Enterprise State Community College is celebrating Black History Month by lining up several events for elementary and college students and the public.
Last Thursday, Pinedale Elementary School third-grade performed several historic songs of African-American heritage and then were treated to a reading of excerpts by ESCC staff Janet Daniels and Angel Lynk, both dressed in character, of author Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus.
Uncle Remus, a fictional character, is the narrator of a collection of African-American folktales adapted and complied by Harris. The books were published in 1881 in a collection of animal stories, songs and oral folklore, collected from southern blacks. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop’s fables. Uncle Remus is an old slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children who gather around him, according to Wikipedia.
All of the stories are told in Harris’s version of a Deep South slave dialect with Br’er Rabbit as the main character of the stories. In the tale of Tar Baby, Br’er Rabbit constructs a lump of tar and puts clothing on it. When Br’er Rabbit addresses Tar Baby amiably, he receives no response and becomes offended. The phrase “tar baby” is to refer to the idea of a problem that gets worse the more one struggles against it and it became part of the culture of the United States in the mid-20th century.
Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books. The stories inspired at least three feature films. The best known is Walt Disney’s “Song of the South.”
ESCC will also present “One Noble Journey: A Box Marked Freedom” Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. for the public on campus at the Multi-Purpose Room. A student performance only is Wednesday, Feb. 29, at 10 a.m. at the MPR. According to a release by ESCC, the performance is a true story about Henry “Box” Brown, an African American who was born a slave in 1816 in Virginia. Acclaimed actor and playwright Mike Wiley, who will perform at ESCC, has introduced countless students to stories. Wiley is currently gaining international acclaim and multiple “Best Actor” awards at film festivals in the U.S. and Europe. The performance is free to the public.
All of the ESCC Black History Month events are made possible in part by The Chris and Leah Walls Family Memorial Fund, the Black History Month Committee and the Lyceum Committee.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement