Magness Library will be celebrating Black History Month, an annual celebration of achievements of black Americans, this Tuesday, Feb. 18.
The event will focus on local black history, including unveiling photos from the Beasley-Brady-Hughes Archives and a library request for the public’s help in identifying the unidentified people who are pictured.
“We will have some never-before-seen pictures,” said library director Brad Walker. “We just identified one of them as being an Odd Fellows picture. I never knew there was a black Odd Fellow from the 1930s and 1940s. I still don’t know who the people are in the picture, but it’s definitely an Odd Fellows organization.”
The Order of Odd Fellows is a benevolent and social society, sometimes classified as a friendly benefit society having initiation rites and ceremonies, gradation or degrees in membership, and mystic signs of recognition and communication.
Walker says between 20 and 35 pictures will be unveiled during the event and approximately 15 of those need identification.
“We need people to tell us who the people in the pictures are,” he said. “There are a couple of really neat pictures that we would love to have identified. We aren’t putting the pictures up until the day of the event. They will be up for a little while, except the unnamed ones.”
Activities
• Marvin Lusk will emcee the event.
• Willie Cameron, Maxine Weeden and Bobby Knox will perform black spiritual songs with the history of the music and why it’s important.
• Wayne Wolford will speak about his new book. “Through Wolf’s Eyes” is dedicated to preserving the black history in Warren County.
• Warren County High School’s Black History Club is going to perform.
Each portion of the program will run about 20 minutes, with the entire program lasting approximately an hour.
“The program will be very interesting,” said Walker. “Anyone interested in the black history of Warren County should enjoy this program. We have more black history in Warren County than most people realize. Come join us Tuesday.”
The library’s Black History Month program will be held on the second floor and begins at 6 p.m.