In 1925, 450,000 tons of rock was dynamited from the side of a Northern Rockies mountainside in South Dakota. The result: a National Park Service monument featuring 60-foot heads of former U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln—also known as Mount Rushmore.
Now fast-forward 85 years, to a thriving urban college, BMCC, serving over 22,000 students and ranking among the highest, nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Education, in awarding degrees to African American students. Along the walls of the College’s main entrance, among the colorful signage and rotating artwork, you’ll see something new, a poster honoring African American heritage and reminiscent of Mount Rushmore—with some timely changes.
African Heritage Month: creating a new image
BMCC is celebrating African Heritage Month 2010 with performances including that of Bluesman Guy Davis, who transports his audience to a front porch on a Southern swamp, and Meeting Belle da Costa Greene, the work of playwright Sheila Evans, and part of Loving The Harlem Renaissance.
Another event, an Art Gallery Opening Reception on February 17, 3:00 to 5:30 p.m., in the Theater 1 Breezeway at the College’s main campus, 199 Chambers Street, features the work of BMCC student and illustrator Sheldon Porter, who created a poster for the month’s events—an adaptation of Mount Rushmore, featuring historical and political leaders Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, and Malcolm X.
A solid foundation
The theme of this year’s African Heritage Month events, “Standing on a Solid Foundation,” invites the BMCC community to reflect on the groundwork they’re putting in place, as they focus their dreams through academic majors in over 27 fields.
Though his art stands strong today, Sheldon Porter didn’t always feel as confident in his ability to tell stories with images, as well as words. After graduating from New York’s High School of Art & Design, he held what he describes as “stepping-stone jobs” over the next couple decades.
“I was never able to support myself through my art,” he recalls. “I’d see coworkers going to college, but never felt that I could afford to invest that much time myself.” Overcoming a concern that his age—he’s in his mid-forties—would be counted against him, Porter enrolled as a Writing and Literature major at BMCC, and was heartened by the support he found, from students as well as faculty who “make it clear that if you take your studies seriously, they’ll respond in kind.”
With a 4.0 GPA and on track to graduate in 2010, Porter has reason to celebrate the heritage he’s creating not just for himself, and his young daughter—but for students facing a different world of economic challenges, than when he was starting out. “I want to look back and feel that I did everything I could in my life,” he says. “BMCC is helping me get there.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Watch and read about Sheldon Porter’s work, in an earlier BMCC news article.
