09/06/05 - Fall Semester '05 - Year of Africa Events (revised 10/18/05)

African Street Festival

Featuring workshops and performances by:

• 11 a.m. - Velma Maia Thomas captures the struggles, challenges and victories of African Americans through spoken word and song.  Hear her as she reads and sings from her award-winning book, Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation.

• Noon and 2:30 p.m. - The Georgia Sea Island Singers of St. Simon’s Island preserve the rich reservoirs of African-American culture, customs and the songs of the Gullah language spoken on the isolated islands of the Georgia Coast. These islands have been a vital storehouse of African-American history, because people living here were cut off from the melting pot on the mainland and retained a more pure version of the games and songs brought over from Africa.

• 1:15 p.m. - Aisha Rivers of the Ayoluwa African Dance Theatre, traditional African dance engulfed in the rhythmic sounds of the drums. She was awarded four dance scholarships including the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, and has been the leading force in instruction of traditional African dance specializing in Guinea West African Dance.

• 4 p.m. - Sisters of Kuumba – performance art ensemble dedicated to enhancing African cultural awareness through music, dance, folktales and folksongs.

Booths will include Shrine of the Black Madonna Bookstore, Sillah of Sillah Kunda Co., Abayomi Goodall of Omeca Arts; these unique vendors will be featuring oils, incense, sarongs, jewelry, tapestries,  flags, book marks,  shea butter, beads, pictures, shawls, books, pictures, etc.

Taste of Africa – the Gordy Dining Hall lunch will feature selected African dishes including fried plantain, Jollof Rice and Chicken Stew, Peanut Butter Soup and non-alcoholic ginger beer.  Guests will be charged the regular lunch cost, $4.75; the meal lasts from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

A dynamic panel presentation and discussions by:

• Soumaya Khalifa, founder/director of the Islamic Speakers Bureau:  “Overview of Islam” 

• Dr. Abdullahi An-Na’im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University: “African Constitutionalism…” 

• Dr. Samuel Abaidoo, chair of the Sociology department at Kennesaw State University: “Filial Responsibilities in Emerging Africa” 

• Ruth O’Toole: “Colonial Rhodesia to Independent Zimbabwe: A Missionary Child’s Perspective”

• Mohamed Camara, Reinhardt senior from Guinea: Ethnocentrism, from a personal perspective

Dr. Bonnie Garson, Reinhardt associate professor of business, will speak.

• Nov. 8 ~ 3-5 p.m.: Lecture by Terry O’Toole of the CDC, Dobbs 201

• Nov. 9 ~ 2-4  p.m.: AIDS Awareness Play and Workshop, FPAC

• Nov. 10 ~ 11-1: Student Health Fair, (includes AIDS & Africa Video -upstairs), Gordy Center

• Nov. 10 ~ 2-4 p.m.: Student Roundtable on AIDS in Africa & America, Dobbs 201

African Literature Reading Circle

The Lost Boys of Sudan by Mark Bixler

Dr. Curtis G. Lindquist, Reinhardt associate professor of religion and philosophy, will lead the discussion.

In 2000, the U. S. federal government resettled 3,800 young men by opening its doors to the Lost Boys of Sudan. Uprooted by the civil war that had ravaged Sudan, the boys were forced to wander, dodging bullets and wild animals. Jacob, Peter, Daniel, and Marko were among 150 youth who were eventually resettled in Atlanta. Bixler, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter, follows the progress of the four as they adjust to life in modern America, learning to use kitchen appliances, take public transportation, and look for work. Bixler chronicles their struggles to overcome loneliness and to come to terms with the brutality of their past, as… they realize their dreams of education and make lives for themselves.

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For more information, please contact
 Marsha S. White
Executive Director of Marketing & Communications
770-720-5512 - fax 770-720-5910
msw@reinhardt.edu