A letter from Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Black Studies Toni King, celebrating the Class of 2020.
This has been a year of highs and lows, of challenges and triumphs and of lessons and losses. We cannot ignore that this celebration of our seniors—characteristically an event where we come together in community, is occurring instead under conditions of social distancing. Still, we wanted to find a common space of community despite our physical separation. And so, this newsletter is being shared with all of you: faculty, staff, Black Studies majors, minors, and friends as a way to mark the occasion of graduation for our seniors in Black Studies. This newsletter intends to showcase your academic accomplishments in the field through your capstone senior research projects. This newsletter also creates a space where you can briefly acknowledge those who guided you through the culminating scholarly process of senior research and also share biographical information and future plans.
Primarily, we want to celebrate and congratulate you! You made it. We are proud of you and all that you surmounted in your quest for knowledge. We will also use this newsletter forum to take pride in the Black Studies Program and pause to reflect on the accomplishments of Faculty, Staff, and Friends of the Program.
Last but not least—we draw on the Black cultural tradition of expressing gratitude for all that we have come through as a Program. We are all a part of the proud history of 50 years of Black Studies. In these digital pages, we recount the many events exemplifying the interdisciplinary field of Black Studies as a part of our 50th Anniversary. Thank you for coming together to participate in this celebration with us through our theme: Hope of the Ancestors: Still We Rise!
And so, seniors who graduate within the mantle of this 50th Anniversary of Black Studies at Denison—in the midst of local and world complexities and challenges—
CONGRATULATIONS!!! STILL YOU RISE!
Dr. Toni King,
Director, The Center for Black Studies
