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By Kysa Anderson Daniels
DUNWOODY, Ga.—Freedom songs, hip-hop and other music genres will be featured during the keynote address of the annual Mario A.J. Bennekin Black History Symposium Feb. 21 at 3 p.m. at the Georgia State University Perimeter College Dunwoody Campus.
Featured speaker Jeffrey Ogbar, also known as the hip-hop professor, will deliver a presentation titled “Musical Genealogies: African American Musical Innovation and Commentary, from Freedom Songs to Hip-Hop.”
Karen Wheel-Carter, an associate dean at Perimeter College and planning committee co-chair, said Ogbar’s talk will deliver on multiple fronts.
“Dr. Ogbar has a brilliant way of connecting the past, the present and the future of African American culture through music,” she said of the University of Connecticut history professor.
Ogbar is part of the Feb. 21-25 Bennekin Symposium which also will include remarks from Georgia State University President M. Brian Blake and Perimeter College Interim Dean Cynthia Lester.
This year’s symposium theme is “A Black History Movement: Knowing the Past Opens the Door to the Future.” The symposium will explore the intersections of African American art, education and politics.
Additional symposium speakers include Donovan Stanley, an Atlanta-based filmmaker who earned an associate degree from Perimeter College and a bachelor’s degree from the Atlanta Campus. Stanley’s presentation will focus on “The Color of Film: Understanding Blackness in Motion Pictures.”
The week-long symposium also will feature a panel discussion led by Perimeter College students entitled "Black Student Voices on the Race-in-the-Curriculum Debate: Historical and Current Perspectives.” Other speakers include Aubrey Underwood, associate professor of history, African American studies and Africana women's studies at Clark-Atlanta University, who will discuss “A World Free of Radiation: The Invisible History of Southern Black Women and the Anti-Nuclear Movement, 1960-2012,” and Joyce Wilson, whose scholarship expands the conversation across hip-hop studies and digital media.
“We are pleased to offer a wide range of presenters, both in person and virtually, across all of our Perimeter College campuses,” Wheel-Carter said. “The Bennekin Symposium gives students, faculty, staff and the greater Atlanta community an opportunity to learn more about past and present African American contributions to society."
The symposium is named for Mario Bennekin, a beloved history professor at Perimeter who taught for 20 years before passing in 2019, when he chaired the History and Political Science Department. Bennekin also was instrumental in bringing the African American Studies curriculum to Perimeter. Kimberly Bennekin is a math professor at Perimeter and a co-chair of the event named to honor her late husband.
Students will have the opportunity to submit scholarly works related to the symposium theme.
To learn more and review the full slate of speakers for the 2022 Mario A.J. Bennekin Black History Symposium, visit www.perimeter.gsu.edu/bennekin-symposium/. The event, which is open to the public, will be delivered in person and virtually, with the keynote address taking place at Perimeter College’s Dunwoody Campus auditorium, NC 1100, 2101 Womack Road.
Photo courtesy Peter Morenus/UConn