Under the baobab: Celebrate Juneteenth, new Palmer Museum this month in Happy Valley
The Penn State College of Art and Architecture opened its magnificent new art center, the Palmer Museum, at the Arboretum last weekend. The museum’s director, Erin Coe, welcomed PSU President Neeli Bendapudi, Dean B. Stephen Carpenter II and others to the ribbon cutting. The museum then welcomed a flood of hundreds of visitors who were feted with free lemonade, tea, cookies and of course, Creamery ice cream.
The new museum has over twice the capacity of the old site, with 15 permanent galleries displaying American, African, and Asian art, also contemporary studio glass, ceramics, European Old Master paintings, sculptures and paper works. The museum’s design blends beautifully into the nearby Arboretum. The skillfully curated exhibits are culturally and artistically diverse. Open spaces inside and outside create a stimulating aesthetic, while providing unique expanded opportunities for community. As Coe stated, “The Palmer’s new museum will greatly expand on a track record that serves our local and regional communities and student populations while connecting these audiences to and with each other in new ways.”
Also happening this month is Juneteenth. The newest federal holiday was officially adopted by President Biden in 2021. It is also the oldest African American holiday, which “celebrates, educates and agitates” about the end of slavery. Also called Emancipation Day, Junteenth commemorates the event in 1865 after the end of the Civil War, when Union Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas.
For the fifth year State College will celebrate Juneteenth with a block party on 100 Fraser Street and the MLK Plaza on Saturday, June 15, between noon and 6 p.m. This event was founded by the State College NAACP, Borough of State College, the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State and The Happy Valley Adventure Bureau. There will be a commemorative art exhibition at the Woskob Family Gallery on Allen Street that opens on Friday, June 14, at 6 p.m.
Outside Happy Valley
The New Horizon Theatre Company’s production of “Blues is the Roots, the Willie Dixon Story” has been invited to the International Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem North Carolina this summer. The show will be presented Aug. 2-3 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Salem College Eberson Fine Arts Center. The play, written by myself and directed by PSU-MFA grad Herbert Newsome, premiered at the New Horizon Theatre Company in Pittsburgh this past winter. The musical presents the story of the Chicago blues sound developed by Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters while at Chess Records. Plans are in process to present the musical at the Chicago Blues Festival and NYC next year.
Stori Ayers is another PSU-MFA grad who is having great success outside of Happy Valley. She is starring in her first Broadway show, “Home,” which opened this past Thursday at the Roundabout Theatre on 42nd Street. She performs brilliantly. Other cast members are Tory Kittles, who stars in TV’s “Equalizer” with Queen Latifah, and Brittany Inge, also making her Broadway debut. “Home” was directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon. The play was written by friend and colleague, the late Samm-Art Williams, who passed peacefully this last May, a couple of days before the show previewed. It was first produced in 1979 by Negro Ensemble Company, my theatrical home for several years. Its first Broadway revival is wonderful, joyous production and relevant to our current times while historically resonating the world from which we came.
And President Biden joined 25 other heads of states in France to pay honor to those troops who survived and those who died on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day 80 years ago. The continuation of our democracy is rooted in their sacrifice. What we ask of them we should expect no less of ourselves. God bless our troops.
Charles Dumas is a lifetime political activist, a professor emeritus from Penn State, and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. Congress in 2012. He was the 2022 Lion’s Paw Awardee and Living Legend honoree of the National Black Theatre Festival. He lives with his partner and wife of 50 years in State College.
