THE AMERICAN CONSULATE GENERAL
HAMILTON, BERMUDA
 
Office of the U.S. Consul General
                                                                                                                             For Immediate Release                                                                                           

February 7, 2006

American Consulate Celebrates Black History Month

To mark Black History Month, US Consul General Gregory W. Slayton presented the Bermuda College with a seventeen-panel poster set, "Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” The show features historical and contemporary photos of campus history and life in traditional black colleges throughout the United States. There are photographs and text about famous graduates, from Booker T. Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Dr. David Satcher and Oprah Winfrey, some thirty in all.

The show explains how these black colleges evolved and provides insights into their role in the civil rights movement and other aspects of American social and cultural life.  Topics addressed include roots, roads to equality, the economic path, the leadership path, a cultural force, cradle of the civil rights movement, and contemporary choices. 

The second show commemorates the life of Rosa Parks.  Mr. Slayton presented copies of the two-panel poster to CedarBridge Academy and Berkeley Institute, and to the Commission for Unity and Racial

Equality.  Panel one features a quote from Mrs. Parks and explains the events that led to her arrest in December of 1955, which sparked the year-long Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott.  Facing the text panel is a portrait panel of Rosa Parks on a Montgomery bus after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that laws requiring segregation on public transportation were illegal.

Consul General Slayton said, “I believe in the importance of recognizing history as a guide to the future.  Mrs. Parks and other leaders of the civil rights movement have created an enduring legacy and it is proper that we recognize their achievements while moving forward to ensure equal justice under the law and happiness for all people.”