Throughout February, San Antonio will celebrate the contributions of Black Americans in Texas and the United States with art exhibitions, author roundtables, film screenings, lectures and theatrical performances.
Below is a selection of Black History Month events in the San Antonio area. If you have an event you would like to add to the list, contact us at hello@sareport.org.
Film
The San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum will present the Thomas Keith film How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? at The Little Carver on Feb. 2 as part of its Black History Film Series. The film traces the cognitively dissonant phenomenon of how marginalized groups of people are mistreated in a nation that claims to value justice and equality. Admission is free with registration.
The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts hosts a free outdoor screening of Fences, starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis on Will’s Plaza Feb. 9. The film adaptation of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by August Wilson, explores the Black experience through the eyes of a Black garbage collector in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. Part of Wilson’s 10-part “Pittsburgh Cycle,” the play won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1987 Tony Award for Best Play.
Camp Founder Girls celebrates its 100th anniversary with a screening of the BETHer documentary Founder Girls at the Carver Community Cultural Center’s Jo Long Theatre on Feb. 10. The film traces the history and impact of the nature camp envisioned and brought to life by Mattie Landry in the 1920s to provide a safe space for Black girls. Admission is free with registration.
Theater
Catch the Classic Theatre’s production of Lorraine Hansberry’s seminal A Raisin in the Sun at the Cellar Theater at San Pedro Playhouse Feb. 8-25. The play explores the struggles and resilience of a family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s as they grapple with discrimination, economic hardship and the pursuit of their individual aspirations. Tickets are available on the Classic Theatre’s website.
Visual art
Solo exhibitions by Wardell Picquet and Alethia Jones run through Feb. 16 at the Carver Gallery. Picquet is a New Orleans native who has lived in San Antonio since being displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. His work focuses on pattern, texture and abstraction. Dallas native Jones has called San Antonio home since 2009, and her work focuses on spirituality, mental illness and lucid dreams.
Also, on view in the Carver Gallery this month is an exhibition of work by Calvin Pressley, a process-based artist primarily interested in exploring the interplay of color and surface. Pressley’s exhibition invites the viewer into his process by exhibiting works-in-progress not typically included in a finalized exhibition. The opening reception takes place Feb. 22 at 6 p.m. and the exhibition runs through March 29.
Art exhibitions at the Carver Community Cultural Center are free and open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
The San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department hosts its Black History Month in Conversation series this month at the Berta Almaguer Dance Studio and Community Center, featuring Maverick Pascal on Feb. 10, Deborah Harris on Feb. 17 and Barbara Felix and her muses on Feb. 24. All three talks are free and happen 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
The Berta Almaguer Dance Studio will also host Barrier Breakers in Medicine, a pop-up exhibition in collaboration with the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum featuring Black pioneers in medicine, from Feb. 20-24.
Literature
Gemini Ink is offering the workshop Unexplored Greats: A Study of Lesser-Known African American Authors with Arrie Porter Feb. 12 and Feb. 19. The workshop delves into work by writers outside of literary circles of fame — like Henry Dumas, Rita Dove, Lucille Clifton, Christopher Gilbert, Yusef Komunyakaa — who have contributed to Black literature.
Arrie Porter is a poet and fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Windward Review, Voices de la Luna, RiverSedge and The Thing Itself. Porter is a professor of English at Our Lady of the Lake University and a Gemini Ink teaching artist.
Enrollment in the hybrid course starts at $75 for veterans and goes up to $135 for non-members.
Briscoe Western Art Museum hosts its Storytime Stampede each month, featuring 30-minute programs designed for young children ages 18 months to 5 years. The Feb. 17 edition features Rap a Tap Tap: Here’s Bojangles — Think of That! by Leo and Diane Dillon, a children’s book about the life of a groundbreaking Black tap dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.
Admission to the Briscoe is free for children 12 and under, and adults accompanying kids to Storytime Stampede get half-off museum admission.
The San Antonio Book Festival presents journalist Michele Norris in conversation with Eric Castillo, associate vice chancellor for arts, culture and community impact for the Alamo Community Colleges District, at the Carver Center’s Jo Long Theatre on Feb. 26. As part of The Race Card Project, the Peabody Award-winning journalist posed the prompt: “Race. Your Story. Six Words. Please Send.” A half a million responses later, her book Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity reflects on those responses.
The event is free and open to the public, and Norris will sign books after the discussion.
Presentations
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Cheatom of the Bexar County Buffalo Soldiers Association (BCBSA) will lead a presentation at the Briscoe Western Art Museum on Feb. 18 featuring BCBSA members dressed in replica blue union Army uniforms worn by the Buffalo soldiers in the late 1800s sharing stories of an 1800s trail driver and the only recorded female Buffalo soldier, Cathay Williams. The event takes place from 1:30-3:30 p.m. and is included with museum admission.
