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February 1

Event: ReelOut 2025 Film Festival

������Ƶ:  Celebrate the annual ReelOut queer film festival with three feature films starring Black Queer leads and a community discussion with Kingston’s Black Luck Collective (before/after Seraphim).

Featuring: Circo, Seraphim & We Forgot to Break Up

Time: 4 pm, 7 pm, 9:30 pm

Location: The Screening Room, 120 Princess Street, Kingston

Host(s): Reel Out Film Festival

Open to: All

Registration:

February 3

Event: Black Histories and Futures Month Opening Ceremony

������Ƶ: Join us for the 2025 Black Histories and Futures month campus kick-off event hosted by the Black Student Clubs Caucus in collaboration with the Human Rights & Equity Office, under the theme “Threads: Weaving Black Joy & Experiences at Queen’s.”  Connect and learn more about Black inclusion and thriving both on and off campus, featuring a panel discussion with students, staff, faculty, and local community members on “The Method to the Magic” of Black Joy at Queen’s. Stay after the panel for refreshments, networking and an exploration of this year’s BHFM Global Event Calendar, highlighting the spectacular suite of events and initiatives happening across Kingston this February.

Time: 12 – 2 pm

Location: 69 Union Street, DDQIC Rose Event Commons

Host(s): Queen’s Black Clubs Caucus and Human Rights & Equity Office

Open to: All

Registration:

February 4

Event: Queen’s Black Medical Student Association Opening Ceremony

������Ƶ: This event is intended to celebrate Black history within medicine and reflect on the importance of advocacy. The ceremony will feature faculty speakers Dr. Oyedeji Ayonrinde, Dr. Eugenia Piliotis, and Dr. Wiley Chung. There will also be several student performances, including a piano piece from our PGY-2 Psychiatry Resident Dr. Omer Hamour. Cultural food/refreshments will also be provided.

Time: 12:30 pm

Location: Atrium, School of Medicine, 15 Arch Street

Host(s): Queens Black Medical Student Association

Open to: All

Registration: N/A

February 5

Event: Limestone District School Board Black History Month Opening Ceremony

������Ƶ: This student led event is open to all LDSB students, staff, families, and community members.

Time: 4 – 6 pm

Location: 153 Van Order Drive, Kingston, LCVI

Host(s): Limestone District School Board

Open to: All

Registration: N/A

February 6

Event: Collage & Black History Month Trivia Night

������Ƶ: Collage and connect with new friends and win prizes during Black History Month Trivia. Materials will be provided. Email info@pedalworkscafe.com to pre-order snack boxes.

Time: 5:30 – 8 pm

Location: Pedal Works Café & Studios, 1412 Princess Street, Suite 101C, Kingston

Host(s): Pedal Works Café & Studios

Open to: All

Registration: (Admission $15)

February 7

Event: HYVE & Afia Beauty takeover of the Yellow House

������Ƶ: We are kicking off Black Histories and Futures Month with the Second Annual Hyve Takeover for Black students! Come by and check out Black student businesses, do an oil-making workshop with Afiya Beauty, and grab yourself a patty and Ting! Food and refreshments will be served.

Time: 12 – 7 pm

Location: 140 Stuart Street, Kingston

Host(s): HYVE, Afia Beauty, The Yellow House

Open to: All

Registration: N/A

Event: Entrepreneur Networking & Social with Micah Imomotebegha

������Ƶ: Connect with other industry professionals at the annual Pedalworks networking event, which features Micah Imomotebegha, a creative marketing professional specializing in digital transformation and strategy. As the lead for the Canada Digital Adoption Program at Kingston Economic Development, he helps local businesses improve their digital presence. With expertise in Management Information Systems and Digital Marketing Communications, Micah has worked with brands like Maybelline and Hennessy in Nigeria and supported businesses through Spark Creative Agency at St. Lawrence College.

Time: 4 – 7 pm

Location: Pedal Works Café & Studios, 1412 Princess Street, Suite 101C, Kingston

Host(s): Pedal Works Café & Studios

Open to: All

Registration: N/A

Event: Annual BHM Basketball Game

Time: TBD

Location: TBD

Event: Afri-centric Drumming Wellness Workshop

Time: 5 – 7 pm

Location: 817 Division Street, Kingston

Host(s): UMOJA, Family and Children Services Frontenac

Open to: All

Registration: N/A

Event: An Evening with Branford Marsalis

������Ƶ: The NEA Jazz Master and three-time Grammy Award-winner returns to the Isabel with his formidable quartet. From his initial recognition as a jazz performer, Branford Marsalis has expanded his vision as an instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and educator, crossing stylistic boundaries while maintaining an unwavering creative integrity. Marsalis formed his own quartet in 1986 and it remains his primary performance vehicle. Known for its unrivaled spirit in both live and recorded performances, the Branford Marsalis Quartet has long been recognized as the standard to which other ensembles of its kind must be measured.

Time: 7:30 pm (doors open at 7 pm)

Location: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, 390 King Street West, Kingston (inside Jennifer Velva Bernstein Performance Hall)

Host(s): Presented by Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts

Registration: Register Now (Ticket prices, $92-97)

February 8

Event: Black Business Expo

������Ƶ: Learn more about the diverse range of Black-owned businesses operating within the city of Kingston. Enjoy food, fun, and community networking opportunities.

Time: 12 – 4 pm

Location: Pedal Works Café & Studios, 1412 Princess Street, Suite 101C, Kingston

Host(s): Pedal Works Café & Studios

Open to: All

Registration: N/A

Event: Swimming In Circles Fashion Show

������Ƶ: Join us for an evening celebrating creativity, fashion, and the intersection of art and mental health. Featuring designs by talented Black creatives and a keynote speaker that will inspire and challenge perspectives, this is a night you won’t want to miss.

Time: 3:30 pm

Location: Grant Hall, 43 University Avenue

Host(s): Queen’s Black Fashion Association

Open to: All

Registration:

February 9

Event: Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat

������Ƶ: United Nations, 1960: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe, and the U.S. State Department swings into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup. Director Johan Grimonprez captures the moment when African politics and American jazz collided in this magnificent essay film, a riveting historical rollercoaster that illuminates the political machinations behind the 1961 assassination of Congo’s leader Patrice Lumumba. Richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.

Time: 1 pm

Location: The Screening Room, 120 Princess Street, Kingston

Host(s): Black Studies at Queen’s University

Open to: All

Registration:

February 13

Event: Black Writers Book Signing & Sale

������Ƶ: Support Black authors within Kingston at this year’s Black Writers Book signing & Sale event.

Time: 6 – 8 pm

Location: Pedal Works Café & Studios, 1412 Princess Street, Suite 101C, Kingston

Host(s): Pedal Works Café & Studios

Open to: All

Registration: N/A

February 15

Event: Old School Dance Party

������Ƶ: Celebrate Black History Month with an old school dance party! Fee includes a drink ticket and a raffle ticket for fun prizes.

Time: 8 pm – 12 am

Location: Pedal Works Café & Studios, 1412 Princess Street, Suite 101C, Kingston

Host(s): Pedal Works Café & Studios

Open to: All

Registration: ($15 in advance, $20 at the door)

Event: Tales of Transatlantic Freedom by Andrea Baker with Howard Moody

������Ƶ: Andrea Baker, one of the most prominent mezzo-sopranos of our times, collaborates with Howard Moody, an award-winning international composer. This performance will be a glorious exploration of Black musical heritage. Out of the pain of the diaspora narrative comes the richness of spirituals, jazz, blues, gospel, opera, and the songs of Robert Burns.

Time: 7:30 pm (doors open at 7 pm)

Location: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, 390 King Street West, Kingston (inside Principal Emerita Karen Hitchcock Recital Hall)

Host(s): Presented by Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts

Open to: All

Registration: Register Now (Tickets: $15 for Students, $40 for General and $37 for Staff/Faculty)

February 20

Event: Afri-centric Drumming Wellness Workshop

Time: 5 – 7 pm

Location: 817 Division Street, Kingston

Host(s): UMOJA, Family and Children Services Frontenac

Open to: All

Registration: N/A

February 21

Event: Step Afrika!

������Ƶ: Founded in 1994 by C. Brian Williams, Step Afrika! is the first professional company dedicated to the tradition of stepping. It blends percussive dance styles practiced by historically African-American fraternities and sororities; traditional African dances; and an array of contemporary dance and art forms into a cohesive, compelling artistic experience. Performances are much more than dance shows; they integrate songs, storytelling, humor and audience participation. The blend of technique, agility, and pure energy makes each performance unique and leaves the audience with their hearts pounding.

Time: 7:30 pm

Location: Kingston Grand Theatre, 218 Princess Street, Kingston

Host(s): Kingston Grand Theatre, Grand OnStage

Open to: All

Registration:

February 22

Event: Afro House Spinning Class Stretch & Social

������Ƶ: Join us on an indoor cycle ride to celebrate Black History Month! Music from Tekniq, Lizwi, Ismael Lo, Sona Jobarteh, and more! Ride for 30 minutes and stretch for 20, then hang out to socialize!

Time: 12 – 1 pm

Location: Pedal Works Café & Studios, 1412 Princess Street, Suite 101C, Kingston

Host(s): Pedal Works Café & Studios

Open to: All

Registration:

February 25

Event: Resistance in a Hostile Environment: Subnormal with Chichi Ayalogu

������Ƶ: In the 1960s, while young Black adults were coming to grips with the struggle for Black power and the long fight against police abuse was starting, the majority of West Indian migrants in Britain were keeping their heads down. They were working hard and counting on providing better opportunities and education for their children. However, in a white-dominated country, where the politics were becoming increasingly racialized, there was a question of how society, and its teachers, saw these young Black children. Before having a chance to develop intellectually, they were labelled as stupid, difficult, and disruptive. This documentary reveals how Black children in the 1960s and 70s were sent to schools for the subnormal, and how parents, activists, and teachers came together to fight this injustice.

A screening of this documentary for school groups will be followed by a discussion with Black Studies Predoctoral Fellow Chichi Ayalogu whose dissertation “Diasporic Witnessing: Crises and the Aesthetics of the Nigerian Migratory Intelligentsia” was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship.

Time: 1 pm

Location: Kingston Frontenac Public Library Central Branch, 130 Johnson Street, Kingston

Host(s): Black Studies at Queen’s University

Open to: Grades 5+ school groups

Registration: N/A

February 27

Event: Momodou Taal & Zubairu Wai: The Malcolm Effect

������Ƶ: To have encountered Malcolm X’s life is to be affected by his commitment to Justice — an effect that reverberates throughout one’s life. It’s so poignant an effect that one feels it over and over, always returning to those piercing questions put forward by Malcolm: “Who taught you to hate yourself?” and “How can you thank a man for giving you what’s already yours?”

In the spirit of Malcolm’s piercing questions and Momdou Taal’s The Malcolm Effect Revisited (now available for pre-order), Momodou Taal, host of the The Malcolm Effect podcast and a British-Gambian PhD student at Cornell University, joins Zubairu Wai, Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Development Studies at the University of Toronto, to reflect on topics ranging from African History, Black Internationalism, Gender, Islam, Marxism, Pan-Africanism, Political-Economy, Marxism, Race, and much more.

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: Queen’s University Campus, Miller Hall Room 105

Host(s): Black Studies at Queen’s University

Open to: All

Registration:

• Black Histories and Futures Month Opening Address.
• The Second Annual Reception, featuring international performer Tynomi Banks, hosted by the Human Rights and Equity Office in partnership with St. Lawrence College, Kingston Grand Theatre, and Grand OnStage.
• Africa: Within & Without Programming hosted by the ReelOut Film Festival with participation from Black Studies and Black Luck Collective.

• Opening ceremony featuring Black Youth leadership panel and poet Britta B.
• Inaugural Reception hosted by the Human Rights and Equity Office in partnership with St. Lawrence College, The Kingston Grand Theatre, and Grand Onstage. The event featured a post reception show “Freedom: The Spirit & Legacy of Black Music,” directed by Beau Dixon and Company, and coordinated by Grand Onstage.
• Black Screening and campus discussion of “Judas & The Black Messiah” hosted by the Human Rights and Equity Office and Yellow House Student Centre for Equity and Inclusion.

The origin of Black History Month can be found in the United States where historian, journalist, and author Carter G. Woodson initially developed a week dedicated to the history and accomplishments of Black Americans. That was in 1926. February was chosen because it was the month in which orator and author Frederick Douglas and former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, were born.

Black Histories and Futures Month is a relatively new approach to Black History Month. This new vision, introduced by Movement 4 Black Lives in 2015, facilitates the intentional action of looking at the past, acknowledging the struggles, and achievements, of Black communities, while promoting an equitable future, continued accomplishments, and a commitment to ongoing education.

In 1995, the House of Commons officially recognized February as Black History Month in Canada. The Senate adopted a motion in 2008, however, efforts were made long before those two dates to establish a month set aside for Black history. One of the earliest moments came in 1978 with the foundation of the Ontario Black History Society and their petition to the City of Toronto to proclaim February as Black History Month. The following year, the City of Toronto issued a proclamation, bringing the monthlong recognition to be in that city.