My Name Is George Junius Stinney Jr; A Powerful Animation Project About the Youngest Person Executed in the U.S.

   George Junius Stinney Jr. (born October 21, 1929, died June 16, 1944) was, at age 14, the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century.

Painter Beauford Delaney Returns to the Scene Thanks to People like Monique Wells

Delaney in his Paris studio in 1967. His style ranged from simple urban scenes and portraits to the abstract.Credit  Estate of Beauford Delaney.

Thursday's New York Times featured an article about Monique Wells and her herculean efforts to raise awareness about the singular talents of African-American artist Beauford Delaney. Like Delaney, who is now deceased, Wells is an African-American expatriate who has lived in France for more than 20 years.

I am so proud to say that this is the woman who my daughter, Sojourner Ahébée, has been working with as an intern this summer, in Paris. Do read about Ms. Well's project and support it!!!

Here is the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/arts/international/beauford-delaney-returns-to-the-scene.html?_r=1

The Time of Your Life,” 1945, by Beauford Delaney, whose life and work are the subject of revival efforts in Knoxville, Tennessee and Paris. CreditCourtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York            


                    

Close to the Window- Project 1324 and Sundance Institute's Short Film Challenge

Poet Sojourner Ahebee and Filmmaker Kira Bursky- Check out their collaborative film project and vote to send Kira to Sundance 

Filmmaker Kira Bursky featured in Seventeen Magazine

This is an important feminist project. Sojourner’s poetry urges girls and women to name those 
things we historically keep silent about and Kira’s insights and filmmaker’s artistry poignantly 
delivers this message.  Sojourner stated that, “the film is in part about depression, but also about 
Black, female existence in the world and all the challenges that accompany being a Black girl. We 
worked really hard on this project, took risks, opened up, and the result was a really funky documentary/moving poem.” 

Please view this short film and VOTE for it and offer a COMMENT. Every vote puts these young 
women closer to becoming finalists in the 2016 Sundance Ignite Fellow Program!
 Let’s support them!!! Here is the link to do just this:
https://sundanceignite2016.com/#/projects/237Z5?share=facebook&_k=bom6t0

2016 Fall Courses at the Barnes Foundation

The Barnes Foundation

Philly folk, check out the course offerings at the Barnes Foundation this fall. Scholarships are available. I am interested in this one.

Albert Barnes and African American Culture

MONDAYS, OCTOBER 24–NOVEMBER 14 (4 CLASSES)
6–8 PM
Instructor: Kimberly Camp, MSc

Explore Dr. Barnes’s ideas about education, activism, and art in the context of his interest and involvement in black culture of the early 20th century. Discuss larger issues of art and race that are debated among museum professionals.

$200; members $180

Here is a link to more info:  http://barnesclasses.org/

Woman in an Abstract Field - After Beauford

 As many of you know, Sojourner Ahebee, my daughter, is a 2016 BOSP Continuation International Fellow for the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. She is currently serving as the Paris intern for the .Wells International Foundation

By Beauford  Delaney-Untitled (Woman in an Abstract Field)
(1966) Oil monotype, with hand-painted additions in oil, 
on cream wove paper
Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries
Please read the following poem Sojourner was ask to write inspired by this Beauford Delaney painting of Marian Anderson. Read this on  the Les Amis de Beauford Delaney  blog: Here is the link:  http://lesamisdebeauforddelaney.blogspot.com/2016/08/woman-in-abstract-field-after-beauford.html

From Paris With Love; AfroPUNK Features Sojourner Ahebee's Review of the Seydou Keita Photography Exhibition

Writer Sojourner Ahebee in Paris  at the Keita Exhibition 

Here is the 2nd part of Sojourner Ahebee’s review of Seydou Keita’s photography exhibition recently hosted in Paris. In this section, she focuses of Keita’s portrayal of women in his work. Keita, from Mali, was one of the great photographers emanating from Africa. Read on. 

http://www.afropunk.com/profiles/blogs/review-writing-mali-into-light-photographer-seydou-ke-ta-s?xg_source=activity

For the complete review read Entree to Black Paris;an amazing blog. http://entreetoblackparis.blogspot.com/2016/07/writing-mali-into-light-seydou-keitas_28.html

Sandra Bland by Kai Davis, Nayo Jones and Jasmine Combs

“I know what it is to be crushed. To have hope drained from my bones, a trembling black woman with trauma stretching across generations. I’ve been crying for centuries. I cannot stop. I know what it’s like to have one foot in the grave. To have a freezer stacked with liquor but an empty fridge. To come to stagnancy and decay in my own bed; my nightmares clamoring out of my own skull. Panic attacks shaking me until I, too, am a prison. I’ve wished death on myself many times but it was never my idea.”

The Classical Theatre of Harlem presents MacBeth July 8-31, 2016

 To learn more: http://www.cthnyc.org/macbeth/

The New Yorker's COVER STORY: KADIR NELSON’S “A DAY AT THE BEACH”

“I grew up close to the shore, and I have always loved spending time at the beach,” the Los Angeles-based artist Kadir Nelson says of his cover for this week’s issue. “When I was young it meant time with my dad, and now that I’m a father myself I relish the long summer days spent with my own children.”  
Do check out some of his other New Yorker covers: 

Kadir Nelson’s painting for the cover of this issue which celebrates the Schomburg Research Center, in Harlem. He says he wanted to create “a stylistic montage as an homage to the great Harlem Renaissance painters: Aaron Douglas, William H. Johnson, Norman Lewis, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Archibald Motley, and Palmer Hayden.” Also on Nelson’s mind were artists and performers like the Nicholas Brothers, Billie Holiday, and Duke Ellington; the activist Malcolm X; and writers such as James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston.

“I wanted to capture the memory of Hurricane Katrina and its aftereffects—the spirit of New Orleans, its resilience, its culture,” Kadir Nelson says of his cover for this issue, which coincides with the tenth anniversary of Katrina. “And one of the first images that came to mind was a kid playing music, an image somber and hopeful at the same time.”

*Source- The New Yorker 

Octavia McBride-Ahebee Reads at the Columbia North YMCA

   Here is a video  to an excerpt of a poetry reading I gave last month as part of National Poetry Month's festivities in the city. I shared a wonderful afternoon of tea and other goodies with an equally lovely group of women at the Columbia North YMCA.

Beauford Delaney: Sharing a Master's Art with the World!

Please view the following video, learn about the phenomenal artist Beauford Delaney and support this Kickstarter campaign.

Beauford Delaney painted by Georgia O'Keeffe

Here is the link to make your contribution: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2006335285/beauford-delaney-sharing-a-masters-art-with-the-wo/rewards

Philly Loves Poetry Festival: Women's Day

Philly Loves Poetry Festival: Women's Day

Join Octavia McBride-Ahebee and a host of other fabulous poets as they celebrate poetry as a vehicle for social commentary and change. Octavia is thrilled to be reading her work from the anthology
Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace.

Here is a link to learn more : http://www.moonstoneartscenter.org/…/womens-day-philly-lov…/

04/14/2016 06:30 PM
Philly Loves Poetry Festival: Women's Day @ Moonstone Arts 
The Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts, 732 S. Broad Street

A Daughter's Love Poem for Her Mother

I just have to share this beautiful love poem my daughter wrote me for my birthday today. Give a listen!


on asking if I've ever been in love (for Mom)

Join the Celebration of Poet Lamont Steptoe

Poet M. Nzadi Keita 

Poet Lamont Steptoe

I had the honor of hearing two of Philly's finest poets, M. Nzadi Keita and Lamont Steptoe read last night as part of the Philadelphia Free Library's Monday Poets Reading Series.

Do check out Keita's newest collection, Brief Evidence of Heaven (2014), which imagines how free-born, illiterate Anna Murray Douglass saw the world as an independent woman, mother, abolitionist, and wife to Frederick Douglass. And, of course, do check out Steptoe's Meditations in Congo Square.

Also, join Moonstone Poetry @ Brandywine Workshop
this Saturday to celebrate Lamont Steptoe’s 67th birthday and his remarkable and generous contribution to Philadelphia’s literary landscape. A poet / photographer / publisher, Steptoe is the author and/or editor of fifteen poetry collections, the latest of which is Meditations in Congo Square. He is
the recipient of so many awards including the winner of an American Book Award and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Details:

• Saturday, February 6, 2016/ 3:00 PM
• Brandywine Workshop
728 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA

Phone: 215-735-9600

Revolutionary Hope: A Conversation Between James Baldwin and Audre Lorde

Source: For Harriet- http://theculture.forharriet.com/2014/03/revolutionary-hope-conversation-between.html#axzz3xo2thbXJ

"The Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts republished this conversation between iconic Black thinkers James Baldwin and Audre Lorde on their Tumblr page. The conversation took place at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA and was was originally published in ESSENCE in 1984.

The dialogue reveals the importance of recognizing that shared racial histories cannot overshadow the divergent gendered histories between Black men and women..."  Read on:
http://theculture.forharriet.com/2014/03/revolutionary-hope-conversation-between.html#axzz3xo2thbXJ