The Office of Student Life and Diversity is hosting an exhibit during Black History Month which is open to the public.

The event is the Black History 101 Mobile Museum on Feb. 21 at the TVCC Cafeteria Conference Room on the Athens campus.

The museum is set to open from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., with a lecture and question and answer session from noon until 1 p.m.

The exhibit is founded by Dr. Khalid El-Hakim, who will be making the trip to Athens to take part in the event according to Audrey Hawkins, Director of Student Life and Diversity.

“My first exposure to the Black History 101 Mobile Museum was during my appointment as a National Advisory Council Member for the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education,” Hawkins said.

“The traveling collection, at that time, was displayed in New Orleans, Louisiana. It documented the saga of African-American history and culture in a way that evoked a visceral reaction for me. I found it emotionally powerful as I viewed the rare and authentic artifacts that chronicled the arduous journey of African-Americans.”

The museum is an award-winning collection of over 10,000 original artifacts of Black memorabilia dating from the trans-Atlantic slave trade era to hip-hop culture. 

According to their website, Dr. El-Hakim has been called the “Schomburg of the Hip-Hop generation” because of his passionate commitment to carry on the rich tradition of the Black Museum Movement.  

The website states that as the nation's premiere Black history traveling exhibit, the Black History 101 Mobile Museum has visited 40 states sharing “our story” at over 500 institutions reaching tens of thousands of visitors in diverse spaces including colleges, K-12 schools, corporations, conferences, libraries, museums, festivals, religious institutions and cultural events.

Dr. Khalid El-Hakim has received national and international attention for his innovative work of exhibiting Black history outside of traditional museum spaces. 

According to his bio, he was most recently given the honor of being named among the Change Makers for NBC Universal’s Erase the Hate campaign and was one of the 100 Men of Distinction for 2017 in Black Enterprise magazine. 

In 2013, he published The Center of the Movement: Collecting Hip Hop Memorabilia, a groundbreaking book on the material artifacts of hip-hop culture. 

Dr. El-Hakim has also worked for over twenty years in the hip hop industry as a manager and/or booking agent for artists such as The Last Poets, Proof of D12, Jessica Care Moore, and Professor Griff of Public Enemy. 

Dr. El-Hakim taught middle school social studies in Detroit for 15 years and recently founded the Michigan Hip Hop Archive which opened on the campus of Western Michigan University in 2020.