[Peace] also tonight / documentary "More than a Month" about February as African American History Month / 6pm Where: Champaign Public Library, 200 W. Green St., Robeson Rooms A & B

[Karen Medina]

documentary "More than a Month" by WILL-TV and part of their Community Cinema
There will be a panel discussion after the film.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
6pm
Where: Champaign Public Library, 200 W. Green St., Robeson Rooms A & B

Shukree Hassan Tilghman, a 29-year-old African-American filmmaker,
sets out on a cross-country campaign to end Black History Month. He
stops in various cities, wearing a sandwich board, to solicit
signatures on his petition to end the observance. He explains that
relegating Black History Month to the coldest, shortest month of the
year is an insult, and that black history is not separate from
American history. Through this thoughtful and humorous journey, he
explores what the treatment of history tells us about race and
equality in a “post-racial” America.

His road trip begins in Washington, D.C., crisscrosses the country
during Black History Month 2010, and ends with an epilogue one year
later. Each stop along the journey explores Black History Month as it
relates to four ideas: education, history, identity, and
commercialism.

Tilgman’s campaign to end Black History Month is actually a
provocative gambit to open a public conversation about the idea of
ethnic heritage months, and whether relegating African American
history to the shortest month of the year — and separating it from
American history on the whole — denigrates the role of black people
and black culture throughout American history. But it is also a
seeker’s journey to reconcile his own conflicting feelings about his
own identity, history, and convictions.

More Than a Month is not just about a yearly tradition, or history, or
being black in America. It is about what it means to be an American,
to fight for one’s rightful place in the American landscape, however
unconventional the means, even at the risk of ridicule or
misunderstanding. It is a film is about discovering oneself.

Free and open to the public