Black African Heritage

The Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music were pleased to host a symposium for scholars, performers, and educators on June 23-24 called: Performing Early Black American Music.

Roger Wilkins, a Robinson Professor from 1986 to 2007, and for whom Wilkins Plaza on Mason’s Fairfax Campus is named, died in 2017 at age 85, but his legacy at the university remains strong.

As part of an effort to research and record local history, Mason graduate and undergraduate students, along with faculty, have begun documenting Black students who attended Mason and the Black communities that once existed in Fairfax County.

(FAIRFAX, VA) George Mason University’s Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music presents A Song of Freedom: Featuring World Premieres by Evelyn Simpson-Curenton and Michael W. Nickens, Saturday, May 8 at 8:00 p.m. as part of Mason Arts at Home. The concert celebrates unity and resilience in the face of division and uncertainty and showcases works by Black composers as well as selections inspired by the African-American experience.

A false story has been told in this country about people of color, said Gail Christopher, executive director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity and a Mason senior scholar and it’s time to tell the truth about the ‘bad idea’ of the hierarchy of human value.