Ervin to Deliver WIU’s Black History Month Keynote Address Virtually Feb. 2
As part of the 2021 celebration of Black History Month at Western Illinois University, University of Missouri-Columbia Associate Professor Keona Ervin will deliver the keynote address, “Reimagining Liberation: Black Feminism from the Combahee River Collective to the 
Movement for Black Lives,” virtually from 6-7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2.
The address will provide an overview of the organizing work of radical Black feminists from the 1970s to present. It will include a discussion of the ways Black feminism has uniquely shaped and critiqued movements for social democracy.
The virtual address can be accessed Feb. 2 at wiu.zoom.us/j/99652421131, and the event is open free to the public.
“Dr. Keona Ervin is not only a dynamic public speaker, she’s also deeply committed to studying the past in order to make a better future,” said WIU History Professor Peter Cole, who helped the WIU Black History Month Committee schedule Ervin to speak. “By researching and writing about working-class Black women–and the struggles for equality and justice to which they contribute–she’s done us all an incredible service. I’m so excited for my students, for all Western students and the entire community to have a chance to listen to her powerful, wise words.”
A St. Louis, MO native, Ervin is an associate professor of history and an affiliate faculty of Black Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Peace Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She received her bachelor’s degree in history and African and African American studies from Duke University.
A Center for Missouri Studies Faculty Fellow at the State Historical Society of Missouri, Ervin is author of the award-winning “Gateway to Equality: Black Women and the Struggle for Economic Justice in St. Louis.” She is a recipient of the Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the Huggins-Quarles Dissertation Award from the Organization of American Historians. She has published peer-reviewed articles, reviews, and essays in International Labor and Working-Class History, the Journal of Civil and Human Rights, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, New Labor Forum, Los Angeles Review of Books, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, and the Journal of Southern History. Ervin is currently writing a history of Black women workers and the labor movement, which will be published by Verso Books.
For more information about Ervin, visit history.missouri.edu/people/ervin.
“Black History Month is special; it is a kickoff to the year-long commitment to bring awareness to the Black experience, and understanding and change to an often neglected and misunderstood part of America’s past, present and future,” said WIU Multicultural Center Program Coordinator Carl Ervin.
For more information about the address, or other Black History Month events, contact Carl Ervin at cw-ervin@wiu.edu.
