Calendar of Events

Join AHM as we kick off African Heritage Month with an Arts Showcase that aims to celebrate oral storytelling traditions practiced throughout the continent of Africa. Learn about the centuries-old history of Griots and the role it plays in today’s world, and hear from well-known contemporary artists and student artists!

We are looking for student spoken word artists, storytellers, singers, and musicians to share their talents! Folks are encouraged to share pieces surrounding African history (within and outside of the continent), the African Diaspora (past and present), African American History. It is completely up to you to decide what you would like to share with the audience!

Interested in performing? Submit the AHM Arts Showcase interest form.

The gap between rich and poor in the United States has been widening and is particularly pronounced in communities of color and for women. During this engaging and interactive lecture, Dark teaches participants about trends in the distribution of wealth in America and how those trends affect all Americans. We can no longer afford to ignore the history of privilege and poverty if we hope to create a world in which the American dream of fairness and prosperity can become a reality. Refreshments will be served.

Submit your RSVP to attend this event.

The MLK Open Mic Competition is to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through performances which reflect the NYU MLK Week 2019 theme, What's Left of the Dream. This competition is open to all forms of performance: spoken word, poetry, speech, music, vocals, and performance art. There is a prize for the winner.

Applications are open. APPLY TODAY!

Black and brown U.S. athletes throughout history have used their intersectional identities in sports to bring awareness and shed light on the human condition; but at what cost? Is the dream to find possible success in sports worth the damage it causes? Can athletes be more than athletes--but activists to things that matter to them? Join Residential Life and Housing Service for an evening with experts Lisa Doris Alexander, Swin Cash, Marques R. Dexter, and Stanley Thangaraj as they dive into the intersections of race, gender, and activism in U.S. athletics. Refreshments and a book raffle included!

RSVP at bit.ly/dreamteampanel

Organized by NYU Residential Life and Housing Services' Committee for Diversity and Inclusion.

For the 14th consecutive year, NYU will commemorate Dr. King’s visit and his legacy by hosting a week-long schedule of special events. The theme for this year’s NYU Martin Luther King, Jr. Week is, What’s Left of the Dream?

The highlight of the week will be the NYU MLK Week University-Wide Event on Thursday, February 7th. The event will feature a conversation with contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, Roxane Gay. An editor and culture critic, Gay is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women, and New York Times bestselling Hunger: A Memoir of My Body. Other panelists include Tony®, Emmy®, and Grammy® Award-winning actress, singer, and songwriter, Cynthia Erivo; comedian, writer, and podcaster, Hari Kondabolu; and discussion moderator, NYU professor in the Silver School of Social Work and human rights advocate, Kirk A. James. Manthia Diawara, writer, filmmaker, and NYU Professor of Comparative Literature and Film, will receive this year’s MLK Humanitarian Award; while musician, playwright, author, educator, and NYU alum AMYRA will perform.

RSVP to attend!

Commemorate the end of MLK Week with an act of service. Sign up to participate in a community service activity, either as an individual, or as part of a university group.

Groups registering will be paired with community service sites on a first-come, first-served basis.

A politically divided United States. The nation’s divisions playing out publicly on professional football fields. Some players represent change and others represent traditional America. This is not 2018, Colin Kaepernick and the NFL anthem controversy.

It was 1968 -- exactly 50 years ago. The Super Bowl, the nationally televised professional football spectacle featured the brash, hirsute, counter-cultural New York Jets versus the establishment, old guard, crew cut, Baltimore Colts. The field and players were then, like now, proxy for a cultural war that was then, like now, tearing America apart.

This event is organized by the NYUSPS Office of Student Affairs.

A conversation breaking down our approaches to student protest and social activism. Is there a correct way to protest? How do we show solidarity? What does effective mobilization look like? How do we imagine justice? Join the AAP Family in this Rap Lyfe production for an engaging discussion you won’t want to miss!

This event is organized by the CAS Academic Achievement Program.

Please join us for a film screening of Undeterred, a documentary about community resistance in the rural border town of Arivaca, Arizona. Undeterred is an intimate and unique portrait of how residents in a small rural community, caught in the cross-hairs of geo-political forces, have mobilized to demand human rights and to provide aid to injured, oft times dying migrants funneled across a wilderness desert.

Immediately following the screening will be a panel discussion featuring filmmaker Eva Lewis and community organizer Carlota Wray. Both Eva and Carlota volunteer with People Helping People (PHP), an Arivaca-based community organization that provides crisis relief and advocates for border demilitarization.

This event is organized by the NYU College of Global Public Health, Office of Student Affairs. Registration is required.

Invited speaker, Dr. Suzette Stines, will describe underserved populations and the barriers they face when attempting to access dental care. The program will examine how these barriers have changed since the passage of the Affordable Care Act and how community based dental education can affect the future of underserved communities. Refreshments will be served.

This event is organized by the NYU College of Dentistry.

“The American dream, the idea that anyone can succeed through hard work, is one of the most enduring myths in this country,” writes author and journalist Reniqua Allen in a January 5, 2019, New York Times article referencing her book, It Was All a Dream: How A New Generation is Navigating the Broken Promise of America. She emphasizes that the illusion to be upwardly mobile in the United States is especially not true for black millennials. Taking this idea, Dayo Adiatu, Reniqua Allen, R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, and Ari Melenciano and Afrodesia McCannon will discuss the challenges of Black millennials and how this generation works to redefine their status and pushes back.

More information available at NYU Liberal Studies.

This event is organized by NYU Liberal Studies.

Please join BALSA and JLSA as we host Rabbi Prof. Saul Berman (NYU Law '63) and Rev. Gregory Holston.

Rabbi Berman is an activist, scholar, Orthodox Jewish rabbinic leader, and law professor at Columbia, who was active in voter registration drives in Selma in 1965, where he was twice arrested.  Rabbi Berman will share the story of his experiences of protests and arrests in Selma in the week just prior to the Selma-Montgomery March in 1965.

Rev. Holston is the executive director of an interfaith organizing group called POWER (Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower and Rebuild). Rev. Holston has led several protests and campaigns in Philadelphia (the Starbucks protests, MLK rallies, etc). He’s also involved in a variety of social justice campaigns in the city (efforts to unionize airport workers, the passage of Philadelphia’s Fair Workweek Law which is now being heralded as a model for the nation, and the campaign of Larry Krasner).

Rabbi Berman and Rev. Holston will discuss "What's Left of the Dream?"

This event is organized by the Black Allied Law Students Association (BALSA) and the Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA).

Leah Penniman—co-founder of Soul Fire Farm and author of the newly published Farming While Black—is part of a global network of farmers working to increase farmland stewardship by people of color, to restore Afro-indigenous farming practices, and end food apartheid. Penniman extends this work by offering a comprehensive manual for reclaiming dignified agency in the food system.

This book launch and discussion is organized by student leaders of the Food and Racial Equity (FARE) Collective, a graduate student organization from the Food Studies Master’s program at NYU.

We will be having a discussion that connects that the lives of us and our parents. We will dissect the notion of journeying and the Diaspora, emigration and immigration, and what the American Dream means to us.

This event is organized by LUCHA (Latinos Unidos Con Honor y Amistad) at NYU.

Elliott J. Gorn (Loyola University, Chicago) is the author of Let the People See: The Story of Emmett Till (Oxford University Press, 2018). Gorn delves more fully than anyone else has into how and why the story of Emmett Till still resonates, and always will. Till's murder marked a turning point, Gorn shows, and yet, also reveals how old patterns fo thought and behavior endure, and why we must look hard at them.

This program will be introduced by Professor Jeffrey Sammons (NYU, Department of History). Gorn's presentation will conclude with a book signing and reception.

Free and open to the public.

This event is organized by the FAS History Department and College of Arts and Science, Dean's Office.

Join us as we unpack the rise of mass incarceration in the United States and the ways in which criminalization is a cyclical process of the prison industrial complex. Participants will develop an understanding of how social identities impact policing, learn ways to support communities impacted by incarceration, and envision alternatives to the prison system.

Register to attend.

This event is organized by the NYU Center for Multicultural Education and Programs.

Join the Health and Human Rights Association for a movie screening of Selma on Feb 7th at 5pm:

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally desegregated the South, discrimination was still rampant in certain areas, making it very difficult for blacks to register to vote. In 1965, an Alabama city became the battleground in the fight for suffrage. Despite violent opposition, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his followers pressed forward on an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, and their efforts culminated in President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This event is organized by the Health and Human Rights Association of the College of Global Public Health.

With the onset of globalization and the consistent flow of people from Latin America to the United States, Afro-Latinx identity has gained visibility in public discourse. In turn, Black communities revisit the questions of diaspora, race and Latinidad in the Americas. Dr. Guzmán, Dr. Báez, Dr. Osinulu and Dr. Ramon will discuss the intersections and emergence of Afro-Latinidad in the US and Latin America, and the complex meanings of identity and belonging in metropolises like New York City.

RSVP to this event. More information available at NYU Liberal Studies.

This event is organized by NYU Liberal Studies.

On February 12th, this 'for Black, by Black' installation, housed on the 4th floor of NYU's Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life for the duration of the Spring 2019 semester, will open with a small ceremony. This 'for Black, by Black' installation will feature visual and performing arts, teach-ins, open mics, community service, walking tours, and much more. In the midst of beings, ideologies, and systems that continue to threaten our very existence, we are unapologetically taking space here at NYU and in NYC, writ large, as a means of collective healing, boldly asserting that our lives matter and embodying the fullness of all diasporic contours of Black existence as a spiritual experience.

Stay-up-to-date with events and join the #itooamdivine social media campaign on FB--I,Too, Am Divine & Twitter and IG--@itooamdivine!

This event is organized by the Multifaith Advisory Council.

“Where are you from?” is the question that black French people are asked the most, the question that pops up the most spontaneously in conversation. In Trop noire pour être française, Isabelle Boni-Claverie tells her story, from Paris to Abidjan, from her private Catholic school to working in television. A black woman from a privileged social background, she nonetheless has to face the obvious: in France, class does not erase race. RSVP on Facebook.

Boni-Claverie is a film and television screenwriter and director. She wrote and directed the documentary Too Black to Be French? and the book with the same title, which was published in August 2017.

This event organized by the NYU Institute of French Studies.

On the 400th anniversary of people of African descent in America (1619-2019), few people know the name of the ship that brought the first Africans to what would become the United States of America. Dr. Christopher Span, Associate Professor of African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will detail the wayward journey of this ship to colonial America. This journey will illustrate the introduction of Africans in America shaped and how this reshaped race relations in the United States.

This event is organized by the NYU Steinhardt Office of Faculty Affairs, Faculty Development and Diversity

The discourse of mass incarceration was brought to the fore with the explosive work by Michelle Alexander in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Alexander’s work unpeeled how a racialized justice system severely hinders people of color in general, and Black people the worst. Afterwards, the release of Ava Duvernay’s documentary, “13th,” provided a visual on how Black communities were impacted as a result of the rise of incarceration mostly due to rigid and racialized drug conviction laws during the so-called, “War on Drugs.”

Before this, a number of scholars, activists, grassroots organizations and community members worked tirelessly on criminal justice reform for decades. As the case for dismantling a broken criminal justice grew, the solutions on re-entry in the age of mass incarceration became an even bigger question. As criminal justice reform initiatives percolate across the United States, the complex and difficult discourse on racism, social justice and the justice system continue. In this panel, Law Professors Thompson and Hayat, along with Dr. Spencer and Dr. Shedd, tackle the issues and possible remedies.

RSVP to this event. More information available at NYU Liberal Studies.

This event is organized by NYU Liberal Studies.

Microaggressions are verbal, nonverbal, and environmental insults. Whether intentional or unintentional, they communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target people based solely on their marginalized group membership. Learn ways to be able to recognize microaggression and how to navigate.

This event is organized by the NYU Steinhardt Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions

A Black History Month screening of BlacKkKlansman, A Spike Lee Joint.

This screening will be followed by a talkback with Dr. David Kirkland, Executive Director of The NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools.

Register for this event.

This event is organized by the NYU Steinhardt Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions.

Join us for a special picture book storytime at the Georgiou Library in celebration of Black History Month. Children and their caregivers are invited to participate in an interactive program that incorporates age appropriate books and play to nurture literacy skills.

Connect with other program attendees over coffee and bagels beginning at 10:00 AM. The program will begin at 10:30 AM.

Space is limited to 30 children per session on a first come, first served basis. Please note, this program is designed for children ages 4-7 years.

Submit your RSVP to attend this event.

This event is organized by the NYU Steinhardt Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions.

This year’s event celebrates the life and legacy of Aretha Franklin byway of a musical, theatrical, and dance performance tribute. Known as the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin wasn't just a music legend--she also raised her voice for civil rights. Register to attend this event.

This tribute will be part of Steinhardt’s four-day celebration of Black History Month.

This event is organized by the NYU Steinhardt Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions

Curious about your career options in the non-profit and social impact space?

With a focus on equity and inclusion, this event will begin with a keynote speaker who will address a topic relevant to the non-profit and social impact sectors. A panel of professionals will then share their insights on their career trajectories, how they transitioned into their current field(s), and the skills needed to be successful in their respective industries. A networking reception with light refreshments will follow.

This event is open to undergraduate and graduate students, and is organized by the NYU Wasserman Center for Career Development.

There is an awesome power in the human voice and when uncommon voices are blended for the common good, they become a 'vocal community' at its best. Masterfully led by Dr. Ysaÿe M. Barnwell, singers and non-singers alike will share the common experience of learning in the oral tradition and singing rhythms, chants, traditional songs from Africa and the Diaspora, and a variety of songs from African American culture.

Submit your RSVP to attend.

This event is co-sponsored by The Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life, Canturbury Downtown, Global Spiritual Life, the Gospel Choir at NYU, and the Protestant Life Affiliate Network, and Rooted.

The culminating event looks at how today’s creatives use the Black aesthetic to explore and articulate the world through their lens. Frequently, those who contribute and develop the Black Aesthetic compliment social, political and cultural disruptions of hegemonic industries and ideologies—whether intentionally or not—the presentation of Black bodies, thoughts, ideas and creativity offers a perspective that is still embedded in not only the Black experience, but is integral in the American framework.

RSVP to this event. More information available at NYU Liberal Studies.

This event is organized by NYU Liberal Studies.

In honor of NYU's Martin Luther King's 2019 celebrations, the Wasserman Center for Career Development will host the National Director of Organizing at Students For Education Reform (SFER), Marielys Divanne. She will teach students how to use concepts of personal and collective social justice advocacy as well as organizing to incorporate into their own careers. All members of the NYU community are welcome to attend.

This event organized by the Wasserman Center for Career Development.