Dear Mosaic, Interfaith Center, and Queer Student Lounge followers,

This is a reminder message to invite you to volunteer for our annual UMBC Suits You Professional Clothing Closet in Partnership with the Career Center. We would like to thank students who have already signed up to volunteer their time for our closet.

Carlos, the Coordinator for Diversity and Inclusion is currently on the planning committee for UMBCSuitsYou, a professional clothing closet that gives students the opportunity to select free professional business attire to use in their future job searches.

To make the clothing closet a success, we are asking for your assistance. There are many volunteer roles to choose from, and if you are a student who volunteers a minimum of two hours (more if possible), you will be allowed early access to the closet (12:30PM-1PM) and take home one FREE professional outfit on Thursday, March 29th.

Volunteers are needed for the dates below:

• THIS Thursday, March 8th, Patapsco Basement (Sorting Day)

• Tuesday, March 27th, Harbor Hall Multi-Purpose Room (Closet Set-Up Day 1)

• Wednesday, March 28th, Harbor Hall Multi-Purpose Room (Closet Set-Up Day 2)

• Thursday, March 29th, Harbor Hall Multi-Purpose Room (UMBC Suits You Day 1)

• Friday, March 30th, Harbor Hall Multi-Purpose Room (UMBC Suits You Day 2 + Breakdown)

If you are able to volunteer your time, please take a 5-6 minutes to fill out our sign-up form at tinyurl.com/UMBCsuitsyou2018. If you are able to volunteer the day(s) of the clothing drive, you are REQUIRED to attend our training on either Friday, March 9th from 12PM-1PM or Thursday, March 15th from 1:30PM-2:30PM in the Career Center Conference Room (Math/Psych, 210). To sign up for our training, please fill out our Google Form https://tinyurl.com/UMBCsuitsyou2018training.

We also ask that you please help us in spreading the word to any friends, peers, orgs, or classmates that may be interested in volunteering.

If you have any questions feel free to contact Carlos at carlos6@umbc.edu or my direct office number (410) 455-1825.

Thank you and we hope to see you in the upcoming weeks!

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.

As a Harvard-trained historian, Carter G. Woodson, like W. E. B. Du Bois before him, believed that truth could not be denied and that reason would prevail over prejudice. His hopes to raise awareness of African American’s contributions to civilization was realized when he and the organization he founded, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), conceived and announced Negro History Week in 1925. The event was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that encompassed the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The response was overwhelming: Black history clubs sprang up; teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils; and progressive whites, not simply white scholars and philanthropists, stepped forward to endorse the effort.

By the time of Woodson’s death in 1950, Negro History Week had become a central part of African American life and substantial progress had been made in bringing more Americans to appreciate the celebration. At mid–century, mayors of cities nationwide issued proclamations noting Negro History Week. The Black Awakening of the 1960s dramatically expanded the consciousness of African Americans about the importance of black history, and the Civil Rights movement focused Americans of all color on the subject of the contributions of African Americans to our history and culture.

The celebration was expanded to a month in 1976, the nation’s bicentennial. President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” That year, fifty years after the first celebration, the association held the first African American History Month. By this time, the entire nation had come to recognize the importance of Black history in the drama of the American story. Since then each American president has issued African American History Month proclamations. And the association—now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)—continues to promote the study of Black history all year.

(Excerpt from an essay by Daryl Michael Scott, Howard University, for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History)

For more information on The Mosaic's Black Africana centered events, please check out our upcoming newsletter, attached Black History Month calendar or email us at mosaic@umbc.edu.