Black Feminist Thought & Creative Expression
Focus Areas:
- Intersection of music, literature, and social change; women’s voices in contemporary arts.
Key Activities:
- Artist-in-Residence: Valerie June – Acclaimed singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.
- Featured Scholar: Alice Randall – Author, songwriter, and educator.
- Public concerts, interdisciplinary lectures, and creative writing workshops
Featured Artist and Scholar:
Black Country Music and the Art of Cultivating Community
March 2025 Concert
Valerie June is the second artist-in-residence of the Ann McIlhenny Harward Interdisciplinary Program for Culture and Music. June is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and three-time Americana Music Honors and Awards nominee. June and her band will perform in a free, open to the public concert as the culmination of a three-day residency at Gettysburg College that explores the theme of “Black Country Music and the Art of Cultivating Community.”
The free concert and residency are inspired by Ann McIlhenny Harward. Ann, Don’s late wife, was an accomplished musician at an early age who understood music’s transformative power. She grew up in the town of Gettysburg, where her father and two of her children graduated from Gettysburg College. Ann’s life was immersed in higher education and she appreciated the value of a liberal arts approach where learning happens across disciplines and through unique and transformative experiences.
Valerie June, whose “Call Me a Fool” was nominated for Best American Roots Song at the 2021 Grammy Awards, has performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series, Austin City Limits, as well as on live television for late night shows such as David Letterman, Seth Myers and Jimmy Kimmel. Not only is she a singer but is also a songwriter who has written for artist Mavis Staples and The Blind Boys of Alabama. She also advocates for music and arts education for children, and is a poet, certified yoga and mindfulness meditation instructor. As The New York Times wrote, "Valerie June has built a devoted following by ignoring expectations. She is simultaneously rural and cosmopolitan, historically minded and contemporary, idiosyncratic and fashionable, mystical and down-to-earth.”
To reserve your free ticket call 717-337-8200 or visit the Majestic Theater box office at 25 Carlisle Street, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
This concert is made possible by the Endeavor Foundation, and is sponsored by the Gettysburg College Office of the Provost, and the Ann McIlhenny Harward Program for Culture and Music at Gettysburg College.
“I’ll Cry for Yours, Will You Cry for Mine?” Reflecting on the history of Country Music in the shadow of Gettysburg
February 2025 Lecture
Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities
Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies
Vanderbilt University
Alice Randall is a New York Times best-selling novelist, award-winning songwriter, educator, food activist, and memoirist. A graduate of Harvard University, she holds an honorary doctorate from Fisk University, is on the faculty at Vanderbilt University, and credits Detroit’s Ziggy Johnson School of the Theater with being the most influential educational institution in her life. Widely recognized as one of the most significant voices in 21st century African-American fiction, she is the only Black woman in history to write both a number one Country song Trisha Yearwood’s (XXX’s and OOO’s) and an ACM video of the year Reba›s (Is There Life Out There?). My Black Country, braids Randall’s personal journey into a vivid telling of Black people’s four hundred year history making Country music in America. The companion album My Black Country the Songs of Alice Randall features superstars of modern Black Country including Rhiannon Giddens, Rissi Palmer, and Miko Marks.
