By PAT NEWMAN
pnewman@thecitizennews.com

Local observances of Black History Month will culminate this Friday evening at the Fayette County Library in a gala celebrating diversity and every citizen's ethnic origins.

The second annual Blended Heritage Celebration is themed “All the Colors of the Race.”

“We want this to be a celebration of the legacy of humanity,” said Chris Snell, director of the county's library and coordinator of the event. “It's all about you,” she added, noting that everyone shares common roots stemming from love. “This is about black history, and your history,” she continued. “Gala attire is requested!”

The celebration begins at 7 p.m. and features a “Parade of Colors,” which includes native Fayette countians, native Americans and transplants from South Africa, Africa, Paris and Spain.

All the arts will be represented with celebrations of song, music, poetry, dance and storytelling. Special guests include Dr. Ferrol Sams, author; Chung-Rang Park and Raymond Lindholm, violinists; Donna Maye, dancer and actress; Barbara Sullivan, dancer; and David Hobson, Ph.D., professional storyteller.

The Blended Heritage Celebration is sponsored by the Fayette County Library, Friends of the Fayette County Library and the library board. It will be taped by a crew from Georgia Public Television.

School children in Fayette County have been focusing on outstanding African-American individuals and groups noted for their contributions and achievements in their social studies programs, according to Glenn Walker, the school district's social studies coordinator.

Based on the grade
level's curriculum, Walker ex-
plained that in third grade, stu-
dents would focus on out-
standing African Americans who are also from Georgia. Fourth graders study early American history, so their notable African Americans would be from that period. The same is true at the high school level where students taking American history would likely come to the turn of the century at this time of year and study the impact that men like W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington made on the nation.

Seniors in U.S. government classes would likely be studying the civil rights movement this month.

“I've been pleased,” Walker said of the teachers' efforts to incorporate lessons relating to African-American history into the curriculum.

Americans first began to recognize black history in 1926, with “Negro History Week.” Carter G. Woodson, an African American from Kentucky who left the coal mines at age 20 to go to high school and eventually earn a Ph.D. from Harvard, was the first to write black Americans into the nation's history.

In 1915, he founded what is now called the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History and in 1926, published the Journal of Negro History.

February was chosen as the month to celebrate African-American achievement and history because of the numerous events which occurred during that month. The birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln are celebrated the second week of February, on the 23rd. W.E.B. DuBois cofounded the NAACP Feb. 3. The 15th Amendment passed during February, giving blacks the right to vote, and during February, America witnessed the Woolworth lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, N.C. and the shooting of Malcolm X.