General Public

Collective Consciousness Theatre and Kulturally LIT have partnered to present a reading of James Baldwin’s play Blues for Mister Charlie at the Beinecke Library this Summer.

Join Descendants of the CT 29th Colored Regiment for their 9th Annual Juneteenth Festival on Saturday, June 22nd. The social wellness of all people of color is the inspiration of this year’s theme – Pan Africanism: Unified by History, Connected in Culture, and Focused on the Future.

To mark Independence Day 2024, the Beinecke Library continues its tradition of public readings on July 5 at 4pm on the library mezzanine of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, and of the oration by Frederick Douglass given on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, in which he asked: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”

A Contemporary Wind Octet Expedition through the expressions of James Baldwin

Shining Light on Truth presents evidence of the essential role of enslaved and free Black people in New Haven and at Yale. It celebrates Black resistance and community building. And it illuminates knowledge kept alive in archives and memory for more than three centuries—even when the dominant culture chose to ignore, bury, or forget.

From May 13-15, 2024, Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s third conference on the Black sacred arts will convene scholars and artists in New Haven, CT to explore connections between the Black sacred arts, ecology, and environmental concerns.

Keynote speakers will include Tracey Hucks, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Dianne M. Stewart, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Emory University.

From May 13-15, 2024, Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s third conference on the Black sacred arts will convene scholars and artists in New Haven, CT to explore connections between the Black sacred arts, ecology, and environmental concerns.

Keynote speakers will include Tracey Hucks, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Dianne M. Stewart, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Emory University.

From May 13-15, 2024, Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s third conference on the Black sacred arts will convene scholars and artists in New Haven, CT to explore connections between the Black sacred arts, ecology, and environmental concerns.

Keynote speakers will include Tracey Hucks, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Dianne M. Stewart, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Emory University.

In celebration of its 50th anniversary, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music will hold an ecumenical hymn festival in Woolsey Hall on May 5, 2024, at 4 p.m. A community choir of 300 voices will sing hymns around the theme “All Creation Sings,” celebrating the diversity of our creation and our duty as faithful people to care for it. The audience will be invited to join in with hymns such as Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, Just as I am, and All Creatures of our God and King.

Join us for an evening celebrating the music of Richard Smallwood, curated by Donald Lawrence and hosted by Braxton Shelley. Gospel luminaries Tramaine Hawkins, Karen Clark Sheard, BeBe Winans, The Walls Group, John Holiday, and Joseph Joubert will join forces with Smallwood’s ensemble Vision and a New Haven-area community choir to resound some of the most treasured pieces of contemporary gospel music, including “Angels,” “Bless The Lord,” “Secret Place,” “Thank You,” and “Total Praise.”

This event is sold out, but will be livestreamed.