2023 WWSH Events

Programming Will Be Announced Very Soon.

2022 WWSH Events

6th Annual Sugar Hill Music Festival

Saturday, September 10
3:00 PM

Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn
155th Street and Edgecombe Avenue
Harlem, NY

sugarhill-2022

Camille Thurman and the Darrell Greene Quartet is a dynamic musical organization. Thurman is a saxophone player, whose gorgeous vocals garnered her second place in the Sarah Vaughn Vocal Competition. She is also a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and has She has performed extensively with artists that include Dr. Billy Taylor, George Coleman, and Lew Tabackin.

The Clifton Anderson Sextet will bring its special kind of swing to the Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn. With a repertoire of jazz classics and original music—some of which highlights the need for social justice—Anderson, an outstanding trombonist and bandleader is straight out of Harlem, and is Sonny Rollins’s nephew. He has worked with musical giants that include Frank Foster, McCoy Tyner, Clifford Jordan, Stevie Wonder, Dizzy Gillespie, Merv Griffin and the Mighty Sparrow to Lester Bowie, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Paul Simon, Terumasa Hino, Keith Richards, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wyclef Jean, Geri Allen, T.S. Monk, Charlie Haden, Slide Hampton , Wallace Roney, and others.

The Steven Oquendo Latin Jazz Orchestra is a nineteen-piece powerhouse that playing in the tradition of two powerful art forms. Oquendo, a Dominican and Puerto Rican Washington Heights native, is a trumpeter, composer, arranger, educator and the leader.

The Sugar Hill Quartet —Patience Higgins, Marcus Persiani, and David F. Gibson— is the longest-running house band in New York City, having performed for more than two decades at St. Nick’s Pub, Minton’s, Lenox Lounge, and Smoke. The members of the quartet kept the Harlem jam-session tradition alive and have laid down the musical foundation for the likes of Stevie Wonder, Wynton Marsalis, and Bono. As of this writing, the bass chair is rotating.

Reading Across Harlem

Art In the Moment: Life and Times of Adger Cowans

Saturday, September 10
3:00PM

Untitled-5

The year’s author-interview series features Adger Cowans and Dr. George Preston, visual artis and collector. They will revisit Cowans’s career, including having Gordon Parks as his mentor, as well as the early formation of Kamoinge by Lew Draper and Roy DeCarava.

Kamoinge’s Harlem: Then and Now

A photo exhibit

Saturday, August 20-September 24
Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn
155th Street and Edgecombe Avenue
Harlem, NY

kamoing

Kamoinge’s Harlem: Then and Now brings together artists whose works bear photographic witness to the changes that have occurred in Harlem, over the course of nearly seven decades.

Through unbridled, singular creativity, authenticity, and respect, the photographers’ chronicles of Harlem are definitive representations of the community’s many facets, through the eras, until the present day.

Kamoinge’s mission is to “HONOR, document and preserve the history and culture of the African Diaspora with integrity and insight for humanity through the lens of Black Photographers.”

This exhibition reminds us that the significance of Harlem transcends geography and resides in the spirit and cultural fabric of its history and those who lived and shaped it. These selected photographic works of the Kamoinge Collective are evidence that we are the custodians of Harlem’s spirit and soul, then and now.

Dessert with Sheila Evans

Cathedral Parkway Towers at Harlem's Gate

Sunday, March 27
3:00 PM

Online

dessert

Everybody needs housing. Read a great NYC housing story!

The greatest tenant organizing story never told… until now....

Sheila holds a master's degree in education, is a college professor, actor, oral historian, ordained unconventional minister, theologian, and she's a licensed New York City and international tour guide.
Sheila will be interviewed by Karen D. Taylor.

The tickets for this event are $50. It includes a signed book and a delectable dessert mailed directly to you.

The Unknown, Fantastic Lives of the Johnson Women

An online discussion with Paula Marie Seniors.

Sunday, March 20
3:00 PM

johnson

J. Rosamond Johnson and his brother, James Weldon Johnson, are renowned for their most famous composition, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” However, the adage, "Behind every great man there is a great woman," applies to both men. Their mother, Helen Louise Dillet, and the respective women that they married, Grace Nail and Nora E. Floyd, were highly accomplished themselves.

Paula Marie Seniors will offer an engaging discussion about these important figures whom history has relegated to the background.

The SIGNS OF THE TIMES | Harlem Heritage Markers Project will install twenty-five historic markers throughout Harlem, beginning in September 2022. SIGNS OF THE TIMES honors individuals, organizations, and events that imbue Harlem with its unique character.

The Unknown, Fantastic Lives of the Johnson Women is a pre-marker-installation program that takes a deep dive into the wives of James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson, and the woman who birthed these two extraordinary men.

One of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES honors J. Rosamond Johnson, widely known for composing “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” the perfect complement to James Weldon’s poem. The other marker honors Rosamond’s educator daughter, Mildred Johnson, who founded Harlem’s first Black independent school in 1934: The Modern School thrived for sixty years and educated hundreds of children, including one of WWSH's board members, Deidre B. Flowers, Ph.D.

2021 WWSH Events

5th Annual Sugar Hill Music Festival

Saturday, September 25
2:00 PM
Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn
155th Street and Edgecombe Avenue
Harlem, NY

6years

To celebrate the music of Harlem, we ask you to join us this year for the 5th Annual Sugar Hill Music Festival.

In Tribute to the Mizell Brothers and Gil Scott-Heron, with:
- Burnt Sugar, in tribute to the Mizells
- Charenee Wade, in tribute to Gil Scott-Heron
- Sugar Hill Quartet with Special Guest James Carter
- Duane Eubanks Quintet

In addition, Reading Across Harlem features an interview with legendary poet Abiodun Oyewole, founding member of The Last Poets and self-described “author, musician, mentor, father, lifelong learner.”Oyewole, author of Branches of the Tree of Life: The Collected Poems of Abiodun Oyewole, 1969-2013.

While We Are Still Here acknowledges the generous support of the J. Rosamond Johnson Foundation and Melanie Edwards, without whom this project would not have taken place.

The Young Lords: A Radical History

with author Johanna Fernandez interviewed by Elizabeth Yeampierre

Sunday April 25
1:00 PM

radical

Decades of Resistance In Harlem: From "New Negro" Militancy to the Young Lords

Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality with author Jeffrey Perry Interviewed by S.E. Anderson

Sunday April 11
1:00 PM

hubert

2020 WWSH Events

A Renaissance Education: Mildred L. Johnson and the Harlem School She Built

Tuesday, December 8
5:00-6:00 PM
Online

Mildred

In a segregated New York City of the 1930s, as a young Black woman Mildred L. Johnson found herself unable to secure the teaching job she wanted. Undeterred, she went on to imagine and built a progressive, affirming, Black independent school, called The Modern School, which operated for more than sixty years in Harlem's Sugar Hill.

With:

Khadijah Akeem, master’s degree student, History and Education, Teachers College

Melanie Edwards, daughter of Modern School founder, Mildred L. Johnson

Ansley Erickson, associate professor of History and Education Policy and co-director, Center on History and Education

Deidre B. Flowers '17, A’Lelia Bundles Scholar at Columbia University and Modern School alum

Nicole Furlonge, Klingenstein Family Chair Professor of Practice and Director of Klingenstein Center, Teachers College

Karen D. Taylor, founder and executive director, While We Are Still Here

Community Forum: Historic Markers Campaign for Harlem

Saturday February 29
12:30-4:30 PM
George Bruce Library
518 West 125th Street
Harlem, NY

Markers_6-21

Please come prepared to discuss and agree upon who, what, where should be honored in the first stage of this important campaign. LIGHT REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED.

Bad Mother @#$^*: Black Music on the Big Screen

Tuesday, February 18
6:30 PM
Apollo Theater
Harlem, NY

Apollo_Band

Ahead of the screening and live music soundtrack performance of Shaft, Greg Tate, founder and musical director of Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, will guide us in a consideration of Isaac Hayes’s timeless soundtrack and other classics from the era when Soul and R&B took over the movie screen. Panelists also include Lisa Cortes, filmmaker, and Nelson George, writer, film and music producer.

Presented by the Apollo Theater Education Program in collaboration with the organization, While We Are Still Here; with Karen D. Taylor, founder and executive director, While We Are Still Here (facilitator)

2019 WWSH Events

In the Face of What We Remember: Oral Histories of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue

The definitive narrative of two of Harlem’s most noted addresses.

Tuesday October 22nd

face

In the Face of What We Remember: Oral Histories of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue chronicles the fascinating history of the renowned movers and shakers who lived/live in two of Sugar Hill’s most iconic apartment buildings. Captured on film, the buildings’ elders share memories of their famous neighbors, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Madam Stephanie St. Clair, Aaron Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, and a myriad of others whose cultural and political legacies influenced the entire world. The documentary puts "everyday" faces on these celebrated men and women, who symbolize courage, strength, leadership, and commitment.

Produced by While We Are Still Here, Jamal Joseph, and Michael Tyner and directed by Karen D. Taylor

Dessert with Donald Bogle, Interview with Craigh Barboza and Book Signing

Sunday, October 13

3 PM
Grinnell Community Room
800 Riverside Drive
New York, NY
$40 Includes a Signed Book and Unlimited Desserts

bogle

With a foreword by John Singleton

"No one knows more (or has written more extensively) about the history of African-Americans' contributions to cinema than Donald Bogle." Leonard Maitlin

Donald Bogle is the foremost scholar of African American cinema, whose groundbreaking publication Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies, and Bucks, is the gold standard for Black film history.

Fierce and Feminist In Harlem: Women and the Life of a Community

Wednesday, March 13
6:30 PM
Apollo Theater

Yuri_Screen_Apollo
WOW-logo

Fierce and Feminist in Harlem: Women and the Life of a Community will look at artists, activists, journeywomen, and others in various cultural and political phenomena whose presence and work in the Harlem community exemplify the concept of feminism. From the numbers racket, to the Harlem Renaissance, to involvement in the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Young Lords, Fierce and Feminist will consider the extraordinary influence women have had within the Harlem community and beyond and will honor women who were at the intersection of art, politics, and social change, such as pianist Hazel Scott, anthropologist Eslanda Goode Robeson, writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and activist Yuri Kochiyama.

Presented by the Apollo Theater Education Program in collaboration with While We Are Still Here.

Facilitator:
Karen D. Taylor, Founder/Executive Director, While We Are Still Here

Panelists:
Karen Chilton, Actor, Dramatist, Author of Hazel Scott
LaShawn D. Harris, Author of Sex Workers,Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy
Johanna Fernandez, Author of The Young Lords: A Radical History
Rosemari Mealy, Author of Fidel and Malcolm: Memories of a Meeting

Featuring a Dramatic Performance by April Armstrong

4th Annual Sugar Hill Music Festival

Saturday, September 7, 3pm
Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn
Edgecombe Avenue and 155th Street
Harlem, NY

SheilaAnderson

This year's Sugar Hill Music Festival features

--Sugar Hill Quartet with Special Guest

--Firey String Sistas!

--Soul Understated featuring Mavis Swan Poole

with Sheila Anderson of WBGO, Emcee

2018 WWSH Events

Videotaping the Official Oral History of St. Nick’s PubFeaturing the Sugar Hill Quartet

Thursdays, November 1 and November 8
3 PM (Oral Histories)
7:30 PM (Music)
Bill’s Place
148 W. 133rd Street
Harlem, NY

Sugar Hill Quartet

On March 22, 2018, the famed nightspot, St. Nick’s Pub, burned down. For decades, the Sugar Hill Quartet was the house band for the Monday night jam sessions. While We Are Still Here will be taping the oral histories of SHQ—Patience Higgins, Marcus Persiani, and David F. Gibson—as well as Bill Saxton, who was also a Pub presence, and other musicians, patrons, and some of the proprietors, for a film short.

The tapings take place at the historic Bill’s Place (owned by Bill Saxton and his wife, Theda Saxton, Ph.D.) It was the site of Billie Holiday’s first gig in New York City.

If you would like to share your oral history of St. Nick’s Pub, please visit wwsh.nyc to register, or call 929-266-3952.

Reel Sisters Film Festival Harlem
Kick-off Celebrating Community and
Self-Care! A Collaboration Between Reel Sisters and While We Are Still Here

Saturday, October 6
1 PM
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
116th Street and Broadway
Harlem, NY

ReelSisters

This is the Harlem Kick-off of the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival and Lecture Series. Join us for an afternoon of films produced, directed, and written by women of color from across the globe! One of the films will be a 15-minute cut of the feature-length In the Face of What We Remember: Oral Histories of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue. Families and students are welcome! Films will celebrate community, self-care, and wellness. For information, please visit www.reelsisters.org or call 212-865-2982.

Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival and Lecture Series makes history this year by becoming the first Academy Qualifying Film Festival for narrative shorts devoted to women of color!

3rd Annual Sugar Hill Music Festival

Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn
Edgecombe Avenue and 155th Street
Harlem, NY

 

Regina Carter

An afternoon of music, featuring artists of international renown.

--Regina Carter-Xavier Davis Duo

--Sugar Hill Quartet with TC the 3rd

--Firey String Sistas!

--Uptown Brass Quintet, with Marshall Sealey

Reading Across Harlem Reading and Book Signing With MaryLouise Patterson, MD

Saturday, September 8th
3 PM
Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn
Edgecombe Avenue and 155th Street
Harlem, NY

LettersfromLangstonBookCover

MaryLouise Patterson, a pediatrician in clinical practice, and Evelyn Louise Crawford, a retired arts administrator and consultant, are the daughters of Langston Hughes's cherished friends Evelyn Graves Crawford, Matt N. Crawford, Louise Thompson Patterson, and William L. Patterson. Hughes was a frequent guest in the homes of the two families and was like an uncle to Evelyn Louise and MaryLouse.

ReadingHarlem_Logo

After the Flypaper: Life In Harlem In Images and Words (1955-2017)

April 3rd-May 7th
Harlem Hospital Mural Pavilion
Malcolm X Boulevard at 135th Street
Harlem, NY

flypaper

Inspired by the classic photo essay, The Sweet Flypaper of Life: Harlem In Black and White, by Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes, this exhibit extends the visual-literary exchange that the two men began in the 1950s. The “Harlem-centric” works by poets that include Calvin Forbes and Patricia Spears Jones, and visual artists, such as Romare Bearden and Ife Felix will be shown alongside other renowned individuals’ works.

Facebook Discussions Garnette Cadogan and Rosemari Mealy in Cyberspace

These discussions will be held on three consecutive Sundays in March, from 7 to 8 PM.

Online

rosemari

Led by a discussion leader on Facebook at Read ing Across Harlem’s page, participants will share their impressions of the following excerpts, in a public dialogue. Discussion leaders follow.

March 11, Garnette Cadogan, “Upon Arriving in Harlem,” Gordon Parks

March 18, TBD, “Hostess of Harlem,” Claude McKay

March 25, Rosemari Mealy, “Minister Malcolm X,” Malcolm X

Theater-In-Black-In Harlem and a Performance “Resonating Resistance: Voice of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue”

Monday, February 26th
6:30 PM
The Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard
Harlem, NY

With Daniel Carlton, Voza Rivers, Byron C. Saunders, Benja K. Thomas, Susan Watson Turner

regina

The history of theater in Harlem has been long and illustrious. This conversation will touch upon the legacies of theater companies that include W.E.B. Du Bois and Regina Anderson’s KRIGWA; Langston Hughes and Louise Thompson’s Suitcase Theater; and the famed American Negro Theater on the development of successive companies that include those developed by Amiri Baraka, Gertrude Jennette, Barbara Ann Teer, Voza Rivers, and Jamal Joseph.

“Resonating Resistance: Voices of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue,” is directed by Daniel Carlton, and features some of Harlem’s greatest actors, who will bring to life excerpted works by a few prolific writers and activists, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Louise Thompson-Patterson, and Marvel Cooke.

2017 WWSH Events

Echoes of the Eras II

Saturday, September 9th
3pm
Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn
155th Street and Edgecombe Avenue
Harlem, NY

Photo credit: Tracy Love
Photo credit: Tracy Love

Terri Lyne Carrington Quartet, with Marc Cary and Others
Melba Joyce
The Sugar Hill Quartet, with Patience Higgins, Marcus Persiani, David Gibson
—and—
Reading Across Harlem Kick Off, featuring Book Signing and Reading by Author Herb Boyd

The Terri Lyne Carrington Quartet plays reimagined takes on Duke Ellington’s “Money Jungle.” Through her unique vocal stylings, Melba Joyce presents the classic sound of jazz. The Sugar Hill Quartet continues the swinging Harlem tradition.

Reading Across Harlem, A Community Read is inspired by One Book/One City, a project of the American Library Association. Kick Off and Book Signing of The Harlem Reader and Black Detroit with Author Herb Boyd

 

The Harlem Reader: A Celebration of New York’s Most Famous Neighborhood From the Renaissance to the 21st Century is Reading Across Harlem’s “primer.”

Saturday, October 7th
4-6 PM
Sister’s Uptown Bookstore
1942 Amsterdam Avenue
Harlem, NY

Harelm_Reader

A discussion covering the first nine chapters of The Harlem Reader.

Other events accompany this community read, allowing the participants to gain an understanding of why Harlem became the “Black Cultural Capital of the World.”

Radicals, Rhythm, Religion, and West Indians

Saturday, November 4th
2-4 PM
Countee Cullen Library
104 West 136th Street
Harlem, NY

With Herb Boyd, Jeffrey B. Perry, and Others TBD

Jeffrey_Perry

A wide-ranging talk, focusing on pages 34 to 79, that demonstrates the extraordinary growth of Harlem as a site of international influence.

2016 WWSH Events

Baldwin’s America

Free Reading and Discussion Series with Baldwin Biographer, Herb Boyd.

Sponsored by the New York State Council for the Humanities.

Four Saturday Sessions in Harlem, from 3-5pm, at Two Different Venues.

baldwin

Session 1
Baldwin in Harlem
March 5, Revolution Books, 437 Malcolm X Boulevard (at 132nd Street)

This is an overview of the series, and will include a showing of the acclaimed documentary, “Price of the Ticket.”

Session 2
Baldwin the Essayist
March 12, Tsion Café, 768 St. Nicholas Avenue (at 148th Street)

We’ll view excerpts from “The James Baldwin Anthology,” including his debate with Malcolm X. Baldwin’s early aspirations, the subsequent book reviews,
and his rift with Richard Wright will be discussed.

Session 3
Baldwin’s Fiction
March 19, Tsion Café

“Go Tell It on the Mountain,” with Paul Winfield, will be this session’s film. We’ll consider how Baldwin’s fiction mirrors his life.

Session 4
Baldwin - Citizen of the World and Civil Rights
April 2, Revolution Books, 437 Malcolm X Boulevard, Harlem, NY

We’ll view clips of Baldwin abroad in France, Turkey, etc.; discuss Baldwin’s last works; and summarize what has transpired from previous sessions.

When Sugar Hill Was Sweet

A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF 409 AND 555 EDGECOMBE AVENUE

Saturday, July 30th
12:30-2:00 PM
Meet at 800 Riverside Drive
New York, NY

409 Edgecombe Avenue
409 Edgecombe Avenue

Three Sisters and Their Parents: Discussion and Walking Tour

Tour Leader, Michael Henry Adams

The common architectural histories of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue and 800 Riverside Drive are highlighted in this discussion and walking tour. Also covered will be the history of Black ownership of these important structures.

Judicial Firsts, Judicial Influence: Jurists in the House

Panelists: Deuel Ross, Esq., Esmeralda Simmons, Esq., Elizabeth Yeampierre, Esq.
Moderator: Joan P. Gibbs, Esq.

409 Edgecombe Avenue
Harlem, NY
(On the sidewalk)

Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall

This important panel about the legal legacies of 409 Edgecombe Avenue, including Thurgood Marshall’s, takes place right in the Harlem community, in front of the building that housed some of the nation’s and city’s most significant legal movers and shakers—all of whom, during the 20th century, shaped the legal landscape of the United States.

Leroy Burgess Birthday Dance Party with DJ Red Alert and DJ Laylo

Friday, August 19th
2:00-5:00 PM
Jackie Robinson Park Bandshell
145th Street between Edgecombe and Bradhurst avenues
Harlem, NY

LeroyPartyRevise

There’s a chance that Leroy had something to do with your favorite disco tune or house music jam. As writer, producer, arranger, keyboardist, and/ or vocalist, his special touch can be felt on hits like “Mainline,” “Let’s Do It,” and “Moment of My Life.” Leroy “Father of the Boogie” Burgess is a man of many musical talents, and has funked it up “Big Time” for Rick James and got “Over Like A Fat Rat” with Fonda Rae.

Echoes of the Eras: Music From 409 and 555 Edgecombe - Concert and Panel Discussion

Jazz, Spirituals, European Classical

Saturday, September 3rd
12:00-6:00 PM

WWSH_Echoes

Featuring a SPECIAL GUEST PERFORMER

We’ll Be Closing Out the Day With A Jam Session!

- Melba Joyce
- The Sugar Hill Quartet
- The West Village Quartet
- Angela L. Owens (soprano) and Charles David Carter (bass-baritone)— operatic duo, with accompaniment by Roy Jennings

Emcee, Daa’iya Lomax of WHCR’s “Gardens of Tranquility and Contemplation”

Panelists, Herb Boyd and Terrance McKnight
Moderator, Felipe Luciano

Many musical innovators called 409 and 555 Edgecombe home: From Andy Kirk, Jimmie Lunceford, Billy Strayhorn, Coleman Hawkins, Johnny Hodges, and Count Basie, through Paul Robeson, travel the journey with us all the way through to the era of Cassandra Wilson. Will also present European classical music and the contributions of Harry T. Burleigh and Clarence Cameron White.

The gracious Geri Allen played solo piano for While We Are Still Here's first concert on September 3, 2016.

By June 27, 2017, she had departed this earthly plane, leaving behind a musical legacy that Patricia Spears Jones honors in a poetic tribute.

 

geri
Geri_Poem

When Sugar Hill Was Sweet

A Day of Panel Discussions and Performances at Barnard College

Friday, September 16th
9:30 AM-8:30 PM

In collboration with Barnard College, Africana Studies Department; Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality; and the Heyman Center for Humanities

Daddy Grace and his chauffeur
Daddy Grace and his chauffeur

Of the Cloth: Theologians, Ministers, and Christian Capitalists

Discussant, William Seraile, PhD
Moderator, Reverend LaKeesha Walrond, PhD

From Daddy Grace’s enormous property holdings, including ownership of 555 Edgecombe Avenue, to the Reverend James Herman Robinson’s prototype for an international-aid organization that grew into the Peace Corps, the influence of a few of Sugar Hill’s African American ministers will be revealed. This talk will give an overview of the role religion played in the activism and activities of the men of the cloth, who lived at 409 and 555, or who owned the dwellings.

Saying Something: Voices of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue

Directed by Daniel Carlton

Daniel Carlton
Daniel Carlton

With actors from the Harlem community.

If one can describe a building as “prolific,” then it is probable that 409 and 555 may well be two of the most prolific residences in the modern world. Dramatic interpretations of excerpted works by or about themany Edgecombe Avenue writers, poets, playwrights, and thinkers.

Pride and Harlem History

Panelists, Rich Blint, PhD, David Hajdu, Gordon Thompson, PhD

Hajdu_Strayhorn

Billy Strayhorn was one of the brave. He was gay and out, during an era that was far more unforgiving of homosexuality than the current period. This panel will present the gay community’s major influence on the arts and letters of the African Diaspora.

The “Talented Tenth” and the “Ninety Percent” On Edgecombe Avenue: The Power of Community, The Realities of Dissension

Panelists, David Levering Lewis, PhD, Mark Naison, PhD
Moderator, Herb Boyd

David Levering Lewis
David Levering Lewis

Offers an expansive discussion of the intellectual and political legacies that the men and women of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue left to the generations. Describes the broad, diverse political tendencies, from stalwart Communists, such as Marvel Cooke, to “integrationists” to nationalists, to anti-Communists. The influence and importance of Du Bois (William Edward Burghardt and Shirley Graham), Patterson (William and Louise Thompson), as well as Robeson (Paul and Eslanda), will be part of a comprehensive discussion.

2015 WWSH Events

What Should History Look Like?

Community Participation Forum I
Saturday, October 24, 2015
3:30-6:30pm

Tsion_Cafe

While We Are Still Here (WWSH), a non-profit entity, ensures that the “post-gentrification” community of Harlem and beyond will honor and find a meaningful connection to the legacy of African American achievement, and its paramount importance to world culture. Our vision is to educate, enshrine, and preserve the extraordinary legacy of a neighborhood that was vital to the intellectual, cultural, social, and political advancements of the Harlem community and the African Diaspora. With a particular emphasis on “sister buildings,” 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue.

This professionally facilitated town hall-style meeting informed While We Are Still Here’s first season of programming, based on the suggestions from the community at the town hall meeting. In the Summer of 2016 we began filming oral histories of past and present residents of 409 and 555. Since that time, WWSH has presented walking tours, a dance party, conferences, panel discussions, concerts, dramatic performances, and art exhibits.

Facilitator: Sehu Jeppe

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