The Oakland University Center for Multicultural Initiatives will be celebrating decades of African American history and culture in one month of activities this January and February in the annual African American Celebration Month.

The events, which are hosted by several departments and organizations on campus alongside CMI, started off on Jan. 16 and will go on until Feb. 16. Activities include dinners, demonstrations, lectures and panel discussions.

Bridget Green, assistant director for CMI, said the activities honor the historical and cultural contributions of African Americans, and that it is a collaborative effort.

“CMI collaborates with students, faculty and staff to educate the OU community and to foster an appreciation of African American heritage and its impact throughout the world,” Green said.

Green said each of the 12 events, though unified in their overall purpose, illustrate a different part of African culture.

“The goal of each program is to help educate the OU community on a piece of African-American history and the role it has played in history, culture and the global community,” she said.

For OU Professor De Witt Dykes, events hosted by the AACM are essential to the university setting. He and the Department of History will be hosting two lectures featuring first-hand accounts of civil rights activists John W. Hardy and General Baker.

“I think it is vital that the university community be exposed to these ‘first hand’ participant accounts of attempts at revolutionary change and the degree of success achieved,” Dykes said. “Many are unaware of the organized efforts that as recently as the 1960’s helped improve our society.”

The first event is titled “Sit-ins and Freedom Rides of the 1960’s” and will feature civil rights activist John W. Hardy as he describes his experience during the 60s.

Hardy was raised in Nashville, Tenn. during in the segregated 50s and 60s, and was a member of the NAACP, the Nashville Christian Leadership Council and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. He participated in lunch counter sit-ins, protest marches and merchant boycotts.

The second event is titled “Drum and Black Revolution,” and will feature local activist General Baker of Detroit, who will speak on his experiences as a leader of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement.

DRUM was an organization that fought for the freedom and equality for African American autoworkers during the 60s, when African Americans compose 60 to 70 percent of the Chrysler’s plant in Hamtramck at the time.

The events will wrap up with the “Taste of Africa Gala” and a lecture by Professor Andrew Hacker, “White Privilege.”

The Taste of Africa Gala will be the largest event, hosting over 800 students, faculty, staff and outside community members. The gala will include African American food, dancing, student talent and more.

The Center for Cultural Initiatives, founded in 1993, was established to promote diversity by creating strategies that allow all students achieve academic and social success and excellence.

Their mission is to provide support for underrepresented students’ success and to foster an appreciation for campus wide diversity.

For more information about the CMI, AACM and anything else related vist www.oakland.edu/aacm and http://www.oakland.edu/cmi or call 248-370-4404.

A full schedule of events can be found at www.oakland.edu/aacmevents