UNC Asheville will celebrate Black History Month throughout February with a range of cultural programs. Among the highlights will be a keynote address by poet Amy Freeman and a series of four panel discussions on issues facing African Americans in Western North Carolina. Events are open to the public and free unless otherwise noted.

Freeman, a poet and motivational speaker, has addressed numerous audiences at universities, conferences and correctional institutions across the country. Her first book of poems, "A Collection of Paper Ducks," has been called "fresh, new, joyful, thoughtful and enlightening." She currently serves as director of human and cultural diversity at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania. Freeman will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, in Lipinsky Auditorium.

A four-part discussion series on "The Status of African Americans in Asheville and Western North Carolina" will be held throughout the month with local civic leaders serving as panelists. A focus on employment will be the first talk at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5, in Laurel Forum, Karpen Hall. Panelists are Virgil Smith, Asheville Citizen-Times publisher, and Al Whiteside, First Union Bank Vice President and UNCA Board of Trustees member. Mark Gordon, Mission St. Joseph administrator, and community activist Gene Bell will lead a discussion on education at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12, in Red Oak Room, Ramsey Library. Politics will be the focus of the third talk, led by Asheville Vice Mayor Terry Bellamy and UNCA Assistant Political Science Professor Dolly Mullen, at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, in Owen Conference Center. The final talk in the series will explore community development at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26, in Owen Conference Center. John H. Grant, Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church pastor, and John Hayes, NAACP Asheville Chapter president, will serve as panelists.

Other events include --

* February 5 -- Chuck Davis and the highly acclaimed African American Dance Ensemble will share the rich cultural traditions of African customs and rituals through dance, song and music at 12:15 p.m. in Lipinsky Auditorium.

* February 5 -- A program on "Women in the Black Power Movement" will be held at 7 p.m. in the Whitman Room, Ramsey Library. The film "Still Revolutionaries" will be shown followed by a discussion with Sarah Judson, UNCA assistant history professor, and Dolly Mullen, UNCA assistant political science professor.

* February 27-March 3 -- Theatre UNCA will present a staging of "MASTER HAROLD...and the boys," starring UNCA students Terhan McDaniel, Michael Ackerman and John Jacobs. Athol Fugard’s powerful autobiographical drama is set in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in the 1950s. It tells the story of a young white student’s relationship with two black waiters and his struggle with the attitudes of apartheid. Considered Fugard’s masterpiece, the play sensitively examines how the web of human relationships can be undermined by bigotry. Curtain is 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $9 general admission and can be obtained by calling 828/232-2291.

* March 4 -- The final event in UNCA’s Black History Month celebrations will be a talk on "What a Predominately White College Campus Can Do About Persistent Racism" by Civil Rights expert Joe Feagin at 3 p.m. in the Humanities Lecture Hall. Feagin, who holds a doctorate from Harvard University, is a graduate research professor in the University of Florida’s sociology department. Focusing his research on racial and ethnic relations, Feagin has received numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his book "Ghetto Revolts" and an appointment as a scholar-in-residence at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

For more information, contact Samuel Williams, UNCA Multicultural Student Programs Director, at 828/251-6671.