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Posts tagged as “Harlem”

Harlem Will Soon Be Home to 20-Story Hip Hop Hall of Fame Museum

By goodblacknews on June 20, 2017

(photo via huffpost.com)

by Brennan Williams via (huffpost.com)
Earlier this month, the Hip Hop Hall of Fame Museum won a bid to acquire a Harlem building and development site for a new state-of-the-art facility that will “preserve, archive, exhibit, educate, and showcase hip-hop Music and culture from around the world.”

Phase one, which is set to begin in February 2018, of the museum’s development plan will include, among other things, a multimedia film production studio and a television content production center for students “that will be training for careers in tech and media, while producing real-life content for the museum, and the hip hop television channel network,” the museum’s founder, JT Thompson, said in a release.
Eventually the 20-story building will include 5-star hotel, retail mall, an arcade, restaurant and concert lounge. The organization has also launched a $150 million fundraising campaign to help complete funding for the entertainment complex.
Last year, Thompson ― who’s also an Army veteran ― told the New York Post that the museum’s progress has been a “labor of love.”
“Hip hop is about empowering yourself, moving beyond the music,” he said. “The HHHOF and I have a duty and responsibility to preserve this rich history of music and culture. [You need to] pull yourself up by your bootstraps to pursue your dreams.”
“This has been a labor of love. It’s had its valleys, mountains, peaks and falloffs. In the Army, I had leaders, mentors and brothers like teammates working to achieve something special. In life and in business, be disciplined and finish strong without quitting.”
For more info on the development of the Hip Hop Hall of Fame Museum, please visit the museum’s website.

Source: Harlem Will Soon Be Home To A 20-Story Hip Hop Museum | HuffPost

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between the World and Me’ to be Staged at the Apollo Theater in April 2018

By goodblacknews on April 27, 2017

Ta-Nehisi Coates (photo via nytimes.com)

article by Andrew R. Chow via nytimes.com
“Between the World and Me,” Ta-Nehisi Coates’s award-winning book exploring racial injustice in America, will be brought to the Apollo stage next April.
Mr. Coates’s fiery work — which made him the National Book Award winner and a Pulitzer Prize finalist — will be adapted into a multimedia performance, with excerpted monologues, video projections, and a score by the jazz musician Jason Moran.
Portions of Mr. Coates’s letters to his son would be read aloud, while narratives of his experiences at Howard University and in New York City could be performed by actors. Kamilah Forbes, the Apollo’s executive producer, will direct the production.
The coming Apollo season will be Ms. Forbes’s first full season in the role; she previously was the associate director of “Raisin in the Sun” on Broadway.
To read more, go to: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between the World and Me’ Is Coming to the Apollo – NYTimes.com

Writers Rally to Save Langston Hughes Home in Harlem via Crowdfunding

By goodblacknews on August 20, 2016

Langston Hughes (photo via theroot.com)

article by Angela Bronner Helms via theroot.com
The home occupied by one of the great leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, still stands on 127th Street in Harlem today.  Hughes used the top floor of the home as his workroom from 1947 to his death in 1967; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The current owner, who remains anonymous, listed the unoccupied dwelling for $1 million (which still has his typerwriter on a shelf) a few years ago, but it did not sell.  CNN Money reports that in a rapidly gentrifying New York, the home is now worth over $3 million.
Now that it’s on the market, writer Renee Watson has started an Indiegogo campaign to raise $150,000 to rent the home and turn it into a cultural center.
Over 250 people, many of them black writers, have given money in support and so far, the initiative to save Hughes’ house has raised almost $34,000.  “Hughes is deeply influential and important not only to me, but many writers of color,” says author Jacqueline Woodson, winner of the National Book Award for Brown Girl Dreaming, which opens with a Hughes poem.
Watson says she has spoken to the owner, who says she would definitely sell it, but “like me, she doesn’t want it to become condos or a coffee shop.”

To donate to the fund, please go to the I, Too, Arts Collective Indigogo page.
To read full article, go to: Black Writers Rally To Save Langston Hughes Home

14 Year-Old Tayloni Mazyck, Paralyzed in Brooklyn Gang Shooting, Inspires at her Middle School Graduation

By goodblacknews on June 30, 2016
Tayloni Mazyck getting her diploma at her graduation from New Design Middle School .She was paralyzed in 2013 when hit by a bullet during a gang war shoot out in Brooklyn.
Tayloni Mazyck getting her diploma at her graduation from New Design Middle School .She was paralyzed in 2013 when hit by a bullet during a gang war shoot out in Brooklyn. (MICHAEL SCHWARTZ/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

David Norman, a 67 Year-Old Ex-Convict, Graduates from Columbia University

By goodblacknews on May 24, 2016

David Norman, a 67-year-old ex-con, celebrates his graduation from Columbia.
David Norman (photo via nydailynews.com)

article by Rich Schapiro via nydailynews.com
After 67 years, two prison stints and so many arrests he’s lost count, David Norman, a former Harlem drug dealer, graduated from Columbia University as the oldest member of his class.
Norman shed his dark past for a cap and gown Wednesday after earning his long-awaited bachelor’s degree in philosophy.  “It’s always possible to pursue your dreams,” Norman told the Daily News.
Norman’s extraordinary journey from the gritty streets of Harlem to the gleaming lawns at Columbia was studded with obstacles.  His decades-old battle with substance abuse began early.  Norman was drinking by age 11 and using heroin before his 15th birthday.  His high school education lasted all of one day.  Norman turned into a street hustler, slinging dope to satisfy his drug cravings.  “I had a 35-year run with addiction,” he said.
Norman racked up a mile-long rap sheet filled with arrests for robbery and drug trafficking.  His first stint upstate came in 1967. Nearly three decades later, he was charged with manslaughter after fatally stabbing a man in a street fight.  The six years he spent in Mohawk Correctional Facility in upstate Rome proved life-changing.
He found joy in books. He started learning Hebrew. And he helped run a program that taught life skills to inmates preparing to return to society.  “I had a moment of clarity in which I was able to recognize everything I had done at that point was fairly counter-productive and I needed to engage in some new activities and some new behaviors,” Norman said.
He walked out of prison in 2000 a changed man, eager to devote the second half of his life to raising up the most vulnerable.

The National Black Programming Consortium is Offering $150,000 to Independent Filmmakers

By goodblacknews on February 17, 2016

Leslie Fields-Cruz (photo via blackenterprise.com)

article by Carolyn M. Brown via blackenterprise.com
Leslie Fields-Cruz heads up the nation’s only nonprofit organization dedicated solely to media content about the black experience. As the executive director of the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), the Harlem-based media arts organization, she has made some major moves.
Under Fields-Cruz, NBPC has expanded its mission to serve not only documentary filmmakers but media-makers of all types in a new media environment, from broadcast to Web to mobile. Launched in October 2014, NBPC 360, the organization’s incubator and fund, identified and selected both broadcast and Web documentary series and a short narrative Web series. Producers were awarded between $50,000 and $100,000 to develop their pilots. The group is launching year two of its 360 Incubator and Fund as they are looking for the next innovative stories about black people. The deadline is March 28 and the 360 guidelines and applications are available at www.bit.ly/NBPC360-2016. NBPC also produces the television documentary series AfroPop, hosted this year by FOX’s Empire breakout star Jussie Smollett.
Fields-Cruz is working to expand the organization’s mission to serve artists in all types of media from traditional broadcast to Web to mobile platforms. For the first time last year, NBC hosted a hackathon focusing on gamification in partnership with Silicon Harlem. Teams of student coders were paired up with eight producers from NBPC 360, bringing together storytellers from the program with technologists over 48 hours to create games around content from their TV and Web series. NBPC also conducted Webinar Wednesdays where they train new producers on key aspects of pulling together a film or Web series and developing an outreach campaign beyond just having screenings around the country.
Also in the works is a succession of new funding priorities. Over the next two years, NBPC will primarily fund documentary and Web content exploring issues of race and around social justice, with an emphasis on black male achievement, the international black woman, blacks and the environment and economic inequity. The group will award productions with seed money as well as finishing funds.
With current headlines turning the spotlight on the perception of and plight of blacks in this country, the role our media-makers play in providing the American public with stories of the varied black experience is as important as ever.
BlackEnterprise.com caught up Fields-Cruz to discuss her role in stewarding black content to public television and beyond.
BlackEnterprise.com: How did the NBPC 360 incubator and fund come about, what was the catalyst?
Fields-Cruz: In 2013, the board and staff embarked on a strategic planning session. We needed to re-evaluate our mission and look at the programs we are offering black filmmakers. We needed think innovatively about what we can offer. We thought that an incubator would be a great opportunity. We have always done professional development but let’s figure out a way we can combine that with substantial rewards so that producers can walk away with money and a much stronger support system. We wanted to help them get the funding or financing to be closer to completion of their projects.
What type of artists or filmmakers do you seek to participate in the incubator?
We had about 160 applications last year and that was whittled down to 25 after the first round and out of that group we selected eight projects for the incubator. Usually we have 10 but last year we chose eight. We are not looking for those filmmakers who have just finished school and who don’t have too many credits to their name. [Rather], we are looking for the emerging producer or mid-career producer who has completed a film and it has had a broadcast or has had a very successful festival run. And they are looking to expand and build upon their career; they need additional support and to expand their network in the industry. We always had independent producers contacting NBPC and seeking funding. But we had not had an open call for about five years. So a lot of this year was me meeting and speaking to independent producers and letting them know what was coming down the pike. We are actively trying to bring new talent to work in the PBS system. We know that public television is very interested in [hiring] the next generation of talent and producing content that reflects the changing demographics.

The organization is seeking programs that explore issues of race and around social justice. Does that include such movements as Black Lives Matter and black transgender women’s rights? 
That is one of the beauties of the work that we do at NBPC. We have a broad category in terms of race and social justice. There are independent producers out there who are making all types of programming, whether it is for broadcast or the Web, documentaries or narrative shorts. We are seeking all of those stories under the banner of race and social justice. It could be a piece focusing on events in Ferguson [Missouri] or what is happening in Alabama around voter rights and DMVs being closed in black neighborhoods. Those broad categories allow us to navigate through a wealth of stories to identify the ones that we think work best for us.
To read more, go to: http://www.blackenterprise.com/lifestyle/the-national-black-programming-consortium-is-offering-150000-to-independent-filmmakers/

Get Your Taxes Done for Free at Harlem Food Bank Center

By goodblacknews on February 3, 2016
Tejeda, who runs the free tax service program for the Food Bank for New York City, stands in front of their center in Harlem at 71 Saint Nicholas Ave.
Tejeda, who runs the free tax service program for the Food Bank for New York City, stands in front of their center in Harlem at 71 Saint Nicholas Ave. Close (DNAinfo/Gustavo Solis)

article by Gustavo Solis via DNAinfo.com

HARLEM — Stella Crook lined up just after 8 a.m. to get free tax services at Saint Nicholas Avenue and 114th Street. By the time the center opened at 10 a.m., the line was out the door.

“I was the first one here, they even let me wait inside,” said Crook, 68. “I was in and out, it was so easy.”
Crook is one of 200 people expected to file their taxes at the Food Bank for New York City’s free tax service center on 71 Saint Nicholas Ave. Wednesday.
The retired home health aide used to pay $300 at Jackson Hewitt to file but she began using the free service two years ago.
Now she keeps her refund without paying a dime for help filing paperwork.
“They charge you $300 to give you your own money,” said German Tejeda, who runs the program. “When that money runs out you are going to want those $300. That’s someone’s grocery bill.”
The average income of clients using the free service is $17,000. Anyone who makes less than $54,000 and can claim dependents or makes less than $30,000 and is a single filer is eligible to receive free tax assistance, he added.
IRS-certified volunteers are trained to get eligible tax payers claim the Earn Income Tax Credit, which is a poverty-reduction program that helped more than 4.8 million people get and average of $2,000.
The Food Bank has been running a tax program since 2002. They have 20 centers throughout the five boroughs and dozens of drop off centers where you can submit paperwork and file with your cellphone.
In their 14 years of providing this service they have put more than $900 million back into people’s pockets, they said.
“This year we are going to reach $1 billion,” Tejeda said.
The center in Harlem — one of four in Manhattan — has been open for three years. They partner with nonprofits throughout the city to open other centers in all five boroughs and have also teamed up with Intuit to offer free digital assistance at selected libraries including Harlem Library, Morningside Heights, and 58th Street.
To file, people should bring a picture ID, social security card, and copies of income forms like a W-2, 1099, or records of other types of income like cash earnings. A full list of documents is available online.
To read more, click here: https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160203/central-harlem/get-your-taxes-done-for-free-at-harlem-food-bank-center

Lee Daniels Directing Apollo Theater Documentary "The Apollo Theater Project"

By goodblacknews on February 2, 2016

Lee Daniels Directing Apollo Theater Documentary
(REX/SHUTTERSTOCK)

article by Dave McNary via Variety.com
Lee Daniels (“Precious”, “The Butler”, “Empire”) will direct the documentary feature film “The Apollo Theater Film Project,” an authorized history of New York’s famed venue.

“I am honored to be entrusted with the story of this incredible American iconic institution and work with this team,” Daniels said. “I used to go to the Apollo Theater as a kid and never in a million years would I have imagined I would be back to be doing this – it is very special for me.”
Lee Daniels (photo via slate.com)
Director Lee Daniels (photo via slate.com)

The Apollo began operating in 1934 during the Harlem Renaissance and became the most prized venue on the “Chitlin’ Circuit” during the time of racial segregation in the United States. The Apollo was a key launch venue for Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix and the Jackson Five. Performers have included Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Gladys Knight, Sammy Davis Jr. and Billie Holiday.
White Horse Pictures’ Nigel Sinclair and Jeanne Elfant Festa are producing the project. Daniels and Jonelle Procope, the president and CEO of the Apollo Theater, are asking members of the public, audience-goers and fans for film footage, home movies, photographs or other memorabilia.
“We are asking members of the community who have been to the Apollo, who may have parents or grandparents or other family members or friends who have done so, to help us find any material — audience footage, photographs or other memories that we can use in our documentary film,” Daniels and Procope said.
The project has established a website (www.apollotheaterdocumentary.com) for anyone who wants to submit. “We will, of course, respect everybody’s ownership of their property,” Daniels and Procope said.
To read more, go to: http://variety.com/2016/film/news/lee-daniels-director-apollo-theater-documentary-1201691098/

Ava DuVernay, Melissa Harris-Perry, Black Lives Matter & More to be Honored at Revolution Awards for Black History Month

By goodblacknews on January 27, 2016

2015-02-03-06-24-27.jpgHarlem-based cinema foundation ImageNation will honor the brightest entertainers and advocates who exude “Black Excellence” during the annual Revolution Awards, set to take place in New York next month.
The awards’ theme, eloquently titled Cocktails, Cinema & Revolution, will honor famed director Ava DuVernay, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, Black Lives Matter, and actor Hill Harper on Feb. 10.
ImageNation founder Moikgantsi Kgama shared her thoughts about how this year’s show will tie into Black History Month.
The Revolution Awards came to fruition in 2003, honoring the accomplishments of activists, actors, and artists who step outside the box to help improve Black and Latino communities. Past honorees and participants include Spike Lee, Congressman John Lewis, Erykah Badu, Lee Daniels, Talib Kweli, and the late Ruby Dee.
“History is being made everyday. This event celebrates Black History Month by recognizing our most inspiring change agents while highlighting ImageNation’s newest monthly film program Cocktails & Cinema. I am looking forward to the Revolution Awards returning to an epic evening of honoring those who make a difference,” said Kgama.
In addition to the awards, the film 1982, starring Hill Harper, Sharon Leal, Wayne Brady, Troi Zee, La La Anthony and Ruby Dee, will be screened. The movie stars Harper as a father protecting his daughter from his wife’s battle with drug addiction.  Harper will also engage in a discussion of the film with director Tommy Oliver, image activist Michaela Angela Davis, and noted psychologist Dr. Jeff Gardere.
The event is open to the public. To find out how you can be part of the magic during Black History Month, get a ticket here and find out more about ImageNation’s 20-year legacy here.
article by Desire Thompson via newsone.com

Chris Rock Recites James Baldwin During Powerful MLK Day Event In Harlem

By goodblacknews on January 18, 2016
Chris Rock speaks at #MLKNow event (photo via lifestream.com)
Chris Rock speaks at #MLKNow event (photo via lifestream.com)

Chris Rock brought the powerful words of James Baldwin to life Monday during a tribute at the “MLK Now” event in Harlem honoring the late Martin Luther King, Jr.
The program, put together by the Campaign For Black Achievement and Blackout for Human Rights — organizations committed to social justice — took place at Harlem’s Riverside Church, where King delivered his riveting 1967 speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence.”
The event attracted a bevy of black Hollywood stars, who celebrated the legacy of King and other black historical icons. Some stars paid tribute through musical performances, like India.Arie, who praised Shirley Chisholm. Others, including Rock, gave powerful recitals.
Rock, who will host the Oscars next month, read the words to Baldwin’s widely praised 1963 letter, “My Dungeon Shook.” Watch Rock’s full performance (he takes the stage around the 1:44 mark) by clicking here.
“Creed” director Ryan Coogler, also the director and a founding member of Blackout for Human Rights, served as moderator for the event and introduced stars on the stage, including Harry Belafonte, Octavia Spencer, Jussie Smollett, Michael B. Jordan and India.Arie.

article by Lilly Workneh via huffingtonpost.com