CSUMB puts more variety into Black History Month than anyone else.

There’s a saying in the black community, in speeches and homilies, in songs by Ziggy Marley and Public Enemy, on murals and T-shirts: “If you don’t know your past, you can’t know your future.”

The quote is widely attributed to Malcolm X, and various African-American leaders have restated it, but the idea originated with historian Carter G. Woodson. He was born in Virginia in 1875, the son of former slaves, but liberated himself through education, eventually earning a doctorate from Harvard. He found an absence of black history in the public sphere, and, fearing black people could become rootless, founded Negro History Week in 1926 in February – in proximity to the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass – the precursor to Black History Month.

Locally, groups on CSU Monterey Bay’s campus – including the Black Students United, the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, NAACP and the Otter Cross Cultural Center – have laid out an assortment of events.

A skin-deep talk

Among the first are “The Shades of Us, Women of Color” (3-4:30pm Feb. 4, at the Otter Cross Cultural Center), an insidery discussion about skin color, beauty and bias that sounds as topical and revealing as Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair. Jalea Finkelstein, a second-year Global Studies major and African American Commissioner for the Associated Students, is eager to attend that one.

“It’s a dialogue that faces stereotypes and negative connotations,” she says. “I’m excited to hear everyone’s opinions on those topics.”

Trayvon et al

On Feb. 5, the NAACP holds the third annual Trayvon Martin “Black Out” silent march noon-2pm on the Main Quad; not just for Martin, but for others who “fell victim to racial profiling.”

And how does that happen? Practice. The Miami Herald recently reported that the North Miami Beach Police Department had been using the mugshots of black males, including teenagers, for target practice. The bullet-riddled portraits were found in the trash can at a shooting range by a Florida Army National Guard member whose brother’s face was depicted on one of them.

Holy headwear

On Feb. 9 from 4-8pm, the Visual and Public Arts department hosts the “Crowns” hat-making workshop, run by Seaside artist Sandra Gray. It sounds innocuous, but the “crowns” in question are in reference to the ornate, formal hats worn by African-American ladies to church. And that comes from a deep reservoir in the black community, says Stephanie Johnson, a Ph.D. professor in VPA who is coordinating the workshop.

“The church has been very important in the African American community,” she says. “These church ladies have been the backbone of these churches. Wearing [fashionable clothing] and dressing very exquisitely has been important in terms of creativity, empowerment, identity and self-expression. We want to honor that.”

The workshop gets its name from a musical play called Crowns: The Gospel Musical by Regina Taylor, about a Brooklyn girl sent to live with her grandmother in South Carolina, embraced in the customs of the black church ladies.

Trayvon part two

On Feb. 10, Charlene Carruthers, National Coordinator of the Black Youth Project 100, comes to speak to black students and the public about “Creating Justice and Freedom for All Black People” at the University Center Ballroom 7-9pm. She addresses, head-on, issues of youth activism, community empowerment and advocating for change – topics, all, bound up with things like the Trayvon Martin march. Her organization coalesced as a collective of 100 queer and feminist black activists in 2013 at the University of Chicago, and their aim is to activate others on the issues of the prison industrial complex, gender justice, women’s rights and voting rights.

Soul food for the soul

Most of these events are free and open to the public; one is open to a particular segment of the public. Tiffany Avery, of AmeriCorps and CSUMB’s Catalyst Center, is helping to put on Soul on Soledad with Black Students United and its advisor, Asya Guillory.

On the afternoon of Feb. 13, the students will cook up and serve soul food to the homeless at Dorothy’s Kitchen in Salinas’ Chinatown neighborhood.

“We haven’t decided on the menu yet,” Avery says. Last year it was baked chicken, collard greens, cornbread and candied yams, donated by Ord Market, Farmers Produce and Everyone’s Harvest.

“We fed about 230 people,” she continues. “We had to turn people away.”

There is levity among the 14 or so events. The Harlem Nights showcase, 8-10pm on Feb. 19, looks back on the roiling creative work from the black community throughout history in poetry, monologues, music and art.

The month cycles through politics, art, science, historical but also very present, mixed together in a union of seemingly disparate things. As Avery puts it, “I think black history is American history.”

CSU MONTEREY BAY’S BLACK HISTORY MONTH celebrations take place Feb. 2-26. Event are subject to change. Go tohttp://activities.csumb.edu/heritage-months for a complete and up-to-date schedule.