Tickets are now on sale for a conversation on ATL Streetwear at the High Museum on January 8, moderated by Kenny Burns, and featuring Marina Skye, founder of Set by Skye; Renaldo Nehemiah, Creative Director at wish; and Kwassi Byll-Cataria, owner of Moda404 Men’s Boutique. Learn about the trajectory and trends of Atlanta streetwear and how @virgilabloh fits into the story.
Morehouse College of Music. Photo: Ali’a B. Edwards
Written by: Ali’a B. Edwards
The Africana Music Experience was a delightful live music event held Tuesda, November 19 at the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center on the campus of Morehouse College. I attended the concert to feel connected and inspired by the music of my African heritage, with the hope of experiencing a spontaneous wave of creativity that would flow from the musicians through the audience and into me. The program did not disappoint my hopes and provided me many moments of sonically-inspired pleasure.
The Morehouse College Glee Club gained at least one new fan as a result of their performance. I’m proud to count myself among their new and continuing admirers. Before they gave their ovation-worthy performance, the Morehouse College Afro Pop Ensemble with Special Guests did a wonderful rendition of Fela Kuti’s “Water Get No Enemy.” With far fewer players than in Kuti’s renowned, dozens deep bands, the sound they created filled the hall with musical goodness.
The Ensemble set the arc of the concert that the Morehouse College Glee Club followed with “Betelehemu” by Olātúnji. Their choreography was bold and powerfully performed and their acapella song was done in perfect pitch, tone and harmony. Kudos to the directors of these fine ensembles.
The show finale brought us dozens of kalimba players who formed the Kalimba Ensemble, together with the Morehouse College Quartet and the aforementioned groups performing a traditional song, “Lithisikiya.” As a new loyal fan, I will be attending future live music events produced by the Morehouse College Division of Creative and Performing Arts and encourage fellow ATLiens and visitors to join the audience at your next opportunity.
Lake Charles, Louisiana is home to the Black Heritage Festival of Louisiana. It began in 1987 when Mrs. Cynthia May and Mrs. Virginia C. Riley combined a play written by Mrs. Riley with the activities of a festival for the community.
In 2001 the Black Heritage Festival of Louisiana opened the Black Heritage Gallery. Today, the Gallery continues to “lead a diverse audience in discovering African American artist and to nurture artists at all stages of their careers.”
On December 6, 2019 The Black Heritage Gallery will unveil a new exhibit “Remembering the Help, Celebrating their Service”. Curator, Stella Miller shared the exhibit will examine the history and cultural significance of mid 20th Century African American domestic workers.
“The Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip-Hop” written by Carter G. Woodson Book Award, NAACP Image Award, and Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People award recipient Carole Boston Weatherford is currently the theme in Auburn Avenue Research Library’s Children’s Gallery.
Published in January 2019, “Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip-Hop” features a forward written by Swizz Beatz.
On display, illustrations by Frank Morrison.
Frank Morrison illustrated “Roots of Rap”. Morrison began his journey as a graffiti artist in New Jersey. According to his website, Morrison used his paintings to produce memoirs “of our life and times today.” “My work dignifies the evolution of everyday, underrepresented people and places within the urban landscape. I seek to both highlight and preserve the soul of the city through the lens of hip-hop culture and urban iconography.”
Morrison’s work has been shown at Art Basel, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and is part of private art collections owned by athlete Derek Jeter, Jordan Peele, and the late Peggy Cooper-Cafritz just to name a few.
“Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip-Hop” on display at Auburn Avenue Research Library’s Children’s Gallery
Auburn Avenue Research Library visitors can see Morrison’s work on view in the Library’s Children’s Gallery now through March 1, 2020. $Free.
The Anacostia Community Museum, located in Southeast Washington and one mile from Frederick Douglass’s home, hosted its grand reopening celebration on Saturday, October 12th after a seven-month-long, $4.5 million renovation. The renovation adds new greenery, seats, lights, and murals to make the museum more communal. It was also the reopening of “A Right to the City,” a photo exhibit highlighting the economic and landscape changes of six DC neighborhoods – Adams Morgan, Anacostia, Brookland, Chinatown, Shaw, and Southwest – over five-plus decades. A Right to the City” is on view at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum through April 20, 2020.
Washington, DC has experienced the highest intensity of gentrification of any U.S. city in the 21st century, which forced most of the city’s low-income black and Latinx populations to relocate to the far north- and southeastern neighborhoods or into DC’s suburbs. Add the preceding years between the post-1968 riots in response to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and the crack era of the 1990s which saw many middle-class blacks moving to the suburbs at an annual rate of 1 percent of DC’s population, A Right to the City gives a look into what got the ball rolling long before contemporary audiences came to know the G-word.
Each neighborhood featured in the exhibit tells the oft-heard history of each, along with the moments created by local heroes known only by those who lived through these times or culture-keepers. Visitors can also listen to stories from Washingtonians about this bygone era. Here are some key takeaways for those least familiar with DC’s history:
Adams Morgan
The Adams Morgan Organization was founded in 1972 by several neighborhood advocates and took up the mantle of self-government and community control.
The New Thing Art & Architecture Center was established in 1967 by Collin “Topper” Carew. It was here, young people took classes in creative writing, photography, painting and drawing, filmmaking, and African drum and dance.
Anacostia
Southeast Neighborhood House started its work in 1929 as a social services organization and played a major role in the founding of the youth-led Rebels With A Cause and a tenants association of self-proclaimed welfare mothers living in the Barry Farm Dwellings called the Band of Angels. Eartha Kitt was the Rebels’ most well-known supporter and testified in Congress on the group’s behalf.
Brookland
“A white man’s road through a black man’s bedroom” was the phrase created during the resident-led fight to stop construction of the North-Central Freeway through Brookland, a neighborhood in Northeast DC. The freeway opposition was led by a truly odd couple – a young black man who worked for the General Services Administration named Reginald H. Booker and an older white man of Syrian descent who worked as a graphic designer and labor organizer named Sammie Abbott.
Chinatown
DC’s Chinatown in its current location (between 5th and 9th streets NW to the east and west, with G Street and Massachusetts Avenue to the north and south) has existed since 1931 and was thriving Chinese community for decades. Because the 1968 riots negatively affected the section of Massachusetts Avenue inhabited by Chinatown residents, many began moving to the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs thus kickstarting Chinatown’s decline. In 1990, the neighborhood was still 66 percent Asian. Once the MCI Center, later the Verizon Center and now Capital One Arena, was built in 1997, Chinese-owned businesses and residences were replaced with national chains such as Ruby Tuesday’s, Legal Sea Foods, and Starbucks. By 2017, only 300 Chinese residents remained in DC’s Chinatown.
Shaw
Model Inner City Community Organization (MICCO) was founded in the 1960s by Reverend Walter Fauntroy of New Bethel Baptist Church in Northwest DC’s Shaw neighborhood. MICCO’s plan of “Renewal with the people, by the people, and for the people” was implemented to empower the business, community, political, and spiritual leaders of Shaw with resources to make it an economically viable neighborhood.
Southwest
The federal government’s urban renewal project, deemed by many as the Negro Removal Project, which began in the 1950s had a lasting effect on the smallest quadrant of DC. To make way for federal buildings and the southward extension of downtown DC, 99 percent of the buildings in Southwest were leveled thus forcing 4,500 black families to move to other parts of DC. Only 310 of the 5,900 newly-constructed buildings were moderately-priced housing. This displacement greatly impacted the social fabric of the affected families.
“A Right to the City” is on view at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum through April 20, 2020.
Thursday October 17, 2019. Little Falls, New Jersey. Major League Baseball legend Darryl Strawberry will appear in conversation with Ira Berkow at the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center.
Strawberry entered the league in 1983, earning the New York Mets a World Series Championship in 1986. Strawberry rounded off his career with the New York Yankees franchise (1995-1999). The team won World Series Championships in 1996, 1998, and 1999. Strawberry retired soon after his diagnosis and bout with colon cancer. Darryl will address the highs and lows of his long career.
Guests will enjoy a cocktail reception and viewing of the Museum’s new exhibition DISCOVER GREATNESS: An Illustrated History of Negro Leagues Baseball, opened in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues in 2020. The traveling exhibit, on loan from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, showcases African American baseball from the 1800’s through the 1960’s.
VisitBlackHistory.com 