Sankofa offers ‘A Rose by Any Other Name’ for King Day 2013

The 2012 Sankofa performance at Bates. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Focusing this year on differences involving sexuality, A Rose by Any Other Name  is the 2013 King Day performance by the Bates student group Sankofa, taking place at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 21, in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Admission is free, but tickets are required because of limited seating. Please reserve your ticket online here or call 207-786-6400.


Alex Bolden ’15 of Cleveland, Ohio, has prepared Bates artists for the Sankofa performance on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. See a Bates Communications Office video by Phyllis Graber Jensen.


Founded in 2010, Sankofa explores African diasporic experiences through performing arts of dance, music, theater and spoken word. The group has become a symbol of African American pride and accomplishment at Bates.

“What the great civil rights organizer Ella Baker said about young people is especially applicable to Sankofa,” says Charles Nero, chair of the college’s King Day committee and a professor of rhetoric and American cultural studies. “They have the courage where we fail.”

“Sankofa’s founding principle is the exploration and validation of the differences among peoples of African descent. And if you think about that, this is everyone, since Africa is the birthplace of humankind.”