{"id":1056,"date":"2026-02-11T10:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/?p=1056"},"modified":"2026-02-11T12:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:03:29","slug":"africana-panels-at-mlk-day-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/2026\/02\/11\/africana-panels-at-mlk-day-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Africana Panels at MLK Day 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Africana Panels at MLK Day 2026<\/strong><br><strong><br><\/strong>Each year on MLK Day, our college puts together a full slate of panels focusing on a theme related to justice, civic participation, and the legacy of Dr. King. This year&#8217;s theme was &#8220;Love, Anger, and the Struggle for Justice,&#8221; and the program included three panels organized by Africana faculty:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Charles Nero<\/strong>, <strong>Benjamin E. Mays \u201920 Distinguished Professor of Africana and Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies<\/strong>, hosted a discussion on the role of &#8220;Love, Anger, and the Struggle for Justice&#8221; in the 2025 film <em>Sinners<\/em>. The panel included <strong>Professors Dale Chapman (Africana, American Studies, and Music)<\/strong> and <strong>Stephanie Kelley-Romano (Rehtoric, Film, &amp; Screen Studies)<\/strong>; along with students <strong>Matthew Fox \u201926, Bella Saul \u201926<\/strong> (an Africana minor), <strong>Aidan Stark-Chessa \u201926<\/strong>, and <strong>Braedon Parker \u201927<\/strong>, who were all enrolled in Professor Nero&#8217;s Fall 2025 course &#8220;White Redemption: Cinema and the Co-optation of African American History.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/files\/2026\/02\/MLK-Day-Panel_Sinners.webp\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/files\/2026\/02\/MLK-Day-Panel_Sinners.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1066\" style=\"width:459px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:0px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">(<em>Sinners <\/em>panel discussion. Photo credit: Bates Communications &amp; Marketing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, Professor Nero also co-facilitated a panel on Buddhism as represented in the television show <em>The White Lotus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/files\/2026\/02\/White-Lotus-Photo-e1770822938103.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"350\" height=\"277\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/files\/2026\/02\/White-Lotus-Photo-e1770822938103.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1065\" style=\"width:348px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:0px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">(<em>White Lotus <\/em>Panel Discussion. Photo credit: Bates Communications &amp; Marketing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in another well-attended panel, <strong>Visiting Assistant Professor Temi Noah<\/strong> hosted a screening of the film <em>Being Black in Hitler&#8217;s Germany<\/em>, followed by a discussion and q+a with director John A. Kantara. The film highlights the upbringing of journalist Hans Massaquoi, who grew up Black in Nazi Germany and later became editor of <em>Ebony Magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These events are just a few examples of the dynamic range of MLK Day panels at Bates and the engaging ways that our college honors Dr. King&#8217;s legacy each year. For a deeper look at the day&#8217;s programming, see this <a href=\"https:\/\/picturestories.bates.edu\/mlk-day-2026\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/picturestories.bates.edu\/mlk-day-2026\">overview<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africana Panels at MLK Day 2026Each year on MLK Day, our college&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1572,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_prepend":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append_before_footer":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1079,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions\/1079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/africana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}