Sweet Briar College begins its celebration of Black History Month at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 6 with “Walk and Talk: A Guided Tour of the Sweet Briar Plantation Cemetery.”

The one-mile, hour-long walk will be led by Lynn Rainville, SBC assistant professor of anthropology. The activity is free and open to the public.

Rainville, who has a Ph.D. in near eastern anthropology/archaeology from the University of Michigan, has studied African-American cemeteries in Amherst and Albemarle counties since 2002 and historic New England cemeteries since 1991.

In mid-November, the plantation cemetery was featured in several area newspapers when University of Tennessee graduate student Palmyra Moore brought ground-penetrating radar to Sweet Briar.

The goal was to use the device, which resembled a baby jogger rigged with geomagnetic hardware, to get a better idea of how many people are buried in the graveyard. Based on visible above-ground markers and depressions in the soil, Rainville has estimated there could be as many as 60 graves.

Results from the GPR study are pending.

For the walk, participants should meet in front of Sweet Briar House and wear walking shoes, as conditions may be muddy or icy.

Rainville also will give a lecture titled, “African American Cemeteries in Amherst County” at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 20 in the EB Room on the lower level of Dew Hall. The talk is open to the public and admission is free.

“The lecture presents the results of a multi-year study of historic African American cemeteries,” Rainville said. “Graveyards provide us with information about more than death and dying. Gravestone inscriptions and cemetery landscapes also provide a window into the history of African Americans in Amherst County.

“In this talk I discuss how we can learn about family history, antebellum genealogy, historic churches, and religious beliefs from cemeteries. I also illustrate how interested individuals can study their own family cemeteries and record important information for future generations.”

For more information on Rainville’s tour or lecture, e-mail lrainville@sbc.edu .

The following events also are open to the public.

"Soul Food Dinner and a Movie" will begin at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 7 in the Johnson Dining Room in Prothro Hall. The title of the movie has not yet been determined, but the most important detail – the soul food menu – has.

Crafted by Sweet Briar’s own Melvin Jones, this year’s menu includes enough comfort food to make the biggest movie buffs think, “Movie? What movie?” as they head back for seconds.

Jones, whose cooking talents were featured last year in the Lynchburg News and Advance, will prepare barbecued short ribs, fried chicken, collard greens, pinto beans, corn pudding, macaroni and cheese, candied yams, spoon bread, apple cake, sweet potato pie, banana pudding and shoo-fly pie.

Cost of dinner is $6.75 for guests, $3.50 for ages 3 to 11; $5.50 with a Sweet Briar ID, $2.75 for ages 3 to 11. The movie will begin at 7 p.m.

For more information, call co-curricular life at 381-6134.

At 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 15, Dianne Swann-Wright will present a lecture titled, “Other Folks’ Children and Things: Black Women’s Work Traditions in Virginia” in the Boxwood Room at the Florence Elston Inn and Conference Center.

The lecture uses artifacts to evoke the role of African-American women in the domestic workplace. The event is free and open to the public.

Swann-Wright is guest curator for the Legacy Museum’s two-part exhibit “Deep in My Heart: The Rise of Jim Crow in Virginia, 1865-1954” and founding curator of the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park in Baltimore.

In addition, she is the former director of African-American programs at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello and has worked as a historian for the Monticello Oral History Project and the Maryland Commission on African American history and Culture.

For more information contact Christian Carr, director of the Sweet Briar Museum, at 381-6246 or ccarr@sbc.edu .

Sweet Briar’s annual Gospel Fest will begin at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 25 in Memorial Chapel. The event brings together about a dozen of the area’s best choirs and singers, and has been called a “joyous, foot-stomping, moving experience.”

The event is organized by Sweet Briar’s chaplain’s office. “It’s most appropriate that this is an event centered on Black History Month because it highlights a very important part of the African American experience and that is the important role of the faith community and its music,” Chaplain Adam White said.

This year’s program includes, among others, Derrick Thompson, Youth for Truth, Spirit, Saint Mark Mass Choir, Pearlie G. Sandidge, Ameka Cruz, and Scott Zion’s Men’s Chorus.

The concert is open to the public and admission is free. Snow date is March 4. For more information, contact the chaplain’s office at richeson@sbc.edu or 381-6103.

At 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, Jennifer Crispen, SBC associate professor of physical education and field hockey coach, will present a lecture, “Black Athletes and the Golden Era” in the classroom at Williams Gymnasium.

Crispen, who teaches “Introduction to Women’s Sports and Culture” at Sweet Briar, says her lecture will “address the triumphs of Tennessee women runners, Wilma Rudolph and others, and the transition into black power protests [and] exploitation.”

For more information, contact Crispen at crispen@sbc.edu or 381-6338.

– By Suzanne Ramsey, SBC staff writer