The 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party Conference, Oct. 20-23, held at the Oakland Museum of CA and in Bobby Hutton Grove at deFremery Park, was a huge success. To see the Vanguards of the Revolution saluted in such elegant surroundings at the banquet Saturday evening was certainly a fitting tribute to the legacy their lives concretely represent. Dressed in formal attire, Party members and their guests, along with supporters, were awed by the resiliency and tenacity these men and women and their biological and movement children whose lives continue to be shaped and influenced by the work the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense represent. Hats off the committee which organized the conference.
From the free breakfast programs to the Community Learning Center, free medical clinics, mobile sickle cell testing units, Elder transport, food giveaways – not to mention the iconic blue and black cool represented by the buoyant Afro, chic leather jacket, and fist up for black power—the Black Panther Party is renown worldwide for its fearlessness in the face of a monstrous enemy. The enemy then, is the same enemy now, perhaps bolstered by legal loopholes which continue to snare black people.
A highlight of the 50th Anniversary was the dedication of Bobby Hutton Grove at deFremery Park, where the trauma experienced in the park can now dissipate. Lil’ Bobby (April 21, 1950-April 6, 1968), the youngest member of the party was killed at 17 by a hail of bullets police bullets as he surrendered stripped to his underwear, his hands up, just two days after Martin King was assassinated. Even though one officer stated it was an execution, the City of Oakland never apologized or compensated the Hutton family. 48 years later, Lynette Gibson McElhaney, Oakland City Council President, said at the dedication that through the City of Oakland didn’t admits its failings then, she felt honored to be able to in this small way acknowledge the debt to the Hutton family and to its community. Overwhelmed, Robert James Hutton’s elder brother, Mr. Jay Hutton Sr., said that he never imagined that the City would ever honor the family’s desire to name the park after their loved one. It was a long and protracted effort headed by Hutton’s niece and Terry Collins.
Craig Atkinson’s film, “Do Not Resist” (2016), released the 50th Anniversary weekend, speaks to the militarization of the police. Opening scenes are of Ferguson, Missouri, as the community grapples with the death of Michael Brown. The child of a former policeman and SWAT officer just outside Detroit, Atkinson’s film gives his audience a history lesson and tour of police departments from inside, as the directorial team ride along with a South Carolina SWAT team. The film takes us inside a police training seminar where Dave Grossman teaches law enforcement the importance of “righteous violence”. The LAPD SWAT team and the BPP and Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs is highlighted, along with Congressional Hearings questioning the wisdom of allowing cities to acquire surplus military tanks and arsenal. These police missions, based on assumptions of guilt, terrorize elders and children, innocent people who live in these homes and neighborhoods. New laws allow police to confiscate money from suspects and keep it, even when charges are dismissed. We watch this happen to a young man. The policeman then lies to the suspect’s grandfather as he pockets the funds– $800 (which was to pay for a lawn mower for the young man’s business). The suspect’s home is damaged, yet the police department finds little to no evidence after ransacking the house – scant marijuana debris in the suspect’s backpack. The young man is later released on insufficient evidence, yet his money is not returned nor is the home repaired. We see his family standing bewildered in the front yard as they look at the external damage while a young woman rocks her baby from under a nearby tree. We wonder about the effects of police violence on the psyche of the preverbal infant not to mention the entire family. This can happen again; there is not safety for black citizens in this war. The film opened Oct. 21 weekend at The Roxie in San Francisco and at the Elmwood in Berkeley. “Do Not Resist” shows how little has changed in the 50 year history which sparked a global movement.
50th Anniversary weekend, there were so many excellent panel discussions, among them: Self-Defense against Police Brutality and Murders moderated by Malik Edwards, who was on Wanda’s Picks Tribute to the BPP, Oct. 22. Also on the show were Rev. M. Gayle (Asali) Dickson who moderated the “Liberation Theology—The Black Panther Party and the Black Church,” Aaron Dixon, BPP chairman of the Seattle Chapter, who moderated the panel, “The Real Rainbow Coalition: Black, Red, White Brown Revolutionaries,” Melvin Dickson who presented a photo essay: “The 1968 Trial of Huey P. Newton.” These former BPP members, Rev. Gayle, Comrade Aaron and Comrade Melvin were all a part of the Seattle Chapter of the BPP, the first chapter established outside of Oakland. Comrades Vanetta Molson and Elmer Dixon also joined us. Listen: http://tobtr.com/9553449
It makes sense that the BPP would inspire other social justice movement for Native peoples, like Lenny Foster, American Indian Movement, poor whites, Hy Thurman, Young Patriots; Jose (Cha-Cha) Jimenez, Young Lords, and Stan McKinney, BPP Chicago; Rabab Ibrahim Abdullah, Ph.D.; Harvey C. Dong; Pam Tau Lee.
Aaron Dixon’s workshop was well attended. Many had questions about a Rainbow Coalition, we hadn’t known existed. The only rainbow we’d heard about was Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH, however, this alliance predates the other and had more far reaching outcomes for social justice. Pam Lee, Chinese woman, spoke about learning about the Red Book from Chairman Seale. In 1969 in San Francisco Chinatown she hosted the Bobby Seale Study Group. One of the organizers for Yellow Seed, Red Guard and Asians for Black Lives, Ms. Lee said that she would like to add to the 10-Point program an 11th point: We demand the US government halt the rape of the land.
Dr. Dong spoke about a recent incident at UC Berkeley where a class was canceled that he and other organizers had reinstated. Dr. Abdullah at SF State, spoke about growing up under Israeli occupation in Palestine and the persecution she experiences here as an academic whose work is inspired by Muhammad Ali, who stood up against the US. However she is also inspired by her mother who told her daughter when Angela Davis was on trial that she was being framed. Dr. Abdullah’s work is with the Palestinian Political Prisoners and she took a delegation of activists and former political prisoners to Palestine this year to meet with PP and POWs there. Among those who went were Emory Douglas, Hank Jones, Claude Marks and Diana Block.
Mr. Foster, whose dad was a Navaho Code Talker in WWII, shared his story of how he became politicized when he left the sheep farm for college in Arizona. He shared how he felt when he saw an Indigenous man marching with Dr. King 1968-1969. However when he heard Power to the People, Down with the Pig at the Utah Migrant . . .
Besides the workshops hosted by these former BPP members that Saturday morning and afternoon, on Thursday, I attended marvelous workshop hosted by Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture: Polynesian Panthers with Tigilau Ness, Minister of Fine Arts, Miriama Rauhihi Ness, Minister of Culture, Betty Sio, Black Women’s Movement, Túulenana Inlí, with comrades: Chris McBride, curator/producer The Kauri Project and Roger Fowler, The People’s Union. Polynesian Panthers Tigilau Ness and Miriama Rauhihi Ness closed the Oct. 22 Wanda’s Picks Special broadcast. I had heard so much about the PP from Emory over the years. Who would have known the reach of the BPP? However, just with the warm reception the BPP received in Algeria and Tanzania, Cuba and elsewhere points to the relevance of this revolutionary movement which imagined a world, as Kathleen Cleaver, JD, states beyond racism and white supremacy. When my younger daughter, TaSin and I were in the mountains of Madagascar, we saw Tupac on the tee-shirt of a youth panning for gold dust. Malcolm X was on the shirt of a brother I met in Tamale, Northern part of Ghana this summer. Later on while at a hearing, I met a sister who wore a “Black Lives Matter” tee-shirt into superior court in Accra where a man confessed to killing her friend.
The legacy of the Black Panther Party and its relationship to the Nation of Islam was the topic of a well- attended workshop: The FBI’s “Black Hate Group” COINTELPROs: The Murder of Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam with presenters: Elaine Brown, former Chairman of the BPP and Min. Christopher Muhammad, the Nation of Islam.
The sessions were informative and enlightening, the panelists conversant on their topics whether this was Dr. Charles “Chappy” Pindershughes, Essex County College, on Marxism or Kumasi, Black August and Folsom Manifesto, sharing his experiences with Comrade George Jackson at a panel that same afternoon, with Jerry Elster, Co-founder No More Tears, and Dr. Greg Thomas, Tufts University, Author of The Immortal George L. Jackson, the entire conference and related activities were all pretty amazing.
It was hard to keep up (smile).
Many new books capitalize on this 50th Anniversary occasion, such as the phenomenal anthology of narratives, edited by Bryan Shin and Yohuru Williams: “The Black Panthers: Portraits from an Unfinished Revolution,” and “Revolutionary Grain: Celebrating the Spirit of the Black Panthers in Portraits and Stories,” edited by Suzan Lucia Lamina, however, there is nothing to compare to sitting in the room and hearing from these men and women. We could feel the love between these men and women who had sacrificed so much for “the people.” We were all in awe. I am still in awe. (Both books have exhibitions, Shih’s art is at the OMCA through Feb. 12, 2017, Lamina’s is at the African American Museum at Oakland through Feb. 28, 2017).
Co-editor Williams states in the chapter, To Live for the People: The Rank and File and the “Histories” of the Black Panther Rank and File (46), “how he came to know the work and lives of the BPP members through his father’s art and then through the stories his parents shared about the volatile events in New Haven, Connecticut and later as a researcher.
He writes: “I came to appreciate the muted voices of ordinary members of the party and how documenting their stories and experiences both complicated and deepened the party’s history. I became convinced that the best way to understand the Black Panther Party was through the perspectives of these members, not the party’s founders. For me, the question is how we might glean from the individual stories of the Panthers a more nuanced portrait of the party than the one featured in the dominant narrative. Such a portrait would balance the fear the Panthers inspired with the complex mix of trauma and love that drove their activism—a nonidealized or vilified history that would reflect conflicting portraits of the party that could incorporate the experiences of an Ericka Huggins, a Huey P. Newton and a Lawrence Townsend” (49).
This by no means lessens the role of the founders, Comrades Newton and Seale, whom we missed at the Conference. However, just as the signature exhibition “All Power to the People,” at the Oakland Museum attests, the reason the party was as great as it was rests on the legacy of its many unsung heroes, the rank and file. These heroes bagged the groceries, drove the vans and took the bullets. Many of these men and women and allies, languished until death behind bars. There are still members incarcerated, legally buried or entrapped by a judicial system which has not an ounce of compassion; however, the warriors are not forgotten. In fact, Robert H. King and Albert Woodfox (A3) are headed to Europe for an advocacy tour to free all Political Prisoners and POWs. This campaign is an extension of the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted Peoples and Families Movement (FICPM) platform, shared at the conference held in Sept. 9-11 in Oakland. The Friday afternoon workshop: “180 Years of Incarceration with Black Panthers Party Political Prisoners” with Eddie Conway, Former Deputy Minister of Defense, Baltimore, Black Panther Party; Sekou Odinga, Brooklyn Branch, BPP; Robert King and Albert Woodfox, New Orleans Chapter of the BPP at Angola State Prison, Louisiana, was the continuation of a larger conversation, one that looks at the New Jim Crow and Mass Incarceration or enslavement of black people. The hunger strike and work stoppage at prisons throughout the country, its nexus those in the south like Alabama where the Free Alabama Movement takes the lead in calling for the end of slavery in this country once and for all. Listen to an interview: http://tobtr.com/s/9262791 with Kinetik Justice Amun, one of the founders of FAM sponsors of the Sept. 9, 2016 Fast and Work Stoppage to end prison slavery. https://freealabamamovement.wordpress.com/f-a-m-pamphlet-who-we-are/
At the time of the Black Panther Party’s greatest impact, other movements were also active, like the Nation of Islam, yet the BPP was a different front. Actively engaged in armed struggle in a way the NOI was not, the BPP suffered casualties and victories which were unprecedented. As the “Trail of Tears” scrolled on screen projections at the Gala Dinner Saturday evening in the Museum Gardens — we saw the faces of the young comrades, men and women killed by the state during 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971—evidence of an interrupted or ruptured spaces, their bodies stopped or prevented from realizing the completion of an alternative worldview or reality antithetical to the dominant disorder then and now.
From the workshop on Marxism, I learned that the BPP mission or goal was a complete overthrow of this government, to be replaced by a new face, reflective of values which support life and freedom for everyone. Comrade Elaine Brown said at the panel with Minister Christopher Muhammad that the Wants and Beliefs on the Muhammad Speaks are reflected in the 10-point platform. Minister Christopher speaks to the synergy of the BPP Movement and the encouragement and inspiration founders and laity drew from the work of Minister Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz.
Gala
Elaine Brown, former Minister of Information and the only woman to lead the Party at a time when the leadership was being locked up or killed, looked anything but 70+ as she called the names of comrades who were able to join us who had been behind enemy lines. I met an elder just the evening before who had just been released in Detroit. He was down 42 years. He spoke about the difficulties adjusting, but he was here.
The gala dinner, October 22, opened with Charlotte O’Neal, Kansas City and Tanzania, inviting everyone to call their ancestors names as she hit a resonating vessel. The entire evening welcomed, saluted and mourned the presence of the ethereal or nether Black Panther bodies, those martyrs and those still behind enemy walls. The week and evening were representative of the motto: All Power to the People.
October 22 was also Chairman Bobby Seale’s birthday, which was celebrated that afternoon at a parallel event hosted by the Black Panther Party Alumni Association from New York. At the luncheon, Albert “Shaka” Woodfox and Robert H. King were presented with plaques.
That evening at the gala in the Museum Gardens, Eddie Conway, former PP, POW, producer, Real TV, introduced Danny Glover, who delivered a warm key note address. In his introductory remarks Comrade Conway suggested in the second leg of the struggle warriors “put aside differences, unify and show by example of how to go forward from here.” He stressed the importance of “getting our political prisoners out. The young people are [the next wave] of such. We have to let them know that even the insidious programs like COINTELPRO [which along with other government programs took our lives], ran us out of the country, caused us to be in the middle of [state sponsored] warfare—[none of the counterinsurgency work by the enemy was allowed] to stop our work. The work continued all across the country,” he said to applause. “Our work continues behind the wires, behind the walls, so it is important that [the youth] see that not only can we survive that, they can survive it in the future if they have the right consciousness, the right education, and they organize and they build – and I do not mean protest. Protest is good, but they need to organize and build. It only takes a couple of people to start something. Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, two people. That was enough to trigger this. So any two people, any one person can get with a trusted friend or family member and do the work. That’s all I am asking: unify, and be the example we claim we are.”
In his introduction of Danny Glover, Conway said it was easy to introduce his friend, perhaps because of the profound impact Glover has had on history. In his remarks he mentioned a few accolades I was not aware of such as Glover’s doctorate in theology and also the fact that he is also a Nigerian chief. I know of his work in housing development following his graduation with a degree in economics from SF State. Theatre is his second career. Most of us also know of the activist’s involvement in the successful student strike at SF State for Black Studies.
Glover says the “The legacy of the Black Panther Party (BPP), its vision, its courage left a permanent impact on the world. Those of us who can remember that time in history know the chronology, legends and truths that gave rise to this organization. We are not gathered here for the sake of nostalgia, but rather to commemorate and renew the legacy of the Panthers for present and future generations. 50 years have passed, half a century since the BPP was founded right here in Oakland with a vision that was as timely as it was prophetic.
Now, wouldn’t it make more sense to treat the cause first? There is indeed a minority of people suffering from chronic prostatits have problems with semen and sexual ability. cheapest viagra tablets All you need to do is to take action! Search engine optimisation is one of those things get levitra that people in the know talk about a lot. Both of these food sources are ready to accept the fact that they face erectile order levitra online dysfunction in men. An increasing number cheapest prices on cialis of people are turning to this medicine. “[The Black Panther Party] saw the conditions and needs of their local community [and] situated [these issues] within a national and global context and engineered a finely tailored policy platform and organizational structure that was practical, scalable, and portable. They were visionaries without being utopian and as a result communities across the country and the world, communities with various sizes, demographics, historical experiences, were able to look to the Panthers model to plot a course forward. In providing such a group example the BPP reconfigured, reimagined democracy to work on behalf of oppressed communities, a monumental feat we have gathered to commemorate.
“When Huey and Bobby founded the Panthers, I was 20 years old, born and raised in San Francisco, and immersed in the conditions the Panthers sought to address. Memory has a very important role in the history and why we are commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the BPP. Often what we choose to remember which is most important. I have chosen to remember Sam Napier, dedicated Party member (who was one of three men who formed the National Newspaper Distribution in San Francisco. BJ says, these men were “the heart and soul of the newspaper” (SFBV).
Glover reflects on the Panther office on Fillmore and Ellis at a time when urban removal under the guise of redevelopment was eroding and eliminating black enclaves or spaces to gather in the 1960s. At that time, Glover says he was assigned to open a Black Student Union office off campus which he did around the corner from the BPP office. “[Glover] had been suspended for the semester along with Landon Williams, Clarence Thomas (union organizer), Benny Stewart, George Murray, and four other students for their involvement in a fight at the student newspaper office known as the Gator Incident at San Francisco State College in 1967.
“Sam and I would participate in the most current news and gossip . . . as we ate breakfast at the Soul Food restaurant a few doors down from Party’s office. Always with his BPP newspaper by his side, in hand. I also recall our joint political education classes organized by members of the Black Student Union and BPP during the student strike of 1968 and 1969, which was the longest strike, as Eddie (Conway) said ever on a major college campus in the nation [then and now]. A key to our eventual victory was made possible by the encouragement and participation of the BPP as well as the many members of our respective communities that we were following.
“In our joint political education classes, our book of choice were the Quotations of Mao Tse-tung, the Red Book. I remember most of us trying to remember Mao’s sayings and trying to apply them strategically to our particular dialectics, which was a challenging yet necessary exercise. Even though the Republic of China has now all but abandoned those principles of Mao today and has become the largest economy in the world, surpassing this country’s economic output, I also choose to remember the faces of the young children who were the beneficiaries of the Party’s breakfast for children program with Father Boyle and Sister Margaret at Sacred Heart Church, an initiative that provided a needed service to the community while winning the community’s respect and admiration.
“Even when I looked at the Party’s breakfast for children program, the act of feeding our children was an act of healing in its simplistic and deep and politicized expression. Our self-anointed commune with Terry Collins, Leroy Wade Woods, his brother Dexter Knox, Don Smothers, George Colbert, and myself, we would make our way to Sacred Heart Church in the morning as early as 8 o’clock to feed children of the community two blocks from where we resided.”
Glover reflected on the irony of performing his first play, about Apartheid at the Oakland Community School. Apartheid in South Africa was the same as systemic racism in America, where in cities like Oakland and San Francisco, black populations were being eliminated. Today, there is not much blackness there there.
“I had the privilege of performing with Carl Lumbly at the Black Panther Party School on East 14th Street in East Oakland in 1997. The play was called “Sizwe Banzi is Dead,” by Athold Fugard. The children were among my first very first audiences in what was my new profession and passion, theatre. Some years ago I attended an International Arts Festival in Miami, Florida. At that exhibit [were] photographs of young black men, Panthers. In these renderings, the men stood erect, tall and proud with their berets perfectly on their heads. Embellished and immortalized by the artist’s profound imagination, [the] images were such that they might leap off the page coming alive again marching, marching.
“Just as young people reached out to embrace the party 50 years ago, young people are embracing the party again 50 years later. They’re asking for our wisdom and blessings and the truth of our lessons, and we know who they are and where they are.”
Glover mentions the Occupy Movement which spread to cities throughout the country. Though the organizers used nonviolent tactics, the OM met with violent response from the government similar to what was experienced by the BSU and BPP. He also mentioned First Nation People in North Dakota and the citizen activists who “live the burden of their previous sacrifice, political prisoners.” He calls some of their names and says: “50 years later we have our work to do.” He also mentioned: Black Lives Matter, The Color of Change, and the Dream Defenders as organizations bringing the violence against black people to national and worldwide attention.
At the 50th Anniversary Conference at OMCA, a workshop was hosted by #OPEN—Our People Effecting Neighborhood Programs. This collaboration between youth across the country utilizes the principles of the BPP Ten Point Program, the Code of Thug Life and a variety of programs which build and sustain community. I met members from Newark, Los Angeles and Atlanta that week. Jack, Founder and Sham, Youth Coordinator, and I spoke Thursday evening at the Oakland Museum. When I walked up to Haneef Sunday afternoon, he was explaining OPEN, specifically the Code to Asali. She was sitting in the kitchen at deFremery Park/Bobby Hutton Grove. All of them had just finished preparing the 500 bags of food for the giveaway. Contact information is blackpantherpartynj@gmail.com (973) 207-9639.
Nicole Welch, mother of two children and business owner has started Helping Our People to Evolve or HOPE in Los Angeles, an affiliate of OPEN. Nicole says she is inspired by the work of Aaron Dixon former Captain of the Seattle Chapter of the BPP and Jack Jackson, the founder of OPEN, a former 793 blood member that has turned activist. Contract information is for HOPE is (424) 534-HOPE and HOPE2016@gmail.com
Glover says that he and his mentor, Sam Napier never forgot they were foot soldiers. He says within that context, “we were both willing to give ourselves to an idea much larger than we were in our particular environments” – Glover in the BSU, Sam in the BPP. “We put ourselves at the disposal of the mission. I realize now we have to take our collective memories, the ones we want to forget and those memories we want to hold close to our hearts and marshal them up in the service of justice and revolutionary change. This is the decade for People of African descendant. There are more than two hundred million African descendants that live in this hemisphere; 100 million of them living in Brazil. How do we use that as a culling stone, as a way of pushing forward our agendas, and to build new relationships to find new connections?
“Fifty years later all I have to say that I am still a foot soldier ready to march. Power to the people!” Glover lifts his fist to applause.
On the Fly:
MoAD Pop-Up Gallery presents: Celebrating Fifty Years of Black Art in Bayview & Hunters Point, November 3, 2016 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm at Bayview Opera House, 4705 3rd Street, San Francisco. It is a free event. 50/20 Concert – Happy Birthday Destiny Muhammad whose annual 50/20 Concert is much anticipated. This year the date is Sunday, Nov. 13, 3-4:30 p.m. at the Malonga Casquelourd Center, 1428 Alice Street, Oakland. Tickets available at EventBrite. African Museum and Library, Oakland, events at 659 – 14th Street, Oakland, (510) 637-0200: Festival of Black Dolls Show & Sale, featuring African American Twins Yesterday and Today, Saturday, November 12, 10am – 5pm & Festival of Knowledge Series…#7: “Preserving Our Legacy through Agriculture”, Saturday November 19, 1:30 – 3:30pm Don’t miss the closing exhibitions at: SOMarts Dia De Los Muertos– Listen to an interview with Patricia Montgomery and Michael Ross (two participating artists, second guests); Iconic Black Panther Party (listen to the interview with the curatorial team (last guests), Joyce Gordon Gallery (listen to interview with Duane Deterville (first guest), and Betty Ono. Jeff Augustin’s “The Last Tiger in Haiti” continues at Berkeley Rep.
Theatre
Word for Word and Z Space stages the Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward P Jones’ Short Story All Aunt Hagar’s Children, opening on November 19 on San Francisco’s Z Space Main Stage. Set in 1950s Washington, D.C. this Noir tale spotlights a young black Korean War vet who sets out to solve a murder and becomes entangled in a web of family history. He is unsettled by another death—a young Jewish woman whose last words haunt him and his investigation. Edward P. Jones evokes a neighborhood of vivid characters, telling a story about the strength of family and the choices that shape our lives.
Directed by Stephanie Hunt; Assistant Director Margo Hall the performances are at Z Space Main Stage, 450 Florida St., in San Francisco, November 16 – December 11 ; Press night Nov. 19 (Previews Nov. 16-18). Note: No shows 11/23-24 (Thanksgiving). Special event: 12/1 Edward P. Jones, post-show conversation with audience & book signing.
Ticket prices: $33 – $58 with no additional fees; Previews $20. Special event Dec 1 tickets TBA Purchase tickets at: 866.811.4111 or at www.zspace.org
Oakland Public Conservatory presents: Rhiannon Giddens in a Day of Black String Music
Oakland Public Conservatory of Music (OPC) presents members of Grammy Award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops. Fiddler, banjo player, and vocalist Rhiannon Giddens and bandmate, folk guitarist Hubby Jenkins with tap dancer Robynn Watson perform Saturday, November 19, 2016, at 7:00 pm at the West Oakland Youth Center, 3233 Market Street in Oakland.
Prior to the concert Giddens, Jenkins and Watson, will offer free workshops (1:30- 3:30) that explore the Black roots of American Folk music including banjo, fiddle, tap dance, bones, and vocals. They will discuss the history, techniques, and contributions of Black string bands.
With the aid of recordings and films they will break down tunes and give plenty of opportunities for playing music. After the workshops there will be a screening of Jim Carrier’s film The Librarian and the Banjo which documents the 25 years of research by music librarian and musicologist, Dena Epstein, and highlights her contribution to American ethnomusicology.
The movie The Librarian and the Banjo will show from 5:30-6:30pm and the concert begins at 7:00pm. For more info, visit www.opcmusic.org