Historical Society offering several programs to celebrate Black History Month

QUINCY — The Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County is sponsoring several programs to celebrate February as Black History Month, including two lectures about civil rights advocates, an informal discussion following the American Heroes Bicentennial Speaker Series presentation and presentations for area youths which focus on the Underground Railroad.

The first presentation, “The Life of C.T. Vivian,” is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9, in the Quincy Senior and Family Resource Center. Byron Oden-Shabazz, president and founder of the C.T. Vivian Project of Macomb, will discuss Vivian, a prominent civil rights leader who was a graduate of Macomb High School and Western Illinois University.

Vivian, a close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., during the civil rights movement and also an author, was “the greatest preacher to ever live,” according to Barack Obama.

The second program, “American Heroes: Emma Coger and William Dallas,” will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12, at Mary Ellen Orr Auditorium on the John Wood Community College campus at 1301 S. 48th. Coger, who taught at Quincy’s Lincoln School, was a pioneer in the civil rights movement not by choice but by circumstance when she was involved in a discrimination lawsuit against an Iowa river packet company in the late 1800s. Dallas was Quincy’s first police officer of African descent and also the first black police officer in Illinois to fall in the line of duty.

Macey Ferguson-Smith and Justin Coffey will discuss Coger and Dallas, respectively. Ferguson-Smith is a Quincy Medical Group licensed clinical social worker. Coffey is a Quincy University professor of history.

This program is the second offering of the Bicentennial Speaker Series sponsored by JWCC and HSQAC during the bicentennial year.

On Thursday, Feb. 13, audience participants are also invited to attend a “Day After Discussion” at the Historical Society’s Visitor Center Lounge, 425 S. 12th, beginning at 9 a.m., where ideas can be exchanged about the American Heroes presentation and enjoy coffee and donuts.

Both programs and the “Day After Discussion” are free of charge and open to the public.

The society’s fifth-grade education program in February will be offered to Adams and Brown County public and parochial schools and will focus on the Underground Railroad with sessions scheduled at the History Museum on the Square at 332 Maine and at the Quincy Underground Railroad Museum (Dr. Richard Eells House) at 415 Jersey.

Further information is available at hsqac.org or by contacting the HSQAC Office at 217-222-1835.