Sweet Like Fruit: Black History Month Gala

The Weissman Center for Leadership, Community-Based Learning, Community & Belonging, and APAU invite you to celebrate the end of Black History Month with our annual gala. This year, we embrace our theme by proclaiming the celebration to be Sweet Like Fruit. To celebrate the passions that nurture our community, we will have singers, dancers, visual artists, poets, and a guest speaker, Erika Slocumb! So join us, eat some yummy food, enjoy the art of ART, and dress in your most colorful, soul-defining outfits for a lovely evening.

More on our guest speaker, Erika Slocumb: Erika Slocumb is a scholar of Black history. She has worked on uncovering the history of Black people in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in conjunction with the Holyoke community and the Wistariahurst Museum, and most recently, working at Historic New England on the Recovering New England’s Voices, interpreting and researching the histories of Black experience across New England. Her research, “Reliquary of Blackness,” focuses on the use of archival research, oral histories, and community storytelling to retell, reshape, and reclaim history in spaces where Black stories have been obscured, specifically reclaiming the narratives of Blackness in museums and other repositories of history and culture. By joining the Stowe Center, Erika looks forward to continuing to expand the narratives of communities of the global majority in conversation with Harriet Beecher Stowe and her work in social justice and civic engagement. Slocumb is from Springfield, MA. She is a mother, artist, community organizer, world traveler, and advocate for social justice. Slocumb is the cofounder of the community organization, the Western Mass Women’s Collective. She received her BA in Social Justice Education, her MS in Labor Studies, and she expects her PhD in African American Studies in the fall of 2026—all from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Accessibility information: Chapin Auditorium is accessible via stairs or a ground-level elevator facing Abbey-Buck Hall. Microphones will be used to amplify sound. During portions of the show, the lights may be lowered. Potential food allergens include gluten, dairy, and soy.

To request accessibility accommodations, please email perry25a@mtholyoke.edu at least 72 hours before the event.

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