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Black History Month 2025
Black History Month at Carnegie Library Programs
This year Black History Month focuses on the various and profound ways that work of all kinds intersect with the collective experiences of Black people. Work is very much at the center of Black history and culture.
Join us as we honor the Black experience through book displays, resources, library programs and community events happening this February and throughout the year!
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Let Freedom Ring: Black History Celebration
Saturday, February 22 · 1 - 5pm EST. Doors at 12:45pm
Location
Promise Center of Homewood
7825 Hamilton Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15208
Agenda
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Black History Exhibit and Celebration
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Reception
About this event
- Event lasts 4 hours
- ALL AGES
- Free venue parking
Welcome to the Let Freedom Ring: Black History Celebration! Join us at the Promise Center of Homewood for a day filled with music, dance, and more as we celebrate the rich history and culture of the Black community. This in-person event will feature performances by local artists, exhibits, and delicious food from during the Black History Reception. Come together with friends and family to honor and commemorate the achievements and contributions of Black individuals throughout history. Let's celebrate diversity, unity, and freedom at this special event!
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Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures “Words & Pictures” – Kelly Starling Lyons
January 30 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Register to attend IN-PERSON or WATCH ONLINE. The video link for the livestreamed event will be emailed to all registrants on the day of the lecture. The captioned video will be available to view for one week, expiring on February 6, 2025.
Just in time for the 120th anniversary of the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing”–Sing a Song celebrates the Black National Anthem and how it inspired five generations of a family.
Kelly Starling Lyons is a founding member of The Brown Bookshelf, a teaching artist, and an award-winning author of more than 30 books for young readers. Her mission is to center Black heroes, celebrate family, friendship, & heritage, and show all kids the stories they hold inside. Among her acclaimed picture books are Caldecott Honor winner Going Down Home with Daddy, Christopher Award winner Tiara’s Hat Parade, and Bank Street Best Books selections Sing a Song: How Lift Every Voice & Sing Inspired Generations and My Hands Tell a Story. Kelly is also the author of three popular series for young people—chapter books starring her characters Jada Jones and Miles Lewis, and the Ty’s Travels easy readers which won a Geisel Honor for Zip, Zoom. Her nonfiction titles include two books in Chelsea Clinton’s She Persisted series, chapter books on Dr. Dorothy I. Height and Mrs. Coretta Scott King. Kelly was named to Good Morning America’s 2021 list, Who’s Making Black History. She regularly presents to schools, libraries, festivals, and conferences around the country
Copies of Sing a Song: How Lift Every Voice and Sing Inspired Generations are available from City of Asylum Bookstore.
Prime Stage Theatre
Prime Stage Theatre presents “Look Forward: The Ruby Bridges Story”
The year is 1960. A shy, smart 6-year-old named Ruby Bridges becomes the first African American student to attend a formerly whites-only grade school in New Orleans.
Escorted to class by U.S. Marshals through a hostile segregationist mob, the youngster and her family are instantly cast into the national spotlight as symbols of America’s ongoing efforts to ensure equality and justice for all, starting with its public schools.
Bridges’ remarkable journey of resilience and eventual triumph is told in Prime Stage Theatre’s presentation of Look Forward: The Ruby Bridges Story running for seven shows Jan. 17-26, 2025 at New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East, on Pittsburgh’s Northside.
Tickets (adult $39, artist/educator $24, student $19) are available by calling (412) 320-4610 or by reserving online at https://tinyurl.com/mwm432kx.
Directed by Linda Haston, Look Forward: The Ruby Bridges Story was written in 2021 by Natalia Temesgen, an associate professor of Creative Writing at Columbus State University and a writer/producer for the TV series Reasonable Doubt (Hulu), Julia (HBO Max) and Dear White People (Netflix).
On the play’s opening night (Jan. 18), renowned Louisiana storyteller Robin Kitson shares the impact of her own life-changing childhood encounter with Ruby Bridges.
The 10-member cast includes John Dolphin, Sarah Kobuck, Daniel LaMond, Richard McBride, Eric Molina, Stacia Paglieri, Joylette Portlock, DeVaughn Robinson, Savannah Wiles and Saniya Lavelle as Ruby Bridges.
Look Forward: The Ruby Bridges Story fits squarely with Prime Stage Theatre’s 2024-2025 season theme of Strength, Voices and Hope, says Prime Stage Theatre artistic director Dr. Wayne Brinda. “People may know the general story of Ruby Bridges,” he notes, “but seeing this pivotal historical moment portrayed onstage shows the true heroism of her actions.”
Prime Stage Theatre • P.O. Box 99446, Pittsburgh, PA 15233 (724) 773-0700 •
Since its founding in 1996, Prime Stage Theatre has presented over 100 plays that introduce student and family audiences to classic and contemporary works of world literature.
The theatre’s current season includes Great Expectations; Look Forward: The Ruby Bridges Story; I Never Saw Another Butterfly and The Terezin Promise; Twelve Angry Men.
Prime Stage also presents a series of one-night performances titled Monday Night Specials at New Hazlett:
- Jan. 20 – How I Learned What I Learned. Pittsburgh Actor of the Year Wali Jamal performs playwright August Wilson’s riveting theatrical biography.
- Mar. 3 – Freedom House: Giving Life a Second Chance. A staged reading of a new play by L.E. McCullough on the birth of America’s first EMS units in 1960s Pittsburgh.
- May 5 – Speak. A staged reading of a new Prime Stage Theatre adaptation by Tammy Ryan of Laurie Halse Anderson’s powerful young adult novel presented in partnership with Pittsburgh Action Against Rape.
PHOTO:
l-r) Teacher Mrs. Henry (Stacia Paglieri) greets Ruby Bridges (Saniya Lavelle) and Ruby’s mother Lucille Bridges (Joylette Portlock) on Ruby’s first day of school in Prime Stage Theatre’s production of “Look Forward: The Ruby Bridges Story”. Photo by Laura Slovensko.
Exhibition – smash the ceiling, floor, and walls
Pittsburgh Glass Center Smashing Exhibit through 1/20/25
smash the ceiling, floor, and walls; take the broken shards and blow it back critically analyzes the personal, professional, and political implications of heteronormative and patriarchal barriers through the creative work of femmes and gender non-conforming artists. By reframing the social issue through interactions: smashing, gathering, and blowing, this exhibition references some of the ways artists are actively processing their lived experiences.
smash the ceiling, floor, and walls; take the broken shards and blow it back considers how both national and international trailblazing artists across generations continue to boldly and unapologetically advocate for equality, freedom from violence and sexual harassment, professional recognition, bodily autonomy, sexual liberation, human health rights, and self-empowerment beyond every last real and imagined sheet of glass.
Curated by Alyssa Velazquez.
