms. Clark entered the MM? program at Georgia State University and in 2005 received her degree in vocal performance.

During her studies at Georgia State, she performed with the university’s production of Tales of Hoffman as Antonia and as Violetta in their production of La Traviata. The two songs that Ms. Clark will perform at the symposium were recently released the “Soul Sanctuary” CD which features her singing spirituals and hymns. When invited to participate in this year’s program Ms. Clark shared with the planning committee that she credits Mario’s mother, Mrs. Lethonia Bennekin with inspiring her career as a classical vocalist.

Mr. Donovan Stanley

“The Color of Film: Understanding Blackness in Motion Pictures”

Learn About Mr. Donovan Stanley

Donovan Stanley

Donovan Stanley, an Atlanta-based filmmaker, activist and professor received his master’s degree from Georgia State University in 2020. Specializing in producing, he participated in the 2021 Sundance Producers Lab and has produced over eight projects. Some of these have been featured in Campus Movie Fest, Rome International Film Festival, Liquid Blackness, Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival.

The following is a synopsis of Stanley’s presentation for the 2022 Mario A.J. Bennekin Black History Symposium: Lights, Camera, Action! The film industry is a multibillion-dollar business, and Georgia is the new epicenter of it. But who is the business really for. On the heels of #Oscarssowhite and the 2020 racial awakening, the motion picture industry has expanded on its performative inclusion throughout the media apparatus.

Sankofa Society

“Black Student Voices on the Race-in-the Curriculum Debate: Historical and Current Perspectives”

Learn About Sankofa Society

Sankofa Society

Sankofa Society is a student organization at Georgia State University’s Perimeter College that supports Africana Studies and the interests and concerns of African American students. The organization embraces the mission of Africana Studies to engage in the study of the history and culture of African-descended people and to address the contemporary issues of relevance to the black community.

Sankofa Society is primarily comprised of Africana Studies majors and minors, but anyone enrolled at Georgia State University is free to join. The organizational symbol is the West African Adinkra symbol of the Sankofa bird. The term “Sankofa” means “return and get it.” This underscores the importance of learning from the past while moving toward the future.

The Decatur Campus branch of The Sankofa Society sponsors guest lectures, participates in community service activities and assists in promoting the field of Africana Studies at Perimeter College. The Sankofa Society works tirelessly to uphold its two core tenets of academic excellence and social responsibility. Dr. Shawn L. Williams is the organization’s advisor. Please contact him (swilliams274@gsu.edu) for information regarding Sankofa Society’s current activities. Donai Butler is the current president of the organization.

Dr. Aubrey Underwood

“A World Free of Radiation: The Invisible History of Southern Black Women and the Anti-Nuclear Movement 1960-2012”

Learn About Dr. Aubrey Underwood

Dr. Aubrey Underwood

Dr. Aubrey Underwood is an associate professor of history in the department of African American Studies, Africana Women’s Studies and History at Clark Atlanta University. Completing a Ph.D. in Postwar American History from Georgia State University, her scholarly work is at the forefront of innovative approaches to Southern history, employing intersectionality and eco-feminist methodologies. In her book, No Nukes, Y’all: A Grassroots History of Southern Women’s Antinuclear Activism in the South, 1964–2016, she uncovers the hidden history of women and citizen-led anti-nuclear organizing in the American South while also exposing the adverse effects of ionizing radiation on Southern communities. Her book is currently under contract with the University of Florida Press in their “Southern Dissent” Series.

Dr. Shawn Williams

“Navigating False Narratives of African American History in the Age of Disinformation”

Learn About Dr.Shawn Williams

Dr. Shawn L. Williams

Dr. Shawn L. Williams has been an educator for more than thirty years, having taught students from the primary grades to the graduate level. He has worked in the Atlanta and Cobb County Public schools as a teacher and a Reading Specialist. He also serves as an education consultant in various schools, private and public. Dr. Williams has written several essays in the fields of African American studies and literacy education. He has lectured and conducted workshops on topics such as nurturing language development in young children, public school curriculum and policy, test-taking, literacy curriculum development, multiculturalism, gender politics, Africana cultural studies, and genealogy.

Currently, Dr. Williams is a professor of Humanities and Africana Studies at Georgia State University (Perimeter College) in Decatur, GA. Dr. Williams is the author of “I’m a Bad Man: African American Vernacular Culture and the Making of Muhammad Ali” (Lulu Press, 2007; ebook edition, 2013). He is also a contributing writer to the Black Power Encyclopedia (2017). Dr. Williams’ essay, “Liberation Literacy: Haki Madhubuti and the Three Rs—Reading, ‘Riting, and Revolution” appears in a forthcoming anthology of essays on writer/activist Haki Madhubuti.

Dr. Williams’ interest in genealogy was sparked like many others when the original television adaptation of Alex Haley’s historical novel Roots aired in 1977. However, he has been seriously invested in family history and genealogical research for about a decade. So far, Dr. Williams has explored multiple branches of his ancestry, on one branch, going back as far as the late 18th century. Moreover, through his research efforts, Dr. Williams has fostered the connection and reconnection of hundreds of relatives from long lost and distant cousins to parents with their children.
Dr. Williams is a founding member and current vice president of the Mobile (AL) Creole Cultural and Historical Preservation Society and a member of the African American Genealogical and Historical Society.

Dr. Chivon Mingo

“Being Black in an Aging Society: Why the Unpublished or Hidden Story Matters”

Learn About Dr. Chivon Mingo

Dr. Chivon A. Mingo

Dr. Chivon A. Mingo is an associate professor and director of Undergraduate Studies at the Gerontology Institute at Georgia State University. She joined the Institute in the fall of 2012.

Dr. Mingo received a bachelor’s in Psychology from Georgia State University in 2003 and her master’s and PhD from the University of South Florida in Tampa. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Institute on Aging at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before joining Georgia State as a faculty member.

Dr. Mingo’s current research interests span the areas of psychology, health disparities and aging. Specifically, her work has concentrated on identifying reasons for arthritis health disparities and ways to address those health disparities through community-based healthcare interventions.

The ultimate goal of Dr. Mingo’s research is to focus on designing and evaluating culturally appropriate, appealing and effective interventions for older adults with arthritis. In addition, she hopes her research can serve as a template for addressing disparities in other conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, through community-based health care interventions.

Dr. Mingo is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the National Institutes of Health/National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities Loan Repayment Award, a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship, an Arthritis Foundation Student Fellowship, an Aging Exchange Day Best Research Award, the USF Office of Research and Innovation and Graduate School Research Excellence Award, the Southern Regional Student Conference in Gerontology and Geriatrics Keynote Speaker and the USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences Research Excellence Award.