COD hosts African-American Read-in Feb. 7

College of DuPage will join hundreds of colleges, universities, libraries and other organizations Monday, Feb. 7, at the 22nd annual National African American Read-In.

The event, endorsed by the International Reading Association, includes volunteer readers presenting their favorite selections from African American books, essays and poetry collections, as well as brief biological sketches of the authors. Volunteers are needed for this year's program.

Sponsored by the COD Africa Committee, the National Council of Teachers of English and the Black Caucus of NCTE, the readings will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Student Resource Center, Room 2800, at the College's Glen Ellyn campus, 425 Fawell Blvd. The event is offered free of charge and reservations are not required.

Students, faculty, staff and community members are encouraged to participate, said Cheryl Jackson, professor of Health Information Technology and event coordinator.

The first National African American Read-In was sponsored in 1990 by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English, with the NCTE offering its support and sponsorship the following year. Previous year's events included more than one million readers from 49 states, the West Indies and several African countries.

COD's 2010 event featured more than a dozen presenters. Past selections include “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama; “A Black Woman's Odyssey through Russia and Jamaica: The Narrative of Nancy Prince” by Nancy Prince; “The Black Rose” by Tananarive Due; “Crowns: Portraits of Black Woman in Church Hats” by Michael Cunningham; “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy; “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” by Ntozake Shange; “Getting Butter from the Duck” by Sw. Anand Prahlad; “The Hot Bach: Duke Ellington on the Road” by Richard O' Boyer; “Legends of the Blues: Bessie Smith and ‘Ma' Rainey”; excerpts from “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash; “Race Matters” by Cornell West; “A Stranger in the Village” by James Baldwin; “Tar Beach” by Faith Ringgold; “Tenderheaded” by Harryette Mullen; “The Tipping Point by Malcolm Galdwell; and selected poems by Langston Hughes.

For more information or to participate, call Jackson at (630) 942-3384, e-mail: jacksonc@cod.edu.