Harlem Diaspora @harlemdiaspora - Tumblr Blog

"Writing Blackness: Harlem|Paris is an exploration of the Harlem Renaissance through the Schomburg Center collection. he exhibit was inspired by the idea of literary salons as convening physical spaces where dialogue and exchange of ideas is fostered among intellectuals and cultural producers.

Writing Blackness aims to incite intellectual engagement by making archval material accessible and "activating" the Schomburg Commection in a living space--literally, a 2 bedroom apartment in an affordable housing, educational and cultural arts mixed-use development-- where ideas are exchanged, argued, and where all participants are equally equipped and invested in the conversation.

June 25-August 10, 2014

155 Street & St. Nicholas Avenue, NY, NY

Join the conversation:

#writingblackness

harlemdiaspora

Above:

The Team: Jeanine Alvaraz (Social Media Coordinator), Ladi’Sasha Jones (Curator), Joseph “JR” Sanders (Designer), and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf (Curator) | Photo Credit, Terrence Jennings

#WritingBlackness #Modern History #history #Harlem history #Schomburg #Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture #exhibition #important events #zora neale hurston #august savage #james weldon johnson #grover whalen #chester hims #sterling brown #Nella Larsen #countee cullen #harlem revisited

The riots began in Harlem, New York following the shooting of fifteen year-old James Powell by a white off-duty police officer on July 18, 1964. Charging that the incident was an act of police brutality, an estimated eight thousand Harlem residents took to streets and launched a large-scale riot, breaking widows, setting fires and looting local businesses.

The eruption of violence soon spread to Brooklyn, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and continued for six days, resulting in the death of one resident, over one hundred injuries, and more than 450 arrests.

As the civil unrest in New York City began to cool, another riot broke out upstate, in Rochester, New York. Like the Harlem Riot, the Rochester Riot stemmed from an alleged act of police brutality. For three days, violent protesters overturned automobiles, burned buildings, and looted stores causing over one million dollars worth of damages. Following Governor Nelson Rockefeller's mobilization of the state's National Guard, public order was restored to Rochester on July 26. The New York Race Riots of 1964 highlighted the racial injustice and growing civil unrest existing in northern cities and served as a powerful indicator of the urgent need for social and economic reforms for African American communities outside of the South.

-The Civil Rights Digital Library: http://crdl.usg.edu/events/ny_race_riots/

#civil rights #race riots #Harlem #Harlem USA #Harlem history #history #Archive #african american history #american history #baruch college #the civil rights movement #the civil rights digital library #this week #this week in history #1960s #1960s history

Two questions are at the heart of this investigation into Hurston's fieldwork: What did she do? How did she do it? In"Hoodoo, " readers can explore and enjoy the lore she identified and presented. This essay investigates Hurston's fieldwork context: where she went, for how long, her many trips traversing the deep South, where she landed to accomplish that "Hoodoo" chapter. From specific addresses and contexts of some of the neighborhoods in which she resided, Hurston's literary correspondence, and a recent oral history interview, here is a brief portrait of the folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, at work along the River Road and in the deep South.

This is a really interesting article on Hurston's anthropological research, and anybody interested in Mules and Men or anybody who has read it should really look into this article!!

#zora neale hurston #mules and men #hurston #Black Authors #Novel #famous novels #reading list #research guides #interesting #african american history #black history #Harlem Renaissance #harlem diaspora

In “Ebony and Ivy,” Craig Steven Wilder, an M.I.T. historian, takes a broad look at the role of slavery in the growth of America’s earliest universities.

Mr. Wilder, a history professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a new book, “Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities,” which argues provocatively that the nation’s early colleges, alongside church and state, were “the third pillar of a civilization based on bondage.”

He also has a lot more company in the archives. Since 2003, when Ruth Simmons, then the president of Brown University, announced a headline-grabbing initiative to investigate that university’s ties to slavery, scholars at William and Mary, Harvard, Emory, the University of Maryland, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and elsewhere have completed their own studies.

And that tide is far from over. Last spring, a historian at Princeton began an undergraduate research seminar on the little-explored connections between that university and slavery. In September, the president of the University of Virginia announced a 27-member commission charged with recommending ways to commemorate the university’s “historical relationship with slavery and enslaved people,” in advance of its bicentennial, beginning in 2017.

#ebony and ivy #MIT #higher education #higher education history #ivy history #ivy league #craig steven wilder #african american history #African Diaspora #Black Authors #black history #american history #history #Modern History #slavery #race science #slave trade

A Democracy Now! discussion with Massachusetts Institute of Technology American History Professor Craig Steven Wilder the author of Ebony and Ivy. Very interesting interview and a preview of the book and history that is discussed within it.

To learn more about Democracy Now! see below:

Democracy Now!, is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on 1,200+ TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch it live 8-9am ET at http://www.democracynow.org. FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: @democracynow Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/democracynow Listen on SoundCloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/democracynow Daily Email News Digest: http://www.democracynow.org/subscribe Google+: https://plus.google.com/+DemocracyNow Instagram: http://instagram.com/democracynow Tumblr: http://democracynow.tumblr.com Watch Democracy Now! live 8-9am ET Monday through Friday via livestream at http://www.democracynow.org. Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visithttp://www.democracynow.org/donate/YT

EBONY AND IVY:

As I/this tumblr am/is based out of Barnard College at Columbia University I have a deep interest in the relationship between the history of blackness in the United States and the ivy league and, more broadly, race and older institutions of higher education.

With this disclaimer I'm letting you all know that I will be posting a lot about this book right now (so, not Harlem related). I'll go back to Harlem specific posting soon I only just came across this book in a bookstore today.

#disclaimer #personal #ebony and ivy #the ivy league #ivy league #higher education #college #Black Authors #black history #African Diaspora #african american history #book review #books to read #Modern History #higher education history #ivy history #history

librosviejos

Art celebrating Billie Holiday (200 block of Durham Street, Upper Fell’s Point, Baltimore. April 5th, 2014)

I always admired the beautiful Billie Holiday mural and mosaic on the corner of Pratt and Durham whenever I drove by, and even stopped once to show them to my kids. So yesterday I decided to take the time to appreciate them. What I hadn’t realized was that, in addition to the mural and mosaic seen from the corner, there are many other works of art celebrating her memory, down the block (between Pratt and Gough Streets). It’s all part of the “S. Durham Billie Holiday Project”, launched last year, which also includes painted window screens and streetscaping.

Coincidentally, tomorrow (April 7th) is Billie Holiday’s 99th birthday, and yesterday there was a public celebration there, which I had just missed. Next year’s 100th birthday promises to be epic!

Born in Philadelphia, Billie Holiday (1915-1959) grew up on this block (houses 217 and 219) in Baltimore (from where her mother originally was), before moving to Harlem, New York, in 1929. [Wikipedia]

#billie holiday #reblog #philidelphia #philly #baltimore #maryland #jazz #jazz musician #jazz vocalist #harlem revisited #street art #murial #s. durham billie holiday project

billiesholiday

Visit Original Link

harlemdiaspora

Frank Sinatra didn’t cry for friends Humphrey Bogart or Joe Kennedy but he cried for Billie Holiday. Sinatra visited Holiday on her deathbed in a run down New York facility, ‘Harlem Metropolitan Hospital.’ Holiday was dying of cirrhosis and she was dying from heroin…Three cops were stationed outside of her hospital door. A beautician was inside doing her hair and nails and she was smoking outside of her oxygen tent and begging the nurse to get her a beer. She’d say catchy things like “Don’t trust that bitch. She can take the gold out of your teeth while you’re chewing gum.” Holiday’s spirit was feisty but her body was defeated.

She was thrilled to see Frank Sinatra. He told her how much he loved her recent album ‘Lady In Satin’ and he tried to get her to talk about future projects. He told her, “I owe you so much for teaching me how to phrase when I was starting out with Harry James.” Holiday replied, “I may have showed you how to bend a note, Frankie, that’s all.” Later that day, Holiday’s liver failed and she went into a coma and died.

Sinatra locked himself in his penthouse and wept for two days, playing her songs and drinking and crying. I had never seen him hurt so much, not even for ex-wife Ava Gardner.”

-George Jacobs, Frank Sinatra’s valet

#billie holiday #reblog #harlem #frank sinatra #george jacobs #overdose #lady day #harlem metropolitan hospital #african american history #black history #black musician #jazz #jazz musician #jazz vocalist

Above: The Grand Harlem Opera House in mosaic at the 125th street subway station

Below: The Grand Harlem Opera House, late 1800s early 1900s. Former location: 207 W 125th street, Harlem

The Grand Harlem Opera House was the first theatre constructed by Oscar Hammerstein an example of the early Harlem music scene: opera.

Envisioning the needs of a fast-growing metropolis, he built more than 50 residences there. To entice the downtown populace uptown, he built his first theatre in 1889, the Harlem Opera House, on 125th Street. Oscar presented the big-name, downtown talents of the day - Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson, Georgie Drew Barrymore, Lillian Russell, Fanny Davenport, E.H. Sothern, Margaret Mather, Otis Skinner and Helena Modjeska. In l890, Oscar built and managed his second theatre, also on 125th Street - the Columbus Theatre - which presented lighter theatrical fare - George M. Cohan, Chauncey Olcott, Walter Damrosch and countless others. In 1893, Oscar built his third theatre - the first Manhattan Opera House on 34th Street.

Hammerstein, however, could not make the Harlem Opera House a financial success, and he was soon lured downtown to build his most renown theaters (and places that would later inspire his grandson Oscar Hammerstein II.) The Harlem Opera House was sold and transformed into a more traditional vaudeville house. By the 1930s, to compete with the thriving amateur nights over at the Apollo, the Harlem Opera House had its own amateur nights. Its most notable discovery is one of the greatest names in music -- Ella Fitzgerald.

The Opera House was torn down in 1959. Surprisingly, it appears there was the possibility of a new opera house in Harlem being built in the late 1960s, under the guidance of Gian Carlo Menotti, but that never panned out. However, the operatic tradition lives on today with the Harlem Opera Theater, founded in 2001.

Citation for this post includes this Bowery Boys NYC history post, and this biography of Oscar Hammerstein.

profkew

Still from Jason Osder’s Let the Fire Burn. Screenshot courtesy of Zeitgeist Films/George Washington University

Let the Fire Burn | Documentary about the Philadelphia Police Clash with Radical Urban Group MOVE | Independent Lens | PBS

Let the Fire Burn is composed entirely with archival footage yet unfurls with the tension of a thriller. Jason Osder’s documentary recounts the steps that led to a horrific tragedy on May 13, 1985, when a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and the controversial radical urban group MOVE came to a deadly climax.

Check your local PBS station for Independent Lens. It’s playing in many cities tonight 5/12.

harlemdiaspora

Not necessarily Harlem related, but you can make the case that major cites of urban blackness (due to the great migration/other mass migrations as foundation that still draw many immigrants) have paralleled histories. Also, Philly is cool and important.

View the links to learn more about the movie and the movement. To learn about MOVE look here and here (or google more for yourself).

#MOVE #philidelphia #philly #1985 #let the fire burn #pbs #african american history #black history #urban movements

sarahbalakrishnan

harlemdiaspora

JB: One of the dangers of being a Black American is being schizophrenic, and I mean ‘schizophrenic’ in the most literal sense. To be a Black American is in some ways to be born with the desire to be…

#james baldwin #audre lorde #black authors #black history #african american history

Keynote Conversation with Bill T. Jones, Carrie Maw Weems, and Jamaica Kincaid moderated by Lawrence Weschler

Part of New York Live Arts' Live Ideas Festival: James Baldwin, This Time! Live Ideas is made possible by the Ford Foundation. Additional support is provided by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Samuel M. Levy Family Foundation and Theatre Development Fund.

#new york city #new york live arts #NYLA #the year of james baldwin #james baldwin #lgbt #queer literature #black authors #african american history #black history #harlem #harlem revisited

After Giovanni's Room: Baldwin and Queer Futurity with Kyle Abraham, Rich Blint, Matthew Brim, Laura Flanders, Bill T. Jones

This multi-disciplinary conversation examines James Baldwin's mid-twentieth century novel as an opportunity to consider the possibilities for a liberating "queer" future on the horizon, but not yet in sight. The importance of Giovanni's Room does not simply stem from its status as Baldwin's sole novel on homosexuality but, also its subterranean yet searing indictment of the dangers of an enduring American innocence. Taking its cue from the late thinker and theorist José Esteban Muñoz, this panel seeks to envision "the then and there" of a not-yet-realized progressive future as one way to negotiate the often devastating realities of the "here and now." Panelists include Kyle Abraham, Rich Blint, Matthew Brim, Laura Flanders and Bill T. Jones. Part of New York Live Arts' Live Ideas Festival: James Baldwin, This Time! Live Ideas is made possible by the Ford Foundation. Additional support is provided by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Samuel M. Levy Family Foundation and Theatre Development Fund.

#giovanni's room #james baldwin #the year of james baldwin #lgbt #queer literature #harlem #new york city #new york #new york live arts #black authors #black history #african american history #harlem revisited #important events

Baldwin and Delaney with Rachel Cohen, Dierdra Harris-Kelley, and David Leeming

Rachel Cohen, whose critically acclaimed "A Chance Meeting" braids a sequence of seminal encounters across American cultural history, including Baldwin's life transforming encounter with painter Beauford Delaney in conversation with Diedra Harris-Kelley, Co-Director of the Romare Bearden Foundation and Baldwin and Delaney biographer David Leeming. Part of New York Live Arts' Live Ideas Festival: James Baldwin, This Time! Live Ideas is made possible by the Ford Foundation. Additional support is provided by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Samuel M. Levy Family Foundation and Theatre Development Fund.

#new york #new york city #new york live arts #NYLA #james baldwin #the year of james baldwin #black authors #african american history #black history #harlem revisited

Baldwin's Capacious Imagination & Influence with Roger Bonair-Agard, Margo Jefferson (Pulitzer Prize winning cultural critic), Syreeta McFadden, Roberta Uno (former artistic director and founder of New WORLD Theater in Amherst, Massachusetts [for the work of artists of colour] which staged a ground-breaking Baldwin production and founder, former professor at UMass Amherst), and Lawrence Weschler (Live Ideas curator and moderator of this conversation)

#the year of james baldwin #james baldwin #harlem #harlem renaissance #new york live arts #NYLA #lgbt #black authors #black history #african american history #new york city #important events #homoeroticism #harry belafonte #harlem revisited

If you haven't heard lately... we are entering the YEAR OF THE BALDWIN!

If you are in NYC, plan to visit, or want to read up about some coo events happening in this area please check out newyorklivearts.org's website on the Year of James Baldwin!

From NYLA's website:

A consortium of cultural organizations from throughout New York City is uniting to declare 2014-15 The Year of James Baldwin on what would have been the great American essayist, novelist, playwright, poet, and activist James Baldwin’s 90th year (he was born in Harlem on August 2, 1924). The principal conveners of this multidisciplinary festival will consist of copartners Harlem Stage; New York Live Arts; and Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Other participants will include the Vera List Center at the New School, New York University, the Harlem Book Fair, and others to be announced.

The Year will launch April 23 to 27 with the second annual installment of New York Live Arts’ Live Ideas festival, this year entitled James Baldwin, This Time! with twenty events spread over five days. It will culminate in the spring of 2015 with major programming at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse. Events throughout the city will celebrate this often overlooked American writer who is arguably the most profound and imperative voice of the twentieth century.

Read about the April 2014 opening 5 days here to get a sense of what's to come!

For more information follow NYLA on twitter @newyorklivearts