Black History Month

Featured story ${alt}

Honoring Black excellence

Since its inception, Black History Month has been a celebration of excellence and a reclamation of a purposefully distorted and mythologized history. This month, we celebrate our community — students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends who are resurrecting the past and building a more equitable, anti-racist future together.  more »

Stories celebrating Black History Month

  • February 26, 2021

    Campus launches first Black studies minor

    UC Santa Cruz's Black Studies minor offers students grounding in the intellectual histories, political movements, cultural expressions, and critical theories of the Black diaspora.

  • February 24, 2021

    Notes of resistance

    History Professor Eric Porter delves deeply into jazz improvisation as a means for "resistance, survival, and promoting one’s own resiliency."

  • February 16, 2021

    Hope, mutual aid, and abolition

    Activist and organizer Mariame Kaba offers a blueprint for mutually supportive communities during the 37th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Convocation

  • Aaron Jones, interim director of the Educational Opportunity Programs on campus, organizedFebruary 11, 2021

    Listening and bringing change

    Aaron Jones, interim Educational Opportunity Programs director, founded the orientation program Black Academy, which has dramatically increased African Black Caribbean students' retention rate at UCSC.

  • A scene from an AATAT productionFebruary 5, 2021

    Troupe dynamic

    UC Santa Cruz's African American Theater Arts Troupe, which is celebrating its 30-year anniversary, has not only staged plays but also taken up works that deal with issues of race, injustice, and discrimination; brought its performances into the community; and awarded more than $100,000 in scholarships.

  • Myriam Telus, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences, studies cosmochemistry,February 2, 2021

    Meteoric success

    Planetary scientist Myriam Telus, a NASA Planetary Science Early Career Award winner, reflects on her journey to UC Santa Cruz to study meteorites: Discovering her passion, seeking out mentors, and finding inspiration in the courage of civil rights movement leaders.

  • February 1, 2021

    Reform, abolition, and vision

    Organizer and prison industrial complex abolitionist Mariame Kaba to address Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation, which will be held virtually for the first time

  • John Sanders's fascination with the ocean began when he moved with his parents to Venice, February 1, 2021

    Alum inspires kids to create a personal relationship with nature

    John Sanders's fascination with the ocean began when he moved with his parents to Venice, Calif. Now he heads a hands-on, science education program in San Luis Obispo.