Free! This event will be a webinar.

Free!

We are hosting a webinar on Anti-Racism in the Arts on Wednesday, April 21, 2021 at 6:30pm. This is a community conversation about holding white-led arts organizations accountable to anti-racist work in the arts in Athens County. This event will feature keynotes from Ada-Woodson Adams and Charles Smith.

Ada-Woodson Adams
Ada-Woodson Adams was born and raised in Nelsonville, Ohio. She earned a Bachelors of Science in education from Ohio University. In addition to her studies, she was also an active participant in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in 1963 and 1964, a teacher, a grocery department manager, a grocery store owner, a mother of two, and a widow of Alvin C. Adams, Jr. In fact, Ohio University was generous enough to name a residence hall after Alvin C. Adams.

Ada has been a community volunteer for over 20 years, helping to start the Multicultural Genealogical Center located in Chesterhill, Ohio and the Mount Zion Baptist Church Preservation Society. She has served on nonprofit boards including the Athens County Foundation, the Athens County Library, the Southeast Ohio History Center, and the Federal Valley Resource Boards. She was also the co-founder of the Ohio University Community and Campus Days, which is no longer an active event. Through her years as a volunteer, Ada has received many awards for her efforts and made a host of friends.

Overall, Ada plays a major role in the community, preserving and amplifying the history of America and of Black Americans whose voices too often have gone unheard. She plans to speak about the art of living as a Black American in a country that has never considered one human, let alone deserving of the rights of American democracy.

Charles Smith
Charles Smith is a Distinguished Professor Emeriti at Ohio University where he was head of the MFA Playwriting Program for many years. He has also taught playwriting at Northwestern University, for the Prague Summer Program in Creative Writing in the Czech Republic, and for the Center for Dramatic Art in Groznjan, Croatia. His plays have been produced in Off-Broadway, in Australia, and at theatres in the United States from New York to Los Angeles. Awards include the Joyce Award, NBC New Voices Award, The Cornerstone Award, The Edgerton New Play Award, The National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, Theodore Ward National Playwriting Award, Illinois Arts Council Governors Award, multiple Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards, and numerous other Emmy, Joseph Jefferson, NAACP, AUDELCO, Ovation, and Black Theatre Alliance awards and nominations. His work may be obtained through Northwestern Press, Samuel French, Dramatic Publishing, Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., Swallow Press, and other publishers.