Highly engaging lecturer and author Rev. Dr. Cheryl Townsend Gilkes returns to the Worden Theater to speak for Black History Month and the Arts 2024. In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois published his classic The Souls of Black Folk where he used the sacred music of African Americans, "ten master songs," to shape the analytical foundations for interpreting their history and culture. In 1924, Du Bois expanded that analytical foundation with his lesser known but highly significant volume, The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America. In "The Singing Souls of Black Folk", Rev Dr. Gilkes uses Du Bois' analyses as a springboard to explore the role of African American music, sacred and secular, in the continued "making" of America and to highlight the importance of celebrating "the Arts" in the African American experience.

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes (Pronounced "Jillks") is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor Emerita of African-American Studies and Sociology at Colby College (Waterville, Maine). An ordained Baptist minister, she is an assistant pastor for special projects at the Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In addition to her book, If It Wasn't for the Women: Black Women's Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community, she has published articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes on race and ethnicity, the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, and African American religion.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the North Andover Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Mass Cultural Council.