For the second year, Pitt will observe Juneteenth, which marks the date the last enslaved Black Americans were freed, with a University holiday on June 19.
The African Heritage Room Committee will celebrate Juneteenth with poets, musicians, playwrights, authors and actors from 1 to 3 p.m. June 17 at the Cathedral of Learning.
Presenters include:
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Sheila Carter-Jones, author of “Three Birds Deep,” which won the 2012 winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Book Award, and the chapbook “Blackberry Cobbler Song.”
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KL Brewer, poet, playwright, actor and co-founder of the Inner-tainment Live spoken word organization. He is the writer, director, and producer of the choreopoem, the Poets Corner, and a member of the Langston Hughes Poetry Society of Pittsburgh.
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Dessie Bey, author of three poetry books and editor of two anthologies. She is co-founder of the Langston Hughes Poetry Society of Pittsburgh; the principal organizer of “Slave Narrative Readings” for Pittsburgh and surrounding areas; and founder & curator of the African/African American Mobile Museum.
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Doralee Brooks, professor emerita at the Community College of Allegheny County in developmental studies, is a Madwoman in the Attic instructor for Carlow University. She has been a fellow of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (1995) and Cave Canem (1997 and ‘99).
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Lorraine Cross has been a member of the Langston Hughes Poetry Society of Pittsburgh since its inception in 2006. She participates in Slave Narratives Readings and has become well known for her vivid dramatization of the narrative of “Sarah Francis.”
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Veronica Corpuz, an interdisciplinary poet who explores themes of grief, loss and identity through mixed media and photography, is a member of the Madwomen in the Attic of Carlow University. She co-curates, with Sarah Williams Devereux, Mad Bookends, an e-journal of poetry, fiction and nonfiction by women writers of color.