The Center for Black Studies will host the African American Leadership Conference next week.

The coordinator for this event, Russell Hanes, a Center for Black Studies graduate assistant, indicated that while this event focuses on black students, it is open to all.

Hanes said this event is intended to uplift students because for the most part, instructors do not teach black history beyond the middle passage.

The theme of the conference will be “Rebirth of Black Conscious.”

“We [blacks] don’t get history in the education system that helps us take pride in being Africans living in America,” Hanes said.

The conference will start 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Holmes Student Center’s Duke Ellington Ballroom with a performance from the Black Theater Workshop and the Northern Black Choir. A poetry slam will follow those performances.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday at the student center’s Capitol Room, there will be a mass meeting for the Black Student Union that will entail a panel discussion about black images.

From 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, the Center for Black Studies will sponsor a reception. YoEl, Underground Books, will speak from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Capitol Room. Asa Hillard, who specializes in black thought, will speak at 7 p.m. in the Duke Ellington Ballroom about the thought process of blacks.

“I especially encourage students to see Dr. Hillard; he is amazing,” Hanes said. “He will give you totally different perspective and rearrange your whole frame of reference.”

Hanes also said Hillard will speak about black thought and how blacks still tend to think from a Eurocentric point of view.

At 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, April 4, Aaron McGruder, from Teen Summit and illustrator for the comic strip Boondocks, will speak in the Carl Sandburg Auditorium. The Black Alumni Reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. later that day in the Capitol Room.

For information on this week-long event, call the Center for Black Studies at 753-1709.