Celebrate Black History Month 2025 with the CALS Roberts Library

Throughout February, and all year long, you can engage with Black history in many ways with the Central Arkansas Library System.

Black Family Expo

CALS community engagement coordinator Jessica McDaniel and community outreach archivist Danielle Afsordeh organized the first Black Family Expo at the Josephine Pankey Community Center for Black History Month in 2023, and it was held again in 2024. And the 2025 event is coming right up!

The Black Family Expo was created to provide community members with a place to share their family history. In its inaugural year, the event gave up to ten families, as well as organizations with ties to the Black community, the opportunity to display photographs, share historical memorabilia, and tell their stories. In its second year, we added a souvenir photographer and a frame craft for attendees.

With over 150 participants each year, the event has been a great success, but we’ve outgrown the space.

This year, the expo moves to the Dunbar Community Center, where it will take place on Saturday, February 1, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., to kick off Black History Month. From 12:00 to 2:00 p.m., we will offer souvenir family photographs and provide supplies for attendees to paint a frame for their photo.

CALS Roberts Library staff will assist any attendees with digitizing up to five items (family documents, photographs, and slides) at the Mobile Memory Lab station. One flash drive will be provided for each family that participates. Learn more about the Memory Lab.

No registration is required to attend, and we’ll be doing giveaways throughout the event.

To reserve a table to display your family memorabilia and share your history, please call community outreach archivist Danielle Afsordeh at 501.320.5726. There are currently two tables still available.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Other Events

Our Legacies & Lunch program (currently hosted at UA Little Rock Downtown and also available virtually) on Wednesday, February 5, noon-1:00 p.m., will feature a panel discussing the history and impact of First Missionary Baptist Church, which is celebrating its 180th anniversary this year.

On Wednesday, February 5, 6:30-7:30 p.m., join Danielle Afsordeh at the CALS Fletcher Library for a talk about Little Rock’s historically Black communities, including Dunbar, Pankey, and Granite Mountain.

Interested in Black foodways? Afsordeh will be at the CALS Terry Library on Monday, February 24, 6:00-7:30 p.m., to discuss Arkansas’s Black foodways and will lead a vegan cooking session with Utopia Deli.

Later that week, at the CALS Terry Library, on Thursday, February 27, 11:00 a.m. to noon, Jobe from the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas will discuss Black Arkansas artists.

And at 3:30-4:30 p.m. on three Tuesdays in February—Feb. 11, 18, and 25—you can also catch Jobe at the CALS Sanders Library for a kids and teens program focused on Black Arkansans in business, music, and science.

Art

There are also various displays across the system celebrating Black Arkansans, including art exhibitions and exhibits at the CALS Roberts Library and throughout CALS’s locations.

The exhibition From the Vault: A Survey of the CALS Art Collection will be on display at the CALS Roberts Library’s Underground Gallery throughout the winter and spring, with some additions to mark Black History Month.

Throughout February, From the Vault will feature artworks by Black artists in the CALS art collection, including prints, paintings, and drawings by Kevin Cole, Perrion Hurd, Ariston Jacks, Louise Mandumbwa, and Delita Martin, as well as early artworks by AJ Smith and Marjorie Williams Smith.

Also on display will be works by Terry Brewer, John Deering, and Kevin Kreese depicting Black Arkansans.

More art from the CALS Permanent Collection can be seen throughout the thirteen CALS library locations. Works by the following Black artists can be viewed at branch libraries throughout the system: Children’s Library: Equilla Marie Walker; Maumelle Library: Henri Linton; McMath Library: Angela Johnson; Mille Brooks Library: Kevin Kresse; Rooker Library: Adaja Cooper; Thompson Library: John Deering and Henri Linton; and Williams Library: Alice Ayers, Adaja Cooper, CC Mercer, and Kevion Williams.

Catch up with all the winter art happenings in the recent blog post Winter Art Exhibitions and Experiences at CALS. Visit the CALS website (opens in new window) for Roberts Library visiting information (opens in new window).

Activities for Kids

The 2025 edition of our popular Black History Month coloring book is hot off the presses!

Print pages yourself at the Student Activities section of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas website or pick one up at any CALS location while supplies last.

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There’s plenty to do at CALS during Black History Month, and the Roberts Library team hopes to see you there!

Danielle Afsordeh is community outreach archivist at the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies/Roberts Library.