February 11, 2026, 11:30-12:30 pm
Online Event: Register in advance at
https://ucl.zoom.us/meeting/register/qoDEUC8HQAeS8fd4A7JH8Q#/registration
Title: Coloniality in Kiskeya: organising on the Haitian-Dominican border
Power distribution in the borderlands between Dajabón and Wanament by Aïda Roumer, PhD student, University of Frankfurt
The borderlands of Haiti and the Dominican Republic mirror and reproduce the patterns of domination and extractivism which have historically been established on the island. The political economy of this border thus speaks to the role of Caribbean states in global production chains and white supremacist constructions of national identity, yet it also highlights the potentials for collective struggles for sovereignty. This presentation will focus on the power distribution in the borderlands between Dajabón and Wanament and highlights examples of labour movements and of collective bargaining taking shape in this context. Free and open to the public. (Sponsored by UCL’s Caribbean Seminar Series)
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February 12, 2026, 5:30–6:30 pm
Frederick Douglass High School, Columbia, MO
Title: The Making of Black Columbia, Missouri's Middle Class: The Story of Frank and Hester
McKinney, 1850-1934 by Dr. Daive Dunkley, Professor, Chair & Director, MU Black Studies & Peace Studies
This presentation examines the story of Frank and Hester McKinney to explore the emergence, successes, and challenges faced by the Black middle class in Columbia, Missouri, between 1850 and 1934. It discusses the history of slaveholding in the city, which existed alongside the establishment of a state university and two other colleges. Following the abolition of slavery, a significant aspect of the city's development was driven by its Black middle class. Their experiences provide valuable insights into the political importance of autonomy and identity, as well as the struggles for social mobility in the early post-slavery era. Free and open to the public. (Sponsored by the Michael A. Middleton Center for Race, Citizenship and Justice, MU)
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February 18, 2026, 6-7:30 pm
Daniel Boone Regional Library, Columbia, MO
Title: Black History Month at 100: Looking Back and Looking Forward
This is a panel discussion on the 100-year commemoration of Black History Month in the US. Panelists include Dr. Michael Jirik, Assistant Professor of Black Studies, MU. Free and open to the public. (Sponsored by the Daniel Boone Regional Library)
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February 24, 2026, 6 pm
Hulston Hall Room 7, MU Campus
Title: Stunning Little Dixie: Student Activism on the University of Missouri Campus and its
Legacy by Dr. Mary Beth Brown, Toppan Rare Books Librarian, University of Wyoming
The history of Black student activism at MU, primarily the activism right after WWII with desegregation, including the push to desegregate the Big 10 sports conference and the public accommodations work students did in Columbia. The presentation will include discussing the formation of LBC and some of the other activism in the 60s and 70s with the women's rights movement and the potential surveillance of activists on campus by the university president. The presentation will focus on the students and what they explicitly do because students voices and actions matter and what comes from these movements (e.g., Black Studies classes, the program, the department, and Women and Gender studies classes and eventually department) and the discourse that happens too. Free and open to the public. (Sponsored by the Michael A. Middleton Center for Race, Citizenship and Justice, MU)
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February 26, 2026, 1-2 pm
Gentry Hall 235, MU Campus
Title: From Fela Kuti’s Why Black Suffer to Burna Boy’s Monster You Made: African Music in the Age of Decolonization by Omotayo Jemiluyi, Graduate Fellow at MU’s Interdisciplinary Migration Studies Institute
Since the harsh suns of independence fell on African states, the ensuing postcolonial turmoil has resembled stepping out of a squall into open air, only to realize that the same winds still trouble the supposed newly brightened sky. Fela Aníkúlápó-Kuti alludes to this predicament in his description of the “yẹ̀yẹ́ ball wey one yẹ̀yẹ́ wind dey blow from one yẹ̀yẹ́ corner,” that is, a farcical game in which the same senseless wind keeps blowing from yet another foolish corner. This presentation will critically dissect Fela’s Afrobeat in the era of formal political independence to Burna Boy’s globally circulating Afrobeats, situating both within the unfinished histories of colonialism, postcolonial disillusionment, and contemporary projects of decoloniality. It will focus primarily on Fela’s “Why Black Man Dey Suffer” (1971), “Colonial Mentality” (1977), and “Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense” (1986), alongside Burna Boy’s 2020 music video “Monster You Made,” to interrogate their decolonial labor. Free and open to the public. (Sponsored by the Black Studies Department, MU)
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February 28, 2026, 6-7:30 pm
Daniel Boone Regional Library, Columbia, MO
Title: 11th Annual Black History and Culture Trivia Night
Check-in at 6 pm, trivia starts at 6:30 pm. Here is a link to registration: https://libcal.missouri.edu/calendar/events/trivia26
