Check Out Freestyle Fridays at the Mary Lou Williams Center

If you only know one thing about the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture, it’s probably that it hosts live jazz every Wednesday. This year, the Mary Lou has taken that same relaxed vibe and created ‘Freestyle Fridays’- starting this semester, every Friday from 12 to 4pm the Mary Lou is hosting themed get-togethers featuring “fun, food and fellowship”.

This week’s theme was Bob Marley, in recognition of the Jamaican singer's birthday. The Mary Lou was filled with students enjoying Caribbean food, reggae music and Bob Marley trivia; just like Jazz nights, Freestyle Fridays have a casual environment where students can come to relax or meet friends.

Alec Greenwald, program coordinator for the Mary Lou Williams Center, brought the idea for Freestyle Fridays from an event he ran while teaching at Durham’s Hillside High School, but said that these Freestyle Fridays are much more informal.

“Freestyle Friday is designed to be light, fun programming that gets people to come together at the center,” Greenwald said.

Greenwald is very happy with the number of students Freestyle Fridays have been drawing, especially given that they are brand new. Attendance is growing steadily, he added.

Students there said that they had heard about the events through word of mouth or social media. Greenwald said that the Mary Lou uses Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to advertise the events and that they haven’t needed to put up any flyers.

Yasminye Pettway, who works at the Mary Lou Williams Center as an Ambassador, was enthusiastic about the events. She also said that she came to the Mary Lou last week when they hosted a Superbowl party.

Chandra Guinn, director of the Mary Lou Williams Center, added “We welcome anyone who wants to come, hang out, spend some time with friends or do work”.