The highlights kicks off with a guest lecture by Tony Bonta on the Catholic Church’s role in advocating for racial justice in the U.S, and a February 15 lecture on Trappist monk Thomas Merton’s lessons on race for the 21st century. There are also several concerts and events scheduled throughout the month.

For more information go here

From Bellarmine:

February 1: Black History Month Guest Speaker Tony Bonta (7 p.m. in Hilary’s) Tony Bonta is pursuing his doctorate in historical theology, with a specialization in American Catholic life and thought, at Marquette University. Bonta’s presentation will focus on three areas: 1) a brief discussion and summary of the history of the Catholic Church in the United States as it relates to racial justice; 2) an understanding of the shift in the 20th century and key theological teachings and formative issues that highlight the successes, limitations and efforts of these Catholic leaders; and 3) the lessons and challenges for us today, as individuals and communities, to understand and address the realities of bigotry, racism, and their implications for prejudice and discrimination.

Feb. 8: Documentary “Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin” (7 p.m. in Hilary’s) “Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin” is a biography about one of the most controversial figures in the civil rights movement. He was a Freedom Rider, advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and an organizer of the March on Washington. However, Bayard was forced to play a background role in the civil rights movement because he was gay. This documentary sheds light on this charismatic leader and the progressive movements of the 20th century.

Feb. 15: Faculty Jazz Band Performance (11 a.m. to noon on the first floor of Horrigan Hall, by Cafe Ogle) Come enjoy the smooth sounds of Bellarmine’s Faculty Jazz Band as they perform their favorites pieces!

Feb. 15: Fifth Annual Thomas Merton Black History Month Lecture (7 p.m. in Frazier Hall) Sister Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., Ph.D., will discuss “Religion and Racism: Thomas Merton’s Insights for the Twenty-First Century.” Phelps has been a member of the Adrian Dominican Sisters since 1959 and is a professor of systematic theology and director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana.

Feb. 20: Black History Month Concert (4 p.m. in Wyatt Center for the Arts, Cralle Theatre) Enjoy beautiful music performed by Bellarmine students and guest artists, featuring works by famous, classical African-American composers in celebration of Black History Month.

Feb. 22: Documentary “Uncommon Vision: The Life and Times of John Howard Griffin” (11 a.m. in Pasteur 102) John Howard Griffin is best known as a white man who in 1959 disguised himself as a black man and traveled anonymously through the heart of Dixie. From his experiences he wrote Black Like Me. This film focuses on Griffin’s social activism and examines how a spiritual commitment led him from a segregated childhood in Fort Worth to fighting with the French Underground, sustained him during 10 years of blindness incurred by war injuries, and inspired him during a prolific creative life as a writer and photographer. A short discussion will follow the film.

Feb. 25: Voice Recital (5 p.m. in Wyatt Center for the Arts, Wyatt Theatre) Baritone Phillip Morgan, winner of the Bellarmine Chorale’s 2010 Black History Month Festival of Music Vocal Competition, will be the featured performer in this event which will showcase music by African-American classical composers. Mr. Morgan will be accompanied by pianist Austin Echols.

Feb. 26: Second Annual Vocal Competition (1 p.m.; Collegiate Division is in Wyatt Center for the Arts and High School Division is in Norton Music Building 101) This unique and exciting event is co-sponsored, for the second year, by the Bellarmine University Chorale and the Kentucky Chapter of the National Association of Negro Musicians. This statewide vocal competition features both collegiate and high school divisions and requires all contestants to offer a Traditional Negro Spiritual or a classical composition by an African-American composer. This is in addition to the ‘usual’ Handel, Mozart, Puccini or Verdi that would be required in most vocal events.

Feb. 27: Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Talent Hunt (4 p.m. in Wyatt Center for the Arts, Cralle Theatre) The Bellarmine Chorale is once again co-sponsoring the Annual Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Talent Hunt! Started in 1946, this yearly contest exposes young people to the arts and gives them a platform to display their talents. Winners receive monetary prizes and the winner of the top prize represents Louisville in the Omega’s national competition.

Hey, who’s that? Is that… is that John Kennedy? Oh my god, look: It’s John F. Kennedy!.. No, wait, that’s not him, that’s the other one. The sick one.

Overheard on National Mall, 1/20/09

It should be noted that “being a part of history” and actually witnessing an historical occurrence are, at least superficially, two diametrically opposed things: Whereas the former implies some sort of sepia-tinged, hindsight-reliant ideal, the latter consists of all the mundane nuts and bolts of everyday existence one rarely associates with events of great magnitude; no sepia, no ideal, just trying to hold your bladder amidst a nagging sensation that your wallet keeps disappearing every fifteen minutes.

Yet for Ivar, whose red-flamed head I’ve just managed to spot at great relief upon the upper level of the Capitol South metro station, the ideal and the experience are one and the same.

“It’s amazing to realize that, hey, this is history,” he tells me later,” and that this is how history is made.”

Having reunited with my original group, we emerge via escalator into the bitterly cold, retina-stinging sunlight of the street surface, which is swarming with droves of eager citizens and merchandisers alike, who flank us intermittently on all sides*.

“Yo!” screams one standing atop a parked car (his?), “get them Obama t-shirts, man! Gotta get them shirts, y’all! Get them shirts!” By the looks of it, he’s making a killing.

Funneling down Independence Avenue we pass under the granite archways of the Department of Agriculture Building, and the dome of the Capitol passes out of sight.  All I can see are people; to my front, back, and side to side, a teeming mass of humanity larger than any I could concieve**, and soon we’re shoulder to shoulder, marching like patriotic lemings through one FBI patrolled bottleneck after another until – after 45 minutes of determined shuffling – we arrive at Federal Triangle, the Washington Monument towering above to our left.

My group and I are so far removed from the steps of the Capitol, and our elevation relative to that point so poor, that we must rely upon one of several shotgun-house-sized Jumbotrons which suffered from some of the worst five-second delay I’ve ever seen.  For the next two hours we stand, hands-in-pockets, occasionally removing them to snap a photo of this or that historical-once-in-a-lifetime-thing, and wait.  For two hours.  In the cold.

During this time, several things happen:

(1) Yo-Yo Ma’s name is ridiculed.  Repeadedly.

(2) Complimentary American flags are distributed throughout the audience in preparation for the inaugural money-shot.

(3) The Jumbotron briefly depicts a shot of Bill Clinton standing next to Obama’s daughters, which prompts a man standing to my left to remark, “Gotta keep Bill away from those girls, Barack,” which makes me laugh very, very hard, which in turn causes the man who made the remark, Frank – who is black – to laugh even harder, thus engendering between us a moment of post-racial harmony so often espoused by pundits, yet so rarely lived.

(4) Chief Justice John Roberts’ faulty memory gives thousands of bloggers something to write about.

And then, at noon, an era spanning eight long years – during which time the political consciousness’ of most of my fellow Bellarmine travelers was formed – comes to an end.  While television cameras and news anchors around the world depict the moment as part of a larger story of change and hope and racial absolution, the moments following Obama’s inaugural speech are marked by an urge to flee the scene; I overhear one man chastising the million or so people whom were already bailing on inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander, “You people came all this way and now you’re just going to leave as soon as the speech is over?  That’s sad.”

Sad, but true.  And for a few unlucky individuals, also dangerous:  Making our way back down Independence Ave, our group doesn’t make it more than a block before we’re swallowed whole by the post-speech dash for the metros.  Approaching 13th Street we’re effectively ribcage-to-ribcage, shoving, pushing, impatient, the surging crowd swollen to full flown mob-status.  By chance we reunite with another Bellarmine group,  headed by Craig, whose signature plaid Gatsby hat makes him easy to spot, but the reunion is cut short when we’re ordered by tired-looking police to make way for an ambulance.  It appears that someone has collapsed from diabetic shock – a young man, his face red and slick with tears – and as the flashing vehicle crawls closer we’re separated from Craig & co. as they drift back into the surging masses, the plaid Gatsby nowhere to be found.

Behind the ambulance a vacuum of empty space has formed, but it’s quickly and violently filled by another contingent of the mob, like a great multicolored wave let loose from on high.  The sheer violence of this wave as it crashes into us is startling.  Soon, Ivar’s Cardinals toboggan vanishes.

“I didn’t vote for this!” someone screams.  “I did not vote for this!”

Luckily, however, we are an obese nation, so most of these human-on-human collisions were well insulated.  But still.

*         *         *         *         *

We escape D.C. via train, our destination Frederick, Maryland, where our charter bus waits idling by the curb. Ours is the first group to make a successful return, having decided earlier that any attempt to observe the parade was futile, if not life-threatening.  Slowly, the rest wander back, in threes and in fives, and once they’ve settled themselves into their seats the talk centers on events now just hours old.

“It was surreal” says T.J. Burgin, an English major. “Not necessarily seeing anything, because we couldn’t, but hearing [Obama's] voice and knowing that he was right over there…”  He smiles, shaking his head in a kind of disbelief.

“In one word: Energy.” Ivar (sans toboggan) says. “All this people gathered together for this purpose, and that there were really no problems at all.”

Ivar, who hails from Norway, is quick to point out that, out of all his fellow Dutchmen across the world, “I was able to see this with my own eyes.” He smiles.

Tired smiles, specifically, and lots of them on this rumbling coach.  Chief among them Dr. Clayborne who, as our primary shepherd during this journey, exhibits a countenance of nuanced, weary calm.  I take a moment to ask her about what she thought of everything.

“I can’t honestly describe how I feel right now,” she says.  With a handful of students yet to board the bus, Dr. Clayborne cites her focus on the logistics of making sure no student is left behind as the chief concern at the moment.  “But I’m more than pleased.”

“When I looked to my left, and I looked to my right, and I saw all of these different people…” She stops for a good while, and after she’s wiped her eyes she continues with verve: “I just think that [Obama] has an ability to connect so many people that I haven’t seen in a political leader.  He’s a lot of things; I look at him and I see a child, an adolescent, a man, and a leader. And to be able to share this day with the students is truly a blessing.”

Shared experience is, after all, what constitutes the particulars of any given history.  The culture of a people, for good or ill, dictates what stays in the story and what does not.  It remains to be seen if, when enough time has passed and the actual business of recording that day for the sake of our irradiated, mutant posterity is done, whether the history that is written of Barack Obama’s inauaguration will still reflect the hopeful spirit of those tired, smiling faces.

____________________________________________________________

*Wares available included: Obama shirts galore; hats; buttons; magnets; bumper stickers; plastic wristbands; DVDs; and peanuts (Yes, Obama roasted peanuts, whose exact nature remains a mystery to me)

** Although it’s hard to tell when you’re an ant on the ground able to see only the other ants around you.

Before We Begin: A Preamble to What Happened

For the vast majority of the 4.8 bazillion people that flooded our nation’s capital yesterday, this was as close as we were ever going to get to President Elect Barack Hussein Obama: A trailer-sized Jumbotron (one of many, with accompanying gigantic floating speaker boxes) adorning the National Mall, spreading our newly christened President’s sound and vision to a live-in-the-flesh electorate whom travelled through snow, freezing temperatures, interstate cuisine, Motel 8s, home foreclosures, $2.00/gal. gas, war in distant lands and/or, in my case, trudged through fleshly expelled human fecal matter in the bowels of Washington, D.C.; all of it endured — voluntarily, even happily — just to get a glimpse of a man.

Actually, The Man.

Unlike John Cusack, most people in America didn’t get tickets in order to be seated close enough to view Obama’s facial stubble. Nor do they have semi-automatic camera cranes to deploy at Wolf Blitzer’s behest. You see, for us tired, poor, freezing, and absofuckinglutely huddled masses who felt that watching it on TV just wasn’t going to cut the democratic mustard and insisted on actually being there in person, it was a truly proletarian affair.

It was this simple desire that compelled 43 ticketless students, faculty, and staff members from Bellarmine University to attend the Inauguration anyway. Since I’ve been on the road with them for the past two days, I’ve come to know a few of them moderately well. Consequently, I’ve been able to observe firsthand the effects of Big History upon one of President Obama’s key electoral demographics (youngins), which technically means that everyone grew up a little yesterday, not to mention the fact that yesterday’s historicity has touched us all in a million different ways that we’ve only begun to hear about from the great Punditocracy.

On the other hand, it was this same simple desire that clogged D.C.’s arteries worse than a liquefied Double Whopper iv-drip, caused a near riot, and generally allowed people to exhibit a lot of Nobama qualities.

I’ll be recounting all the whos, whys, whats, and other W’s (well, except for one…) daily, right here on Fatlip. For now, the Bellarmine students are sleeping, and I should join them: My nerves are pretty much in tatters, my right eye is bloodshot, my lower lumbar feels like a tightly wound barge cable, and I’m not Robert Byrd. Good night, y’all…

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