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Black History Month • 2010
February 25, 2010
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February 25, 2010
Timeless Classics of African American Literature
By MARK GOODMAN
Guest Writer
Editor’s note: this is the second part of a two-part series on classics of African American literature.
Richard Wright emerged on the literary scene just after the Harlem Renaissance and is best known for two books. Black Boy (1937) is an autobiographical account of his life from the ages of four to nineteen in the Jim Crow South. In both Mississippi and Tennessee, Wright experiences his life as an outsider, alienated from schoolmates, co-workers, the white society, and even his family. His powerful novel Native Son (1940) was controversial because of its depiction of interracial violence and the social and political ideas expressed in the courtroom scenes.
From the very first line, “I am an invisible man,” in Ralph Ellison’s masterpiece Invisible Man (1952), we hear the nameless black narrator try to make sense out of life in a society where truth is elusive and racism thrives. Although the book begins in the South, most of the activity takes place in Harlem. Invisible Man is considered by literary critics to be one of the greatest novels in U.S. literature.
James Baldwin made a resounding impact on the world of letters in the 1950’s and 1960’s. A prolific essayist, novelist, short story writer, and playwright, Baldwin’s earlier works are his most lasting.
His best novel, in my opinion, is his first, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953). Heavily autobiographical, the novel describes the protagonist, John’s, tumultuous family life in Harlem, particularly his conflicts with his excessively strict and unaccepting preacher step-father. In the midst of emotional turmoil, John undergoes his intense spiritual journey.
His most influential collection of essays has been Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961) where he addresses his feelings of acceptance in Paris that he never felt in New York; his observations on race relations in the U.S. in the 1950’s; and his critique of fellow writers William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Andre Gide, and Norman Mailer. Eloquently written, Baldwin’s essays are still relevant some fifty years later.
A Raisin in the Sun (1958), by Lorraine Hansberry, shows the struggles of a black family, led by their matriarch, to move from their ghetto apartment to a house in a white neighborhood. The play, the title of which is from a Langston Hughes poem, is a forceful statement of the resiliency and strength of African American families. Not only is the work itself a classic, but the cast of its first performance included stalwarts of African american drama such as Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ivan Dixon, Louis Gosset, Jr., Lonne Elder III, and Douglas Turner Ward.
Maya Angelou gained fame for the poem that she composed and read at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. However, nothing that she has written has surpassed the first installment (1969) of her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (a line from a Paul Laurence Dunbar poem). The book reveals not only the tribulations of a sensitive black girl growing up in Stamps, Arkansas, St. Louis, and San Francisco, but it captures the experience of many African Americans who lived in the rural South and big cities in the years leading up to World War II.
Any discussion of African American classics must include Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison. Known primarily for her engaging and sometimes difficult novels, Morrison is fearless when it comes to addressing issues that impact black American life. Her most famous novel is Beloved (1987), which explores the haunting legacy of slavery. Morrison does not apologize for the book’s complexity. On the contrary, she encourages readers to immerse themselves in their reading.
John Edgar Wideman is best known as a prolific writer of intricate and profound novels and short stories. However, if I were to choose one of his books as a classic, it would be the non-fiction Brothers and Keepers. This memoir (1984) focuses on the incarceration of Wideman’s younger brother for his role in a robbery-murder. Wideman not only deals with his “survivor guilt,” but he comments insightfully on what it meant to be a working class black student from Pittsburgh at an Ivy League college (University of Pennsylvania) in the early 1960’s.
Finally, I include a book that some people may think is not yet old enough to be called a classic. A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines, was published in 1993. It’s the compassionately told story of an African American school teacher in post-WWII Louisiana who befriends a black man erroneously accused of murder. The teacher is torn between wanting to leave the provincialism of the deep south and his sense of loyalty to his community. Just as To Kill a Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies were recognized immediately as classics in the early 1960’s, so does this book deserve such an honor.
The titles that appear in this article are only some of the works by African American authors that have earned classical status. The next time you hear someone refer to “The Classics,” think of these books.
Mark Goodman of Mt. Airy has taught African American Literature at The Crefeld School and Chestnut Hill Academy. He has also taught English at Project Learn, Community College of Philadelphia, and Temple University.
Lecture on Sex and Power in Early America at Stenton
Stenton, 4601 North 18th Street, announces a lecture for African American History Month entitled “Sex, Power and the Pornography of Slavery in the Americas” presented by Dr. Roderick A. McDonald. Dr. McDonald is Professor of History at Rider University and Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Early Republic, the premier publication on the history of the United States between 1776 and 1861.
The lecture will be on Saturday, February 27 from 1-2 p.m. His lecture will discuss the pornographic world created by slavery which allowed white men to engage in liaisons with both freed and enslaved women of African descent. Guided tours emphasizing service spaces will follow the lecture. Admission to the program is free of charge. RSVP to educator@stenton.org or call 215-329-7312.
Local Resident is Chisholm Awardee
Creating quality jobs that bring quality care to thousands of patients is what drives Mt. Airy resident Tatia Harris every day. It’s her leadership that brings dignity to the job of home care aides, like Andrea McClain of West Philadelphia, a 22-year-old who never finished high school and who now cares for a young quadriplegic.
Harris is the awardee of the 2009 Shirley Chisholm Award, presented by the Philadelphia chapter of the International Caucus of Women of the African Diaspora (ICWAD).
Harris was instrumental in the fast growth of HCA, which has expanded its workforce from 100 to more than 200 aides. She was also the driving force behind the company’s coaching/supervision model that creates a supportive atmosphere and guides workers to become solutions-oriented. Harris joined HCA as a job counselor in 1994, spent four years as a scheduler, became director of service delivery in 2001 and was named chief operating officer in 2006.
The Chisholm Award is named for Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to Congress and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. It was bestowed by the Greater Philadelphia Caucus of the ICWAD, which seeks political and social justice through governmental, public and private systems in order to address issues of social injustice and social change.
February 18, 2010
Travel to City’s Past at African American Museum
By CONSTANCE GARCIA-BARRIO
Correspondent
The African American Museum in Philadelphia, 701 Arch Street, has acquired a time machine or its equivalent with its high-tech exhibition, “Audacious Freedom:
African Americans in Philadelphia 1776-1876,” presented by PECO. Part of a $4.5 million renovation, “Audacious Freedom” packs an encyclopedia’s worth of black history into a lively, interactive format.
As visitors enter the exhibition, they see a well-known painting that depicts the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But this version shows a critical difference because it has outlines of blacks and Indians, whom the document excluded, in the foreground. The painting puts visitors on notice: “Audacious Freedom” points up a more inclusive history.
Almost like watching television
A timeline presents free and enslaved Philadelphians of African descent. It includes a three-dimensional panorama with facsimiles of original documents and portraits of black leaders. Press a button, and you can hear about the economics, religion, culture, law, politics, family life and education in the black community. As the narrator speaks, spotlights illuminate the people and places that helped to shape a particular aspect of the city’s history. For example, when the discussion turns to religion, the spotlight picks out Bishop Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Superimposed images, such as a map of Old Philadelphia, that flash on while the narrator speaks, provide an illusion of movement, almost like watching television.
The narrative covers such key organization as the Free African Society, founded in 1787 by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. (Born into slavery, both men gained their freedom through hard work.) The Free African Society looked after widows, orphans, the sick and the jobless. Members paid a monthly fee and learned about thrift, wealth-building and education.
The timeline doesn’t prettify the past. It tells how George Washington brought nine enslaved blacks to Philadelphia during his presidency (1789-1979), when the city was the nation’s capital. Washington rotated his black servants between Philadelphia and Mount Vernon, his Virginia plantation, so that they never stayed in the city long enough to become free, as laws here required.
Putting one over on Washington
Nevertheless, the panorama includes a portrait of Washington’s chef Hercules, probably painted between 1795 and 1797. Hercules managed to slip away from the Washington household and made good his escape.
Around the time Hercules made off, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS), formed here in April, 1775, bought the freedom of Dinah Neville and her two children. Of black and Indian descent, members of the Neville family, shown in the panorama, were the first people the PAS freed.
Women get their due. The panorama features Jarena Lee. Born free in Cape May, New Jersey, Lee (1783-?) she left her family at age seven to become a maid. In time, Lee felt a religious calling. Bishop Richard Allen turned down her first request to preach, but relented after he heard her give a spontaneous sermon. In 1836, she published The Life and religious experience of Jarena Lee.
No “spirituous liquor”
William Whipper (1804-1876), also has a place in the panorama. Born in Lancaster, the son of a white businessman and his black housekeeper, Whipper moved to Philadelphia in the 1820s. In 1834, he opened a grocery store founded on principles of temperance and free labor. His store didn’t carry “spirituous liquor,” and the goods he sold were made by free workers. A shrewd businessman, Whipper became a wealthy coal and lumber merchant. He is said to have had a million feet of prime lumber at the height of his business. One story goes that during the Civil War, agents from the South tried to set his lumberyard afire.
The walkway from the panorama to the second floor surrounds visitors with the past. The floor has a map of Old Philadelphia while on the walls are enlarged signatures of black city residents from old census records.
It wows all who see it
On the second floor “Philadelphia Conversations” wows virtually all who see it. Using motion-picture technology thanks to a partnership with WHYY, the exhibition features full-size video projections of black Philadelphians from 1776 to 1876. These figures move, gesture and sometimes seem to sense visitors’ presence.
Among them stands Alice of Dunk’s Ferry, who reputedly died at age 116 in 1802. A repository of oral history, Alice had seen presidents, congressmen, and revolutionaries. Alice, born into slavery, chats with visitors reminisces about William Penn and the time she lit his pipe for him. She collected tolls on the ferry road that crossed the Delaware River near Bristol. While she helped whites across the river by day, some say that she aided fugitive slaves who crossed the Delaware by night.
The black folk in “Philadelphia Conversations” recount their lives and events of their times, and the also project personality. Alice seems like someone who didn’t suffer fools gladly.
The richest black man in America
Sail-maker James Forten (1766-1842), the nation’s richest black man in the 1830s, has a proud bearing as he speaks of his sail loft which has white and black workmen. Pennsylvania’s 1838 constitution stripped black men of the right to vote, yet Forten told his white sailmakers how to vote.
Three buttons beside each figure allow visitors to choose which conversations to hear. Forten can speak about his family, his business, and the time he spent on a British prison ship during the Revolutionary War.
Forten’s son-in-law, Robert Purvis (1810-1898) also has his say. An abolitionist born in Charleston, South Carolina, Purvis speaks of arguments about slavery with his English father, a slave owner. Purvis’s mother was a free-born woman of color. In the 1820s, the family moved to Philadelphia.
Thrown out of Amherst College
Purvis, who attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, hints at an incident that got him kicked out of the school. It seems that Purvis and fellow student Sam Colt, of future fire-arms fame, scared Amherst residents by firing a cannon at the crack of dawn one morning.
In contrast with that youthful prank, by the late 1830s Purvis led Philadelphia’s Vigilance Committee, which helped fugitive slaves. During the race riot of 1842, resentful whites sought to hunt him down and destroy his house. It is said that a Catholic priest deliberately led the mob in the wrong direction to save Purvis and his home.
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1824-1876) won fame for her “remarkably sweet voice and wide vocal compass,” according to one contemporary account. Greenfield was born into slavery in Natchez, Mississippi, but fate stepped in to spare her a life of servitude. A Philadelphia Quaker adopted her.
Greenfield chats with coquettish gestures, yet speaks of difficulties in a matter-of-fact way. For example, she explains that any voice teacher who accepted her as a student risked his career because of prejudice. On May 10, 1854, Greenfield, dubbed “the Black Swan,” gave a command performance for Queen Victoria of England.
The Children’s Corner
The Children’s Corner, also on the second floor, is an interactive wall that presents Philadelphia of centuries past to visitors of all ages by following daily activities of three children. The Children’s Corner has remarkable details, such as showing a street vendor who speaks Yoruba to reflect the presence of West Africans in the city.
For more information about “Audacious Freedom,” please call (215) 574-0380 or see www.aampmuseum.org.
African American Classic Books
By MARK GOODMAN
Guest Writer
Editor’s note: this is the first part of a two-part article on classic works of African American literature. Part II will appear next week.
A classic work of literature, most people will agree, is one of high quality that withstands the test of time. In addition, it contains universal truths while it portrays a specific time, place, and culture. For many years, the idea of a classic was restricted to ancient Greek and Roman texts and subsequent European works, as well as books written in the United States by white authors.
The concept of a classic has changed since the 1960’s with the acceptance by the publishing industry and the U.S. readership of more works by authors of African, Asian, Latino, and Native American descent. It is now possible to include works by African American authors as part of the U.S. canon of classical literature. Here are some books that belong in libraries, schools, and homes on the shelves labeled “Classics.”
The first is The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845). Douglass writes movingly of his experience of “...the bitterest dregs of slavery...,” how he learned to read and write when such activities for a slave were punishable, how he stood up to a cruel overseer (“...how a slave was made a man”), and how he finally escaped from slavery to seek freedom in the North.
In his introduction to the Dodd, Mead, and Company edition of Up from Slavery, the autobiography of Booker T. Washington first published in 1900, Langston Hughes noted that Washington’s emphasis on vocational education for black people at the expense of academics, and his compromising approach to Jim Crow laws (the Atlanta Compromise) should not overshadow the sizable contributions that the educator made in his development and expansion of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Hughes recognized that Washington’s conciliatory attitude to the white power structure was a strategy to “keep the peace,” as well as to raise funds for his educational endeavors.
Washington’s most outspoken adversary, W.E.B. DuBois, published his own classic in 1903. The Souls of Black Folk is a collection of insightful essays, primarily on racial issues in the United States. Perhaps his most meaningful essay to contemporary readers is “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” where he poses the concept of “double consciousness.” According to DuBois, black people developed a “...twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body...” Members of minority groups will recognize this dual identity. In the essay “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” DuBois takes Washington to task for his “unnecessarily narrow” approach to education and his submissive approach to African American civil rights.
This historical split in African American leadership played out again in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and can best be witnessed in the classic writings of two luminaries of the Civil Rights era. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, recorded and edited by Alex Haley (1965), we see a forceful, even militant, approach to securing rights for black people “by any means necessary.” On the other hand, in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963), Martin Luther King, Jr. sets forth his rationale for non-violently breaking unjust laws “...openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”
However, if one reads both classics in their entirety, it’s clear that Malcolm X had moved to an acceptance of universal humanity, including white people, and that Dr. King had made it clear that he would disrupt the power structure knowing that violence would likely ensue.
Many African American classics are in the field of literature. Cane, by Jean (Nathan Eugene) Toomer, is considered to be the first novel published during the Harlem Renaissance. Published in 1923, it is comprised of a series of interconnected vignettes and poems set in rural Georgia and Washington, D.C.. Both the lyrical style and the mixture of prose and poetry were innovative and somewhat disconcerting to readers used to a more conventional narrative approach.
It is impossible to speak about African American classics without including Langston Hughes. He wrote short stories, novels, plays, children’s books, and a two-part autobiography. But it is as a poet that he distinguished himself. A good place to start is with two collections: The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, selected by Arnold Rampersad, and Selected Poems of Langston Hughes.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, was one of the five most read books in college and high schools in the 1990’s. The novel of a woman’s life experiences and inner growth in rural Florida resurrected Hurston’s reputation from virtual obscurity. Her inclusion of southern folklore and rural black dialect adds texture to this engaging story.
Mark Goodman of Mt. Airy has taught African American Literature at The Crefeld School and Chestnut Hill Academy. He has also taught English at Project Learn, Community College of Philadelphia, and Temple University.
February 11, 2010
African American Authors: The Philadelphia Connection, Part 2
By MARK GOODMAN
Guest Writer
Editor’s note: this is the second part of a two-part article.
Kirsten Hunter (Lattany) grew up near Camden, New Jersey, attended the University of Pennsylvania, and taught at Penn for over twenty years. She has written novels for adults and teens, and is best known for her young adult novel, The Soul Brothers and Sister Lou (1968). The book focuses on an adolescent African American girl, her brother, and his friends who look for alternatives to inner city violence and poverty.
In the early 1960’s John Edgar Wideman attended the University of Pennsylvania and gained recognition as a basketball player and Rhodes Scholar. Three of his books have Philadelphia as a prominent setting. The novel Philadelphia Fire (1990) revolves around the MOVE tragedy, and Two Cities (1998), also a novel, shifts between Philadelphia and his hometown of Pittsburgh. His 1984 memoir, Brothers and Keepers, about his brother’s incarceration, contains many scenes of West Philadelphia from Wideman’s days as a student, teacher, and basketball player.
Poet Lamont Steptoe is also a Pittsburgh native, but has chosen to live in Philadelphia. A Viet Nam veteran, he writes about his combat experience and observations in his book Mad Minute (1993). In a more recent volume, Crowns and Halos (2006), Steptoe reaches into his memory and his culture to create a running dialogue with the poetic muse.
Now for the Homegirls. Bebe Moore Campbell grew up in North Philadelphia and West Oak Lane and graduated from Girls’ High. In her memoir, Sweet Summer: Growing Up With and Without My Dad (1989), she tells of her summers in North Carolina with her father and the rest of the time with her mother and grandmother in Philly. She has also written novels, including Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine, a fictional version of the murder of Emmett Till in the 1955.
Lorene Cary is best known for her novel about slavery, The Price of a Child. However, in 1991, she published Black Ice, a memoir which recounts her adventures of leaving the familiar confines of her childhood in West Philadelphia and Yeadon to attend an elite private school in New Hampshire. Cary tells how she felt caught between fitting in at the mostly white school and maintaining her African American identity.
A graduate of West Philadelphia High School and the University of Pennsylvania, Diane McKinney-Whetstone has written five novels, all of them set in Philadelphia. Her best-known book, Tumbling (1996), takes place in South Philadelphia in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
From the Homegirls we turn to Flyy Girl (1993), the popular urban novel that made Omar Tyree, a Central High graduate, famous. Set in Philadelphia, it was one of the first “street lit” books to capture the Hip-Hop culture of the 1980’s. Tyree, raised in Mantua, has branched out into writing children’s books, especially for African American boys.
Finally, the book We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans from World War II to the War in Iraq is a collaboration by two people with Philadelphia connections. Yvonne Catty, who worked at the Philadelphia Daily News for thirteen years, conducted the interviews and wrote a sketch of each veteran. Ron Tarver, a resident of Northwest Philadelphia, and a photographer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, took portrait photos of each interviewee. Philadelphia has played a major role in the world of African American authors and books. We Philadelphians can look with pride on this valuable legacy.
Mark Goodman of Mt. Airy has taught African American Literature at The Crefeld School and Chestnut Hill Academy. He has also taught English at Project Learn, Community College of Philadelphia, and Temple University.
Talk on Black Economic Empowerment
Lawrence S. Little, Ph.D., associate professor of African American history at Villanova University will speak on “The History of Black Economic Empowerment” on Tuesday, February 16, at 7 p.m. in the Redmond Room, St. Joseph Hall. The lecture is sponsored by the History Department at Chestnut Hill College and Phi Alpha Theta, the national honor society for history.
Dr. Little’s lecture will examine the economic struggles and accomplishments of African American society from colonial America to present day, with considerations for the economic future of this group. Dr. Little will also speak about the Urban League, an organization that promotes equality and advocates on the behalf of all African Americans, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary this year.
Dr. Little is currently an Associate Professor of African American History at Villanova University, Pa. where he has taught since 1993. His teaching areas include African American History, American History, Racism and Race Relations, Civil Rights, U.S. Foreign Policy, and World History.
Dr. Little has been published in The North Star, the Journal of Asian and African Studies and The Western Journal of Black Studies. His book, “Disciples of Liberty: The African Methodist Church in the Age of Imperialism, 1884-1916,” examines African American reactions to global events and issues at the turn of the century.
Dr. Little received his undergraduate degree from Coppin State College in Baltimore, Md. and earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in American history from Ohio State University.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Dr. Lorraine Coons, chair of the History and Political Science Department, at 215-248-7184 or e-mail lcoons@chc.edu.
Cooking Class for Kids
A free cooking class for boys and girls 5-15 years old will be held from 10 a.m. to 1noon on Saturday, February 13, at Project Learn School, 6525 Germantown Avenue, as part of the school’s Saturday Arts Program. This month’s class will feature Ken Roberts, of Chef Ken’s Café in Mt. Airy, who will teach Southern-style cooking to celebrate Black History Month.
For information, call the school at 215-438-3623.
Rep. Richardson’s Legacy to be Examined at Forum
Historic Germantown Freedom’s Backyard invites the public to a special forum on Thursday, February 18 entitled “Remembering David Richardson and the Germantown Protest of 1967.”
The forum will take place at 4 p.m. at Germantown High School, Germantown Avenue and High Street.
This program, part of Historic Germantown’s Germantown WORKS project, will examine the legacy of the late David Richardson, Jr., a community activist who became Germantown’s first African American state representative in 1972 at the age of 23. A person whose work has profound legacies in the Germantown neighborhood, Richardson led student protests about the teaching of African American history at Germantown High School in 1967, and his record as a legislator included supporting many improvements to Germantown, including the Avenue construction going on into 2009.
The forum will include members of Richardson’s family, teachers, community members, and special guests recalling participants in the protest.
The conversations will help to paint a vivid picture of struggles to establish identity using history. Germantown High School students from the Germantown Speaks project, a complementary oral history program partnership involving Neighborhood Interfaith Movement (NIM), Partners for Sacred Places and several local faith communities, will be on hand to record audience discussions.
Video highlights from previous Germantown Speaks gatherings and Germantown History Seekers projects will also be featured.
“Remembering David Richardson” is the second in a series of three public forums offered by Historic Germantown, in conjunction with its year-long “Germantown WORKS” project, an initiative supported by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage through the Heritage Philadelphia Program. To find out more information about the forums, call the HG Program Office at 215- 844-1683 or visit www.freedomsbackyard.com.
Historic Germantown is a consortium of fifteen cultural and historic sites located in Northwest Philadelphia. Its members range from historic houses to an art museum and arboretum. The mission of Historic Germantown is to foster an appreciation of the diverse character and meaning of Germantown’s cultural heritage in order to preserve and revitalize the community.
To this end, Historic Germantown cooperates in providing knowledge and resources to help preserve Germantown’s historic sites, interpret them to the public, and incorporate them into the life of the local community.
For more information about Historic Germantown visit www.freedomsbackyard.com.
‘Traces of the Trade’
The film series at Greene Street Friends Meeting, 45 West School House Lane, will show Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North on Saturday, February 13 at 7 p.m. On Saturday, March 13, at 7 p.m. we will show Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin. The free child-friendly events will feature popcorn, cider, and discussions. For information call the meeting house at 215-844-4924.
Lorene Cary to Speak at GSFS
In February and March, the Parents Association of Greene Street Friends School, will host dynamic speakers as part of the school’s celebration of Black History Month.
In “The Work of a Writer, Professor and Cultural Activist” on Monday, March 8, 7-8:30 p.m., at Hargroves House, 61 West School House Lane, Lorene Cary, author of “The Price of a Child” about the Underground Railroad, the first book selected for the “One Book One Philadelphia” reading program, will read from her book and answer questions. Greene Street Friends School’s Parents Association and the Green Street Monthly Meeting have selected “The Price of a Child” as the second book in their jointly sponsored Community Read series. In addition to reading from “The Price of a Child,” Carey will discuss her work at Art Sanctuary, an organization that focuses on regional and national talent among African Americans in literary, visual, and performing arts, and will also talk about the other projects in which she is engaged.
Space is limited, so please let the school know if you are coming. RVSP by e-mail to Hannah Kalkstein at hkalkstein@greenestreetfriends.org or by phone to 215-438-7000 ext 120.
February 4, 2010
African American Authors: A Philadelphia Connection
By MARK GOODMAN
Editor’s note: this is the first portion of a two-part article. Part II will appear in next week’s paper.
Philadelphia is fortunate to have had so many African American writers who were born, lived, and/or wrote here. Here are some of the authors with a significant connection to Philadelphia.
W.E.B. DuBois is best known for his work as a scholar, activist, essayist, and editor. However, he was also an accomplished sociologist. In 1900, while teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, DuBois published The Philadelphia Negro: A Sociological Study. The book deals with the lives of black Philadelphians from the 1600’s to the 1890’s. Included are such topics as occupations, family life, education, crime, churches, and housing. The book was reissued in 1995 by the University of Pennsylvania Press, with an introduction by Elijah Anderson.
Anderson lived in Philadelphia (Chestnut Hill) and taught at Penn for 30 years. His best known book is Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (1999). Using Philadelphia’s lower income black neighborhoods as models, Anderson differentiates between “decent” and “street” urban cultures.
One of the key essays written during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s and 1930’s was The New Negro, by Alain Locke (1925). Locke, a Central High graduate, had a vision of optimism and accomplishment for black people at the same time that many prominent white authors, notably T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, were writing about the ebbing of Eurocentric culture.
Another Harlem Renaissance writer with Philadelphia ties was Jessie Fauset Redmond, a graduate of Girls’ High and Penn. She gained recognition for her novels about middle and upper class blacks, most notably There Is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1929), and The Chinaberry Tree (1931), all of which focus on light-skinned, upper middle class, educated African Americans, and their responsibility to improve the quality of life for black people.
The Black Arts Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s had a strong Philadelphia connection. Poet Sonia Sanchez has been a long-time resident of Germantown and has written eloquently on politics, race, women’s issues, and urban life. Her most local book is Under a Soprano Sky, where she writes about the 1985 MOVE fire in West Philadelphia, the retirement of a respected Temple University English professor, and the graduation of her sons from The Crefeld School in Chestnut Hill.
Larry Neal, another Black Arts pioneer, graduated from Roman Catholic High School and Penn. Known primarily as a poet, he co-edited Black Fire: An Anthology of African American Writing ((1968), a collection of political -sometimes confrontational - essays, poetry, fiction, and drama.
Fellow Roman Catholic High graduate Charles Fuller captured national attention with his psychologically penetrating and historically relevant drama A Soldier’s Play (1981). Set in a segregated army base in Louisiana at the end of World War II. Set in a segregated army base in Louisiana during the latter stages of World War II, the play reveals how society’s negative view of African American males was internalized by many black men, causing psychic anguish within and among black soldiers. The movie A Soldier’s Story is based on the play and captures very well Fuller’s characters and his insight into the repercussions of racism. [Editor’s note: A Soldier’s Play will be presented at The Stagecrafters, 8130 Germantown Avenue, beginning Friday, February 5]
Toni Cade Bambara spent the last nine years of her life in Philadelphia, where she taught film script writing. She was one of the narrators in Philadelphian Louis Messiah’s documentary film W.E.B. DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices. Her most famous literary work is a collection of short stories, Gorilla, My Love, which contains three exceptional stories: “Raymond’s Run,” “The Lesson,” and “My Man Bovanne.”
Mark Goodman of Mt. Airy has taught African American Literature at The Crefeld School and Chestnut Hill Academy. He has also taught English at Project Learn, Community College of Philadelphia, and Temple University.
Johnson House Essay Contest
The Johnson House Historic Site, 6306 Germantown Avenue, will hold its annual Freedom Essay Contest during Black History Month.
The Johnson House would like to help you inject an engaging discussion in your Black History Month curriculum.
Students are invited to submit an essay on one of the following topics:
Grades 3-5 – What is the difference between protest yesterday and protest today?
Grades 6-8 – What was the impact of the Civil Rights Movement?
Grades9-12 – What impact does protest have on society?
Three students will each win $100, while the three runners-up will each win $25.
Essays should be typed or legibly printed. Essays should be 500 words or less. All essays should be turned in with an attached biographical page with name of student, school, grade, address and phone number.
Submit essays by February 10 to JHHS Freedom Essay Contest, c/o Mrs. Ena V.L. Swain, Johnson House Historic Site Inc., 6306 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19144.
Winners will be notified by February 17. Prizes will be awarded on Sunday, February 21, 3-5 p.m., at the Johnson House.
For more information call 215-438-1768.
GSFS Film Series
The film series at Greene Street Friends Meeting, 45 West School House Lane, will show Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North on Saturday, February 13 at 7 p.m. On Saturday, March 13, at 7 p.m. we will show Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin. The free child-friendly events will feature popcorn, cider, and discussions. For information call the meeting house at 215-844-4924.
Center in the Park Celebrates Black History Month
Center in the Park (CIP) invites you to join us in celebrating African American History Month and Promoting Positive Aging at a special event or health promotion activity to be held at Center in the Park in February. Unless otherwise indicated, activities are free of charge but registration may be required and will be held at Center in the Park in historic Vernon Park, 5818 Germantown Avenue, with parking available on the lot at Rittenhouse and McCallum Streets.
Events include:
February 5, 10:30-11:3 a.m. – Put on Your Red Dress Day! Attend a Women’s Heart Health Workshop facilitated by Dr. Annie Kou, Drexel University College of Medicine. This activity is presented by the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA). Contact Delores Palmer to register for this free event at 215-849-5100.
February 10, 1 p.m. – CIP Songsters Unlimited and Martin Luther King High School – Enjoy our annual Intergenerational African American History Month Concert, under the direction of Dr. Jerome Lang. Light refreshments will be provided.
February 11, 11:30 a.m. – Healthy Steps for Older Adults 50+ Falls Prevention Program is a fun and informative 4-hour workshop. You will receive a colorful 68-page guide with useful resources. Bring a list of your medications and call the Program Office in advance to register, 215-848-7722.
February 16, 1 p.m. – African Head Dressing. Learn or practice the Art of African Head Dressing as demonstrated by CIP’s Center Counselor, Dorcas Essilfie, a native of Ghana.
February 18 – 1:00pm – Guitar and Poetry Jam for Valentine’s Day! This features poetry and discussion and CIP guitarists led by Monette Sudler-Honesty. Bring a favorite poem, love song or your sweetheart to this afternoon of music and poetry. Light refreshments will be provided.
February 22, 1 p.m. – CIP’s Cultural Appreciation Day. Join CIP staff and members to explore the cultural landscape of Center in the Park and share our cultural backgrounds and celebrate our diversity. Bring a favorite ethnic dish. Please call the Program Office to register at 215-848-7722.
February 25, 1 p.m. – Gourmet Soul Food Cooking. This is a healthy soul food workshop and demonstration. Please call the Program Office to register at 215-848-7722.
February 26, 10-11:30 a.m. – In Touch: Mind, Body and Spirit presents “Ask the Doc.” This is a workshop to learn the facts of asthma and allergies, facilitated by Dr. Kristine Swartz, Division of Geriatrics, Jefferson Medical College. Please call Delores Palmer to register at 215-849-5100.
Come to one of the Center’s health promotion events or one of the popular exercise or dance classes – some are free and others have a modest fee – or, join the fully-equipped Fitness Center – exercise in comfortable surroundings, with your peers, on equipment that is designed specifically for older adults. For information on the fitness center or to make an appointment to tour, contact the Center’s Program Office, 215-848-7722; or, ask to be connected to the Fitness Center. Call the Program Office, 215-848-7722 to find out what’s playing on the big screen for Wednesdays at the Movies.
Contact the Center’s Program Office and get details on upcoming trips - to destinations of interest both near and far. Join the Center for a March 5th trip to the famous Philadelphia Flower Show – sign up now.
Membership at Center in the Park is open to adults, age 55+ and non-members may attend certain classes, trips and activities, as well. For an appointment with the Center Counselor or membership registrars call 215-848-7722. Visit the Center’s website at www.centerinthepark.org
Black History Events at CitiBank
In honor of Black History Month, Citibank in Chestnut Hill, 8500 Germantown Avenue, invites the community to join in the celebration of the achievements of local musicians, artists, authors and designers every Saturday in February from noon-2:30 p.m.
The schedule of events includes:
Saturday, February 6, experience the journey and history of black music, including spirituals, gospel, jazz, and classical.
On Saturday, February 13, come out to meet and get your signed copy of Philadelphia’s most talented local black authors, including Maurine McFarlane, author of Release the Prophetic Destiny in Philadelphia, A City under Reconstruction; Wedner Gedeon, author of Hope for the Next Generation; Tanya T. Morris, author of Drop Your Baggage and Move On and The Just Get Over It Makeover; Sheilah Vance, author of 3 books including Land Mines, Journaling Through the Land Mines and Chasing the 400.
Saturday, February 20, 2:30 p.m.: Black Art/Sculptures. Artist Leon Dewitt Finney’s extraordinary work is placed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Lucien Crump Art Gallery. He will be showcasing his work at Citibank in honor of Black History Month. Joining him is sculptor Stephanie Threet, whose works are derived from the rhythms of music and vibrations of her surroundings, resulting in rhythmic patterns on canvases of clay. The scrafitto method is used to emboss the clay surface with energetic and often vibrant designs.
Saturday, February 27, Black Fashion Designers features Renee Bolden Designs, 8026 Germantown Avenue, and Shalonda (Shay) Sutton, a young designer whose designs are innovative and span the globe in terms focus and style.
African American Sacred Music
On February 7 at 4 p.m., First United Methodist Church of Germantown (FUMCOG), 6001 Germantown Avenue, will host a concert featuring a full program of African American sacred music. Elizabeth Stevens, operatic dramatic soprano, will perform compositions and arrangements by William Grant Still, Harry T. Burleigh, Moses Hogan, J. Donald Thompson and other African American musicians. This concert celebrates African American History Month by highlighting prominent African American composers both past and present.
Elizabeth Stevens has been featured in Philadelphia on CBS News and NBC 10 television, and in New York on WQXR radio. She is an international competition winner. Her powerful voice has garnered invitations to sing and the inaugural celebration of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and at the Italian Embassy in Washington DC.
J. Donald Dumpson is director of music at Bright Hope Baptist church in North Philadelphia and conducts its famed Celestial Choir.
Tickets are $15 and available at the door. A reception will follow the concert. For information about the concert and the music program at FUMCOG, call Music Director Kevin O’Malia at 215-438-2677 or visit www.fumcog.org/music.
