Library and mayor’s office partner for SMART Art Youth Festival
Young Birminghamians can have close encounters of the artistic kind on Saturday at the SMART Art Youth Festival at Boutwell Auditorium from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The event, sponsored by the Birmingham Public Library and the Division of Youth Services of the Mayor’s Office, will highlight the BPL’s annual summer reading program and offer free guitar lessons, back and hand massages, live performances, as well as opportunities to learn about careers in the arts and talk to arts-related professionals. The SMART Art logo was designed by Jaylen Callins, a 15-year-old student from Clay-Chalkville High, who won a contest earlier this year.
Besides the BPL and the mayor’s office, the organizations behind the event include the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham, Vulcan Park and Museum, the UAB Department of Art and Art History, the Guitar Center, Aveda Institute of Birmingham, the Sign Geeks, Alabama Baby & Child magazine and radio stations 95.7 FM and 98.7 FM. For more information, call the DYS office at (205) 320-0879.
BCRI hosts education symposium
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute will host an education equity symposium Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The symposium, “With Deliberate Speed — Education and Equity 60 Years After Brown v. Board,” will be free and open to the public. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Thomas R. Bice, Alabama superintendent of education, sharing highlights of Plan 2020 and his vision for public education in the state. A Priscilla Hancock Cooper, interim president of the BCRI, will facilitate a question-and-answer session.
The symposium will include a historic and contemporary perspective of the Brown decision and school desegregation, presented by Nettie Carson-Mullins, an education specialist at the Alabama Department of Education, and Dr. Andrew McKnight, an associate professor from the Department of Human Studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The presentation will be followed by a panel on “Desegregation in Metropolitan Birmingham: Then and Now,” led by Dr. Tondra Loder-Jackson, director of the Center for Urban Education at UAB, and featuring panelists including William Thomas Mayfield IV from the junior board of Cornerstone School; Dr. Samantha Elliott Briggs, consultant & curriculum specialist, P.E.A.C.E. Consulting; Margaret Z. Beard, former counselor, teacher and administrator for the Jefferson County School system; and Cameron Young, a student at Spain Park High School.
The event will be the first in a series at BCRI commemorating the 60th anniversary of school desegregation by the United States Supreme Court. For more information or to register, visit bcri.org.