clay county histories
Markus Krueger | Program Director HCSCC
Now on www.youtube.com/@theHCSCC
Black history should be studied and celebrated all year round, but it takes center stage every February during Black History Month. Here are a few upcoming events that should not be missed.
The friends and fans of Dr. James Condell are in for some treats. Dr. Condell and his wife, Dr. Yvonne Condell, came to teach at Minnesota State University Moorhead in 1965. Yvonne was a globetrotting Biologist and advocate for women’s education while James was a psychologist and sociologist while moonlighting as a jazz guitarist and jazz scholar. James touched many lives before his passing in 1997. In an article in this paper last year, our museum asked for donations to pay licensing fees so we could play his music in our Stories of Local Black History exhibit, and the call was swiftly answered.
Our museum in collaboration with the University of Missouri – Kansas City, MSUM, and Dr. Yvonne Condell have released a concert of the James Condell Trio live in at the Seven Seas in Mandan, October 23, 1994. You can hear the free concert and learn more about Dr. Condell’s life by watching the video on our museum’s YouTube channel. I’m not too tech saavy, so I always search “HCSCC YouTube” to browse the videos. You’ll love it!
On March 14, from 5-7, our museum will be hosting a Dr. James Condell Jazz Night. Local jazz lovers will be excited to hear Max Johnk and Nick Gruber playing the music of Dr. Condell at the Hjemkomst Center. And while you’re here, you can see one of James Condell’s favorite guitars on display in the Ralph’s Corner Bar exhibit.
And speaking of Minnesota State University Moorhead, there will be a very exciting event on campus on February 27 at 7pm. In the late 1960s, four young men from St. Paul’s Rondo Neighborhood – Carl Griffin, Russel Balenger, Lewis Scott, and Readus Fletcher – came to Moorhead for college. All four went on to illustrious careers (Carl would say that Russell is “flunking retirement” by still serving on the St. Paul City Council). Now in their 70s, they started a multimedia joint memoir project that they call the Rondo Brothers of Moorhead. This month they will be returning to campus for a discussion about what it was like being Black college students in an overwhelmingly white town during these pivotal years in American history. I will tell you more about the Rondo Brothers of Moorhead in my next article here.
And mark your calendar for February 18 at the Plains Art Museum to see Fargo Got Talent. Okay, it’s not a history event, but the young people in the talent show are the future’s history makers, and the event is put on by a young leader of Fargo-Moorhead’s Black community that has already earned a spot in our local history. Frederick Edwards Jr. started a Juneteenth Celebration while he was a student at NDSU. After graduating, the youth educator and motivational speaker started Freds Dissonance, the organization behind Fargo-Moorhead community events like Juneteenth, Martin Luther King Day’s Umoja, Fargo Got Talent, and more.
Check the websites and social media of HCSCC, Freds Dissonance, and MSUM for more information and even more events!