Congrats to all the Black Mothers and Caregivers who are raising beautiful gardens. May your work be rewarded and may your gardens continue to grow, flourish and rejuvenate. Ase!
Congratulations to all the graduates!
Theatre
“Letters to the Present,” May 6-8, 2022@ Cal Shakes Bruns Memorial Amphitheatre in Orinda
The Incrementalist@Aurora Theater in Berkeley
For Aurora Theatre discount code use: “wandaspicks” for $10 off tickets. Listen to a wonderful interview with Cleavon Smith at Wanda’s Picks Radio Show (5/5/22 @2:30 PM PT) or watch FB.com/wandaspicks
Library of Congress Launches 3-Part Film Discussions with African Directors for Africa Month beginning May 5, continuing, May 12, and May 25 (YouTube)
Three-Part Series of Interviews with Award-Winning African Writers Debuts During Africa Month Celebrations
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Damon Galgut, and Abdulrazak Gurnah form lineup of “Conversations with African Poets and Writers Series”
A three-part series of interviews with award-winning African writers will debut at the Library of Congress beginning today to coincide with Africa Month, an increasingly popular celebration of the continent’s peoples, cultures and history.
The interviews are part of the “Conversations with African Poets and Writers Series” produced by the Library’s African and Middle Eastern Division since 2008 to promote a greater cross-cultural understanding and dialogue. The series offers a window onto African writers, from the continent and the diaspora, and features their works in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and literary criticism.
Lanisa Kitchiner, chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division, noted that, since antiquity, Africa’s remarkable literary legacy has shaped humanity, contributing some of the earliest writings known to man, including 4,600-year-old papyri and Egyptian funerary literature dating to 2200 BCE.
“The African and Middle Eastern Division holds an unparalleled repository of works reflecting this vast, rich intellectual heritage and its spread beyond the Sahara. The division’s running series, Conversations with African Poets and Writers, celebrates African expressive culture and narrative traditions by engaging the most critical thinkers, writers, and storytellers of our time,” said Kitchiner.
Nigerian-born Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 44, is the author of many award-winning books, including “Americanah,” “Purple Hibiscus” and “Half of a Yellow Sun,” and is set to release a journal with prompts for aspiring writers as a spinoff of her 2017 New York Times bestseller, “We Should All Be Feminists.”
South African novelist and playwright Damon Galgut, 58, won the 2021 Booker Prize for his ninth novel “The Promise,” a fictional account of a white South African family living on a farm outside Pretoria during the waning days of apartheid. Using humor to broach difficult subjects, the novel was praised by the Booker Prize judges for offering an “unambiguous commentary on the history of South Africa and of humanity itself.”
Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian-born novelist and academic, won the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism.” Best known for his novels “Paradise” (1994), “Desertion” (2005) and “By the Sea” (2001), Gurnah has written extensively about people in the developing world and regions affected by war, by also interweaving themes related to exile, displacement and colonialism.
The three prerecorded one-hour interviews will be released on the Library’s YouTube site and the African and Middle Eastern Division’s webpage at 7 p.m. (EST) on the following dates:
- May 5 (African World Heritage Day): Chimamanda Adichie
- May 12: Damon Galgut
- May 25 (Africa Day): Abdulrazak Gurnah
Administered by the division’s African section, the “Conversations with African Poets and Writers Series” presents interviews with current African diaspora writers and readings from their works. Since 2008, the division has hosted some 30 conversations programs in collaboration with civil society groups such as Africa Society, the Center for African Studies at Howard University and Georgetown University.
Through this series, the African and Middle Eastern Division has not only introduced the Library’s rich resources on African studies to a broad audience but also collected an impressive trove of archives of interviews with leading thinkers and writers in this subject field, deepening research on African studies and literature. This archive also aims to stimulate a broader appreciation of the African literary tradition and heritage.
Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival is BACK!
JUNE Picks!
Sojourner Truth’s groundbreaking lawsuit – including her own Affidavit and Recognition Bond on display at the Ulster County Courthouse (and virtually in Zoom)
WED, JUN 15, 2022 – 12:00 PM
Decades before she took her fabled name, famed abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth was born into slavery here in Ulster County under the name Isabella. It was as Isabella that the young Truth took action to secure the return of her 5-year son, Peter, who had been illegally sold to in plantation in Alabama. With the help of local attorneys, Isabella filed a Habeas Corpus Petition in the Ulster County Courthouse in March of 1828. And it was this Isabella that prevailed on that Petition for her son’s freedom, marking the first time in American history that a Black woman sued a white man – and won.
For decades, local historians believed that no documents from this historic case had survived, other than the Recognizance Bond issued by the Ulster County Court held in the Archives of the Ulster County Clerk. Or so we thought.
Earlier this year, the original Petition and supporting documents from Sojourner Truth’s groundbreaking lawsuit – including her own Affidavit – were discovered in the New York State Archives in Albany. As our community celebrates Juneteenth, these documents as well the Recognizance Bond will be on display in the Ulster County Courthouse for the first time since 1828, when they set into motion this pivotal moment in our nation’s history.
Come join us on June 15th at Noon in the Ulster County Courthouse on 285 Wall Street in Kingston – the very site of Sojourner Truth’s momentous triumph– and see the actual documents that began this remarkable woman’s life-long fight for truth and freedom. Among those to share the day will be Sojourner Truth’s 6th great-granddaughter, Barbara Allen and Professor Nell Irvin Painter, author of the seminal biography of Sojourner Truth, “Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol.”
THE DISPLAY WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING FROM NOON – 4 PM
The event is open to the public, though please note that Covid Restrictions and Protocols will be in effect. The event will also be livestreamed for those that can’t attend. To watch the livestream, use the below link-tab: Welcome to VirtualCourt (nycourts.gov)(link is external) (Password: 1234)
For questions, please call the Ulster County Surrogates Court at (845) 481-9343, the Ulster County Clerk’s Office at (845) 340-3040 or the Commissioner of Juror’s Office at (845) 481-9384.
Office at (845) 340-3040 or the Commissioner of Juror’s Office at (845) 481-9384.
LOCATION: 285 Wall Street, Kingston, NY 12401. For information call: (845) 340-3040
EVENT CONTACT: countyclerk@co.ulster.ny.us
FREE/ADMISSION: Ulster County Courthouse, 285 Wall Street, Kingston, NY 12401, (845) 340-3040
Art Exhibit
Berkeley Arts & Letters presents Dr. Ibram X. Kendi with W. Kamau Bell / How to Raise an Antiracist, Fri, June 24th, 2022 @ 7:00PM PDT, 2407 Dana St., Berkeley, CA 94704. From $38.00
Resistance: The People Who Ran Away
#Juneteenth 2022 JUNE 17 12noon Pacific, 3pm EST-**Register for Zoom Webinar in link.
San Francisco Public Library and Bill Doggett cordially invite you to a very special theatrical presentation “The People Who Ran Away”, a theatrical reading-lecture showcasing rare 1830s-40s Slave Master Classified Ads from Doggett’s Antiquarian Newsprint Archive juxtaposed to the reading of Slave Narratives. With Negro spirituals in soundtrack overlay, this presentation draws through lines from 1830-2022. Register below for this sponsored Zoom webinar We look forward to you joining us.
https://sfpl.org/events/2022/06/17/presentation-people-who-ran-away