NEWS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE               DATE: 02/09/06
CONTACT: LESLIE SCHALER, COMMUNICATIONS ASST., (413) 545-0162

                   LIBRARY ANNOUNCES BLACK HISTORY MONTH EVENTS

Amherst, MA - The UMass Amherst Libraries host three exhibits for Black History Month in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.  “The Black Rural South, 1966” is on display on the Lower Level,  “Black History in Government Documents” is on Floor 6,  and “In Memoriam: Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King” is on Floor 2.  All the exhibits will be on display through March 31, 2006.

“The Black Rural South, 1966” consists of photographs taken in Mississippi and Alabama by Julius Lester, Professor Emeritus of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies.  Born in 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of a Methodist minister, Lester spent much of his childhood in the South during the 1940s and 1950s where he dealt firsthand with Southern attitudes about race and segregation.   In the mid 1960s, he became politically active in the civil rights movement and joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) where he served as head of their photo department.  “I focused on documenting sights I felt certain were going to disappear,” he said.  Lester’s photographs were included in an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution and are part of the permanent photographic collection at Howard University.
Lester recently won the American Library Association’s Coretta Scott King Author Award for Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue. The Library will host a reception in his honor on March 2, 2006, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., on the Lower Level of the Du Bois Library.  Refreshments will be served.  The exhibit will be on display until March 31, 2006.

“In Memoriam: Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King” is in the Quiet Study Room on Floor 2 and consists of portraits, books, and web pages examining the lives of these two extraordinary women.

“Black History in Government Documents” displays a vibrant and diverse sampling of government documents that depict Black History in America.  Oral histories, scientists’ biographies, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Underground Railroad are among the topics. The exhibit is on Floor 6 of the Du Bois Library and runs through March 31st.  For more information contact Terry Billiel at (413) 545-6895 or billiel@library.umass.edu.

These events are free and open to the public.  For more information contact Anne L. Moore at (413) 545-6888 or amoore@library.umas.edu.