NORRISTOWN >> In honor of Black History Month, the Greater Norristown NAACP branch is hosting a series of celebrations and relevant programming in the Norristown area. Our upcoming event will be an African- American History Film Festival. The festival will be held on Saturday February 17, 2018 at 1 p.m. at Mt. Zion AME Church located at 1312 Willow St. in Norristown.
Some of the films to be highlighted are “Ruby Bridges,” “Thurgood,” “Hidden Figures” And Lee Daniel’s “The Butler.”
The purpose of this unique event is to celebrate the rich and resilient past of African-Americans in the United States. There will be two categories of film, Children and Adults. The Film Fest Coordinator, Ernie Hadrick and his committee have selected well respected films that are designed to raise the level of social consciousness and increase community involvement in today’s struggles.
Moderators for the event will be Ronald W. Whitaker II PhD, Assistant Professor of Education and Co-Director of the Center for Urban Education and Improvement at Cabrini University and Angela N. Campbell, PhD Assistant Professor of Education Policy and Leadership and Assistant Dean of the School of Education at Cabrini University in Radnor.
Dr. Whitaker serves as the Director of District and School Relations, and Co-Director for the Center for Urban Education, Equity, and Improvement (CUEEI). Further, Dr. Whitaker is also an appointed Schouver Fellow in Improvement Inquiry at Duquesne University, a 2016 American Education Research Association (AERA) Asa Hilliard/Barbara Sizemore fellow, and a 2017 Black Theology Fellow at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Dr. Whitaker completed his Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership at Duquesne University, where he was also inducted into Phi Kappa Phi. At Duquesne, his dissertation work explored the intersection of Black male identity, racism, and institutional inequalities through the lens of social justice. He also earned a Master’s Degree in Education (M.S. Ed) from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (M.B.A.) from Eastern University and undergraduate degrees in Urban Leadership and Biblical Studies from Geneva College where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Dr. Campbell has published and presented scholarly papers on African American and Latina experiences in adolescent rites of passages in Freedom Schools, and serves as an internal peer reviewer for the Anthropology of Education Quarterly journal. She earned a doctorate in urban education from Temple University with an emphasis on the social context of education and adolescent gender identity development; a master’s in speech communication and rhetoric from University of Maryland at College Park; and a bachelor’s in human communication and sociology from La Salle University.
The day promises to be enlightening and uplifting for all participants. Everyone is invited to attend this uplifting family experience.
