Langston Hughes Festival, “Black Ephemera” event, mark CCNY Black History Month observance

A celebration of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, and a conversation with noted author and academic Mark Anthony Neal, highlight The City College of New York’s Black History Month observance this February. 

Nottage will receive the Langston Hughes Medal at The City College’s 44th Annual Langston Hughes Festival on Feb. 9. On Feb. 17, Neal, who is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African & African American Studies and Chair of the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University, will visit CCNY for an event entitled: “Mark Anthony Neal and Black Ephemera.”

Following are details about these and other events. All are free and open to the public.

Feb. 9 - Langston Hughes Festival. The event starts with a symposium, 12:30 – 1:45 p.m., in CCNY’s Aaron Davis Hall, honoring Nottage. Moderated by Jodi-Ann Francis, associate director of the Black Studies Program, the conversation will include Laurie Woodard, CCNY assistant professor of history; Kaitlyn Greenidge, novelist and features editor of Harper's Bazaar; and Quiara Alegría Hudes, Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright, lyricist, and essayist. Aaron Davis Hall is located at 134th and Convent Ave. Click here to register for the symposium.

Yahdon Israel, a senior editor at Simon and Schuster, founder of Literaryswag, and creative writing teacher at CCNY, will emcee the evening’s presentation ceremony, 6 – 8 p.m., in Aaron Davis Hall. Nottage will give a reading, and engage in a conversation about her writing with Salamishah Tillet, the 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner for Criticism for her work as a contributing critic-at-large for the New York Times. Nottage will have a book signing after receiving the Hughes Medal. Click here to register for the presentation ceremony.

Nottage will join a list of highly distinguished writers from throughout the African American diaspora as a Hughes Medalist. It recognizes honorees for their impressive works of poetry, fiction, drama, autobiography and critical essays that help to celebrate the memory and tradition of Langston Hughes. Click here for a list of past award winners.

Ahead of the Langston Hughes Festival, Nottage was interviewed by CCNY President Vincent Boudreau on “From City to the World,” the radio show he hosts on  City College-based WHCR-90.3FM. Click here to listen to the interview.

Feb. 10 – Online premiere of Langston Hughes’ never-produced 1940s radio play “Little Ham from Harlem.” Starts at  9 p.m. (EST) on www.projectaudion.com, or www.youtube.com/projectaudion.  

Feb. 17 – “Mark Anthony Neal and Black Ephemera,” 11 a.m. to 12 noon in CCNY’s Rifkind Center for the Humanities and the Arts, features Neal in conversation with Vanessa K. Valdés, CCNY’s associate provost for community engagement. They will discuss his latest book, “Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive.” The Rifkind Center is located on the sixth floor of the North Academic Center (NAC), room 316. Click here to register for the event.

About the City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization DegreeChoices ranks CCNY #3 nationally for social mobility. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. This year, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.