Celebrate Black History Month at The Center

Celebrate Black History Month at The Center with activities and programs for the entire family! The Center will host storytimes, activities and giveaways on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the month of February. All activities are included with a ticket purchase to The Center. If you are a family of 4, remember to take advantage of our Family 4-pack discount! Black History Month programming is presented by PNC.

+ Storytime and Activity | 12PM – 4PM | 3RD Floor Mezzanine

• What Do You Stand For?: Children and families can learn about the power of protest. After story time children can use what they’ve learned in their reading to use their creative and critical thinking skills to choose a topic they are passionate about to make a protest poster. 
• Tiny Election: Learn about the importance of the electoral process with a lesson about voting. After story time participate in the Center’s mock voting activity! Make decisions based on your beliefs and vote for them in our tiny election. 
• Black History Timeline: Put your history knowledge to the test in our Black History Timeline activity! After story time, compete against others to match historical events to their correct time. All participants will receive a special prize. 
• John Lewis Portrait Mural: Learn about civil rights icon and legend John Lewis! Use your artistic abilities to collaborate and make a mural of John Lewis after a story time. 

+ Giveaways | 12PM – 4PM | 3RD Floor Mezzanine

• Giveaways will also be provided for our Black History Month celebration. The Center will hand out out cards, buttons, pencils, and notebooks. Giveaways are valid while supplies last.

**Activities on Sundays will begin at 12:30**

+ Storytime and Activity | 12PM – 4PM | 3RD Floor Mezzanine

• What Do You Stand For?: Children and families can learn about the power of protest. After story time children can use what they’ve learned in their reading to use their creative and critical thinking skills to choose a topic they are passionate about to make a protest poster. 
• Tiny Election: Learn about the importance of the electoral process with a lesson about voting. After story time participate in the Center’s mock voting activity! Make decisions based on your beliefs and vote for them in our tiny election. 
• Black History Timeline: Put your history knowledge to the test in our Black History Timeline activity! After story time, compete against others to match historical events to their correct time. All participants will receive a special prize. 
• John Lewis Portrait Mural: Learn about civil rights icon and legend John Lewis! Use your artistic abilities to collaborate and make a mural of John Lewis after a story time. 

+ Who Am I? Activity | 12PM – 4PM | 3RD Floor Mezzanine

• Learn more about the change-makers and heroes of Black history with this interactive game! Each participant will receive a biography card of a famous figure in history which they will then match to a portrait. See if your answer is correct and receive a prize. 

+ Giveaways | 12PM – 4PM | 3RD Floor Mezzanine

• Giveaways will also be provided for our Black History Month celebration. The Center will hand out out cards, buttons, pencils, and notebooks. Giveaways are valid while supplies last.

+ Giwayen Mata Performance | Session A 12:30PM  Session B 1:30PM | Glenn Room

• Giwayen Mata’s mission is to celebrate our lives as women and uplift our communities and our planet, while perpetuating the cultures of Africa and the Afrikan Diaspora through the study, creation, teaching, and presentation of artistic media including dances, rhythms, songs, poetry, and prose around the world. This will be an interactive performance that lasts 50 minutes each session.

+ Who Am I? Activity | 12PM – 4PM | 3RD Floor Mezzanine

• Learn more about the change-makers and heroes of Black history with this interactive game! Each participant will receive a biography card of a famous figure in history which they will then match to a portrait. See if your answer is correct and receive a prize. 

+ Giveaways | 12PM – 4PM | 3RD Floor Mezzanine

• Giveaways will also be provided for our Black History Month celebration. The Center will hand out out cards, buttons, pencils, and notebooks. Giveaways are valid while supplies last.

+ FedEx Sponsored Free Day | February 25 @ 10AM – 4PM | NCCHR

Spend a day at The Center with FREE admission sponsored by FedEx. On Saturday, February 25, celebrate Black History Month with us free of charge! Tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis, so we encourage you to reserve them online in advance. Follow the link to check ticket availability and claim your spot. Click here to register!

The Center will host several programs to celebrate Black History Month. These programs are free and open to the public, but registration is required. Tickets are available while supplies last.

+ An Evening of Jazz | February 18 @ 6PM – 9PM | NCCHR

The Center invites co-celebrants of Black history month to hear and experience the power of the improvisational rhythms of jazz music to inspire movements, put a name to unspeakable acts, lighten a heavy heart, and calm a troubled spirit. We will present two speakers who will contextualize the evening repertoire and talk about the connection between jazz and Black life.  Finally, with the help of Sam Yi, curator of jazz music in the city of Atlanta for over 25 years and a few of his jazz friends, our co-celebrants will be immersed in the syncopated improvisations of jazz music’s transformative power. This event is presented by PNC. Register here!

+ A Conversation with Ambassador Andrew Young and Ernie Suggs | February 23 @ 6PM – 9PM| NCCHR

Join the Center as journalist Ernie Suggs, who has reported on race and culture for the Atlanta Journal Constitution for 25 years, sits down with Ambassador Andrew Young for a conversation about Suggs’ book “The Many Lives of Andrew Young”. The former Atlanta mayor will share stories about his life and his perspective on the future of activism. The discussion ties into The Center’s Spring exhibition of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection exploring the March on Washington on its 60th anniversary. Purchasers are invited to a reception, book signing, and exhibit tour. Registration is $5. This event is presented by PNC. Click here to register!

+ Lift Every Voice: A Black History Concert | February 25 @ 7PM – 10PM | NCCHR

The Center invites co-celebrants of Black history month to hear about and experience the power of Black sacred music to inspire movements, lighten a heavy heart, or to calm a troubled spirit.  We will present two speakers who will contextualize the evening repertoire, and talk about the connection between Black sacred music and civil rights in the 50’s and 60’s.  Finally, with the help of The Trey Clegg Singers (Atlanta’s Multicultural Chorus), our co-celebrants will be immersed in the rhythms and lyrics of music’s transformative power. This event is presented by PNC. Click here to register!

+ Premiere Celebration of “Buried Truths” with Hank Klibanoff | February 28 @  7PM – 9PM| NCCHR

WABE-FM hosts a premiere of Season 4 of its Peabody Award-winning podcast “Buried Truths.” The podcast is hosted and based on a course taught by Emory Pulitzer Prize-winning professor and journalist Hank Klibanoff. Season 3 focused on the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. Klibanoff will discuss the podcast’s Season 4 return to the civil rights era and examine the 1958 killing of James Brazier, who died from a police beating and neglect from medical and legal authorities in Dawson, Georgia. Reception to follow. This event is presented by PNC. Click here to register!