Dear Colleagues and Griot Institute Family and Friends,
In hopes that your fall season is off to a thoughtful start and as we approach several important fall events, this past weekend we hosted the Dancing Mind Challenge based on Morrison’s published essay of the same name. The invitation to read uninterrupted for two or more hours was taken up by three dozen community members. Giving oneself permission to read is a pleasure too few take part in in these fast paced digital times. Perpetually looking to do more in less time, so we can do even more…, it all leaves us little space to sit thoughtfully and quietly with books. Several community members will be chosen from a lottery for a book or gift card – to Mondragon or Barnes and Noble – for sharing reflections on the experience unplugging. Reading and writing are important acts for thinking, activities well worth attending to both in isolation and in community.
The Griot is sponsoring several additional events this week and the week after to engage all community members interested in reading about, listening to, embodying, and contemplating the theme Youth from Africa and the Diasporas: Knowers, Innovators, Visionaries, and Everyday People. These sponsored activities include a talk infused with music from poet, multimedia artist, vocalist and composer – Mama C, aka Charlotte Hill O’Neal at 4:30 pm Wednesday October 1 in Rooke Music Hall; several events for Bucknell 150 years of Black Excellence on Friday and Saturday October 4 and 5; and a 12:00 pm Wednesday October 8 lunch conversation on Richard Wright’s Black Boy in the Hildrth-Mirza Great Room. Wright’s book originally published in 1945, is a coming of age memoir that addresses race and class issues that persist, even if in modified forms in the present. We hope that you can join us for the discussion. Please RSVP so that we have lunch for all present.
Griot Board Members are also very actively making a mark in the community! We want to share that this evening Peg Cronin will be in conversation with Gina Siepel, the artist behind the Samek To Understand a Tree exhibition. They will explore the biological understandings of forest interconnection, environmental philosophy, and queer ecology. A reception will follow at the Samek Art Museum. Monday, Sept 29, 7pm Arches Lounge, ELC, top floor. Dr. Cassie Osie was recently interviewed on The Black Studies Podcast and was just awarded a prestigious honor, the Toni Cade Bambara Article Prize from the Black Women’s Studies Association (BWSA), for her co-authored article on “Gayle Jones’s Hemispheric Black Feminisms and (Mis)readings of Marronage”. Dr. Ben Barson’s book Brassroots Democracy was nominated and then chosen as finalist for the MAAH Stone Book Award bestowed by the Museum of African American History. In August Marcus Scales joined colleagues on a TLC panel to discuss “8/29: Understanding Today’s Students” which is available on the Friday Learning Series Archives site. We hope that you have time to engage the intellectual contributions of fellow board members over the next few weeks.
Warm Regards,
Cymone Fourshey, Professor of History and International Relations and Director of The Griot Institute
The Griot Intern Blog
For insights, reactions and detailed information on past Griot Institute events, please read our intern-authored blogs throughout the academic year. The blogs also include many updates and reports on what is happening around campus in connection to Black lives and cultures.
Newest Blog Posts:
Guest Lecturer Dr. William Turner: Blacks in Appalachian Coal Towns
Welcome Back Luncheon
A Joyous Celebration: Griot Institute Opening Ceremony
Student Leadership Lunch
Griot intern contributors: Jeremiah Charles ’27, Debra Gonkpah ’26, Lily Hebda (graduate student and editor), Grace Ifiegbu ’26, Holiness Kerandi ’26, Jesse Leon ’28, Da’Mirah Vinson ’26 and Barbara Wankollie ’25.
Updates on Life from Griot Institute Interns
The Griot Institute welcomes several new and returning interns this fall.
Catch up with them through their self-authored summer updates shared below (and in the previous newsletter).
Jeremiah Charles ’27
Hello everyone, I’m Jeremiah. Over the summer a vast majority of my time was devoted to family. I went back home, which for me is New Jersey, and I was able to get one final restful summer before a hopefully fruitful and internship focused one next year. I explored my culinary journey more, did a lot of driving, spent time in self-reflection and most importantly, enjoyed what I could whilst it felt short. I’m so thankful to have a wonderful support system both at Bucknell and back home, and it was very spiritually and physically refreshing to be around my loved ones. Here are some snapshots of my summer!
Grace Ifiegbu ’26
This summer, I was doing research in an organic chemistry lab. I got to work independently in the lab and experienced what it would be like to be a full-time researcher out there in the real world. My favorite thing about the lab was that mistakes were often just as important as perfect runs. I came across a novel impurity running a reaction that seemed like a failure of the process at first, but later gave us a deeper understanding of how the reaction was taking place. This summer, I lived in an apartment with my closest friends in Bucknell, and that experience was amazing. I learnt how to ride a bike and rode down the street as fireworks were going off on the Fourth of July. Overall, my summer was a time of learning, exploration, and growth, and I can’t wait for the next one.
Barbara Wankollie ‘25
Over the summer, I spent my time in the beautiful town of Lewisburg while working in the Dean of Students Office as a student assistant. It was a wonderful summer and a valuable time of reflection as I approached my last semester as an undergraduate at Bucknell. The highlight of my summer was organizing freshman orientation for one of the newly founded orientation programs. Through this experience, I discovered how much I enjoy planning events and programs that benefit others. It was a joy to see the new freshmen begin their journey with smiles, and knowing that I contributed to that made me feel fulfilled as a senior preparing to conclude my journey at Bucknell.
Upcoming Events
Guest Speaker/Performer: Mama C
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Rooke Recital Hall, Sigfried Weis Music Building
Please join the Music Department and The Griot Institute for the Study of Black Lives and Cultures as we host Charlotte Hill O’Neal aka Mama C aka Iya Osotunde Fasuyi, a musician, visual artist, poet, film maker, ATR priestess and peace builder through her Art and her Life Example!
Mama C is a veteran Black Panther from the Kansas City Chapter which she joined at the age of 18. She is cofounder of the United African Alliance Community Center (UAACC). Please see her full bio here.
Former Griot Intern – Mercedes Rodriguez ’23
Thursday October 2, 2025 – 12:00 pm and 7:00 pm
ALUMNI MFA PANEL & READING
Thursday, October 2
Panel Discussion
12:00pm, Hildreth-Mirza Hall, Great Room
Join three recent Bucknell graduates who went on to pursue the Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing. Julia Cirillo ’20, Amber Cutler ’24, and Mercedes Rodriguez ’23 will discuss their experiences in their respective MFA programs, including the application process. Please feel free to bring a lunch. Our guests will present a poetry and fiction reading the same day at 7pm in Bucknell Hall.
Bucknell in the Caribbean 2026 Information Sessions
Tuesday, September 30 (12-1 pm) and
Tuesday, October 21 (5 – 6 pm), 2025
Hildreth-Mirza Great Room
Griot Institute Fall 2025 Book Groups
Wednesday, October 8 and
Wednesday, November 5, 2025
Hildreth-Mirza Great Room
On October 8, join The Griot Institute to discuss Black Boy by Richard Wright. Wright’s once controversial, now celebrated autobiography measures the raw brutality of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him—whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel and blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he made his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer.
Books will be given to the first 15 registrants. Lunch will be provided. Please register by Friday, October 3. https://forms.gle/8mxF5Lf8oEdUaZJr9
On November 5, join The Griot Institute to discuss Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black. Most Americans know of Harriet Tubman’s legendary life: escaping enslavement in 1849, she led more than 60 others out of bondage via the Underground Railroad, gave instructions on getting to freedom to scores more, and went on to live a lifetime fighting for change. Yet the many biographies, children’s books, and films about Tubman omit a crucial chapter: during the Civil War, hired by the Union Army, she ventured into the heart of slave territory–Beaufort, South Carolina–to live, work, and gather intelligence for a daring raid up the Combahee River to attack the major plantations of Rice Country, the breadbasket of the Confederacy.
Our book supply of Combee has been distributed. However, feel free to purchase your own book and still join the book group! Lunch will be provided. Please register by Friday, October 31. https://forms.gle/8mxF5Lf8oEdUaZJr9
Griot Institute Fall 2025 Film Group
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
4:30 – 7:30 pm
Hildreth-Mirza Great Room
Cosponsored Events
Gospel Music at Bucknell
September 20 – 21, October 4 – 5, November 15 – 16, 2025
Rooke Chapel
The 2025-26 Rooke Chapel Gospel Music Fellowship offers current master’s or doctoral students (and recent graduates) the opportunity to cultivate the Gospel music tradition within a vibrant, multicultural University worship setting. The fellow leads, in collaboration with the Protestant chaplain and director of music, weekend residencies open to students, staff, faculty and the local community through the course of the academic year, which are designed to teach, explore and celebrate Gospel music. Rooke Chapel is pleased to welcome back Rev. Angela Jones as our 2025-2026 Gospel Music Fellow! The Rev. Angela Jones is a Howard University School of Divinity graduate and gospel recording artist who has performed with genre Billboard-charting artists such as Richard Smallwood, Yolanda Adams, Bebe Winans, Marvin Sapp, Brandon Camphor & One Way, to name a few. Her singing group, Brandon Camphor & One Way, has been nominated for Stellar Awards, has been included on Billboard’s top-30 chart four times, and has received three Wammie Awards. Jones currently serves as minister of worship arts at Word For Life Church Ministries in Maryland. In 2024-25 Rev. Jones served as the Rooke Chapel Gospel Music Fellow and we look forward to welcoming her back to Bucknell. Join us on the dates above for Saturday rehearsals and Sunday worship services!
Learn more about Rev. Angela here! Contact chapel@bucknell.edu with any questions.
Darrick Hamilton
39th Annual Black Experiences Lecture/Keynote address for BIPP’s first Public Policy Conference
Thursday, October 2, 2025
5:00 pm, Terrace Room
ADDITIONAL NOTE
The MLK Week Committee meets monthly to discuss theme ideas and plan specific events for MLK Week. As part of this process, they are seeking proposals from departments, organizations, clubs, and offices, etc. who would like to develop workshops, panels, performances, community outreach and other creative events around the 2026 theme, “The Time Is Always Right to Do Right.” Please see the theme description on the proposal form.
If you would like to propose an event to be included in MLK Week 2026, which will take place between Jan. 19 and Jan. 30, please fill out the proposal form by Nov. 1, 2025. The committee will organize a schedule of events within the first two weeks of the semester to complement the keynote lecture on the evening of Monday, Jan. 26, 2026.
Please submit your proposal using this link: https://forms.gle/fJWtgawCWNWdLRGv8
Questions should be sent to mlkweek@bucknell.edu. Information about Bucknell’s past MLK Week themes, missions, and events can be found at www.bucknell.edu/mlkweek.
About the Griot
To check event dates, subscribe to the Griot Institute Public Event Calendar
Email: griot@bucknell.edu
Phone: 570-577-2123
Location: Hildreth-Mirza, 2nd Floor
Hours: Monday – Friday, 8:00am – 3:00pm or by appointment
Director: C. Cymone Fourshey | Program Manager: Michelle Lauver
