ASMSA to open Café series
Anthony Cohen, a noted Underground Railroad historian, will open the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts’ Science and Arts Café series on Thursday.
Cohen will present a lecture titled “Unshackling History: Recreating Experiences from American Slavery” at 7 p. m. at the Superior Bathhouse Brewery, 329 Central Ave.
The appearance is sponsored through a grant from the Wagner Foundation. He will also speak at a student assembly at the school that day.
Cohen is a fourth- generation descendant of a runaway slave. His talk will recount his experiences re- enacting the Underground Railroad, including his journey inside a wooden crate to mail himself to “freedom.”
Cohen embarked on a twomonth journey in Sandy Spring, Md., in 1996 that took him 1,200 miles by foot, boat and rail to his final destination in Amhertsburg, Ontario, Canada, according to the website for The Menare Foundation.
The foundation was founded by Cohen in 2000 to preserve the Underground Railroad’s history. He took a second journey in 1998, traveling from Mobile, Ala., to Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
In 1997, Cohen helped prepare Oprah Winfrey for her role as Sethe in the film “Beloved.” Winfrey spent two days living as a fugitive on a simulated Underground Railroad.
The Menare Foundation offers a variety of experiential education programs, lecture series, heritage tours and workshops for schools, community groups, corporations and other organizations at the Button Farm Living History Center in Seneca Creek State Park in Germantown, Md. The farm is dedicated to depicting 19th century slave plantation life.
The Science and Arts Café events will be presented in a relaxed atmosphere that will encourage those in attendance to participate in a discussion after the presentation.
Admission is free, but seating is limited. Future events are planned for March, April and May.
Anne Greenwood, ASMSA Humanities Department chair, and Brian Monson, ASMSA Science Department chair will present, “Painted Light: The Art and Science of Color” on March 13.
A program by Beth and Jim Gourley, “Shooting Beijing’s China Central Television Building ( CCTV): Using Photographs of an Architectural Icon to Benefit Tibetan Education” will be held on April 10.
Beth Gourley is ASMSA’s librarian and spent several years as a staff member in an Englishlanguage school in China.
Jim Luba, an ASMSA chemistry instructor, will present “The Pharmaceutical Industry and You” on May 8.
Luba’s doctorate is in pharmacology. Prior to becoming an instructor at ASMSA, Luba worked as a researcher at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Florida School of Medicine in the area of mechanistic enzymology.