February is often a time of reflection on the contributions of African Americans to this country but according to a former Slippery Rock University biology professor Dr. Thomas Gaither, Black History Month is much more, “February historically has been labeled Black History Month. I don’t quite like the title because everything that has happened to black people in this country has also happened to white people so really it should be called American history that we are concentrating on during the month.”
Gaither will be giving a presentation Thursday beginning at 7 p.m. in room 304 of the Smith Student Center at SRU. Gaither, along with eight other men known at the Friendship Nine, were arrested and charged in 1961 with trespassing during a sit-in protest at a South Carolina lunchroom.
Following a sentence of 30 days of hard labor, Gaither spent 39 years teaching biology at Slippery Rock beginning in 1968. For all the racism still present in today’s society, Gaither continues to hold onto hope for the future.
“We have to have hope for the future. The one thing that we must keep alive is hope that that we will become more honest in our conversations and our dealings with each other and we will really be able to move to a society that is more united and more just than the one that we currently live in,” Gaither explained.
Thursday’s presentation is made possible by SRU’s arm of the Frederick Douglass Institute as well as the University’s Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Leadership team.
Written by Ryan Saeler