As one of only a small number of blacks when he arrived at the UI in 1976, Michael Freeman was in culture shock.

But Freeman said he was given his first piece of advice at Orientation when one of only two black Orientation leaders pulled him aside as soon as she spotted him.

“She said to me, ‘Boy, let me tell you something. When you see somebody black, you better speak because it might be awhile before you see another one.’ And that’s the way it went,” Freeman said.

Freeman was the keynote speaker Sept. 18 at the rededication ceremony for the center. As a student, he joined several African American organizations at the UI and managed the Afro-American Cultural Center.

The rededication ceremony served as the opening event to a weekend of festivities for the 41st anniversary of the Afro-American Cultural Center and Alumni Celebration.

“It’s amazing to think that for decades, this small house, among all the large edifices here at the UI, represents a significant anchor to thousands of students,” Freeman said.

The celebration came after “months and months” of planning, said Katherine Betts, assistant director of diversity programs, and was financed by a $60,000 pool of funds received this year.

Each of the cultural centers will have a chance to use the funds over the next three years to host a reunion.

Despite standing for more than an hour in the buggy lawn last week, the crowd laughed and cheered at alumni reminiscences and some closed their eyes when Bill Nelson, Office of Student Life Director, read Sally Mason’s proclamation officially recognizing the rededication.

After tailgating in the afternoon and a late-night “Old Skool vs. New Skool” dance party Sept. 19, the Voices of Soul Inspirational Breakfast concluded the weekend on Sunday morning.

In addition to several speakers, the breakfast featured musical selections from the historically diverse Voices of Soul choir, a group that used to be entirely African-American.

For Steve Berry, a UI alumnus, it was the multicultural makeup of the entire weekend that showed something “beautiful.”

The sense of camaraderie between alumni made the weekend special, Freeman said.

“A lot of the people I saw this weekend, I hadn’t seen since I left Iowa,” he said. “It was phenomenal. It’s like we never left.”

But the same sense of unity is lacking somewhat among current African American students, Freeman said, echoing an idea from several speeches given throughout the weekend.

UI graduate student Alex Lodge agreed, and he hoped the weekend with alumni was be a chance for its re-growth.

“Putting that history out there and celebrating it is really a good starting point to rebuild on the unity that … we so desperately need for the campus as a whole,” Lodge said.

Lodge, whose solo vocal performance brought the crowd to its feet on Sunday, said the weekend — the dance party in particular — gave students an outlet besides Iowa City bars to “cut loose” in.

“As an African-American here on this campus, you really sometimes lose a sense of culture when you get kind of sucked into that scene,” Lodge said. “[The party] kind of showed a tradition of what may have been lost from things that alumni used to do in the past.”