 Good morning family Alaphia My name is Lorelai Williams, and I'm a daughter of Oshun initiated in the Afro-Brazilian Religion of condom blade and this morning. We're going to pour libation in honor of our ancestors those cultural warriors Who have paved the way for us to be here today Barbara Anteer, Chris Ijima, Fran Cole, and Mark Wong All the names of Grace Lee Boggs, James Baldwin, James Cortez, June Jordan The names of Juliana Burgos, June Jordan, Laura Moreno, Paula Bunn-Allen, Charlie Hill, Bob Marley, John Mohawk Grace Lee Boggs, we speak your names Nina Simone, Maya Angelou, Mary Mojago, we speak your names Oscar Michaud, Paul Rosen, Ron Meijer, Segu Sundiada, we speak your names Vincent Smith, Thelonious Monk, Yusef Iman, Yuri Kochiama, we speak your names We speak your names, we speak your names, we speak your names, and please speak the names of your elders and ancestors Call them out with me We speak your names, we speak your names, we invite you here, we love you, we thank you, and we speak your names Somebody blew up America All thinking people opposed terrorism, both domestic and international But one should not be used to cover the other Somebody blew up America They say it's some terrorist, some barbaric Arab in Afghanistan It wasn't our American terrorists, it wasn't the Klan, or the skinheads Or the them that blows up nigger churches, or reincarnates us on death row It wasn't Trent Lock, or David Duke, or Giuliani, or Shunla, Helms retiring It wasn't the gonorrhea in costume The white sheet diseases that have murdered black people, terrorized reason and sanity Most of humanity, as they please is, they say, who say, who do the saying, who is them paying Who tell the lies, who in disguise, who had the slaves, who got the bucks out the bucks Who got fat from plantations, who genocided Indians, tried to waste the black nation Who live on Wall Street, the first plantation Who cut your nuts off, who rape your mom, who lends your pie Who got the tar, who got the feathers, who had the match, who set the fires Who killed in heart, who say they got, still be the devil Who the biggest only, who the most goodest Who do Jesus resemble, who created everything, who the smartest, who the greatest, who the richest Who say you ugly, and they do good-lookingness Who define art, who define science, who made the bombs, who made the guns, who bought the slaves, who sold them Who call you them names, who say Dama wasn't insane Who, who, who, who stole Puerto Rico Who stole the Indies, the Philippines, Manhattan, Australia and the Hebrides Who forced opium on the Chinese buildings Who got the money, who think you funny, who lock you up Who owned the papers, who owned the slave ship, who run the army Who was the fake president, who the banker, who the devil on the real side Who got rich from Armenian genocide Who the biggest terrorist, who changed the Bible, who killed the most people Who do the most evil, who don't worry about survival Who have the colonies, who stole the most land, who rule the world Who say they good, but only do evil Who the biggest executioner, who, who, who, who Who own the oil, who want more oil Who told you what you think that lady you find out is a lie Who, who, who fount been latent, maybe they Satan Who pay the CIA, who knew the bomb was gonna blow Who know where the terrorists learn to fly in Florida, in San Diego Who knew why five Israelis was filming the explosion And cracking their sides at the notion Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't going nowhere Who make the credit cards, who get the biggest tax cut Who walked out of the conference against racism Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy and his brother Who killed Dr. King, who would want such a thing Or they linked to the murder of Lincoln Who invaded Grenada, who made money from apartheid Who keep the Irish a colony Who overthrew Chile and Nicaragua later Who killed David Subeco, Chris Honey The same ones who killed Bico, Cabral, Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino Who killed Cabela, the ones who wasted La Mumba Monlain, Betty Chabaz, Princess Di, Ralph Fotherstone, Lil Bobby Locked up Mandela, Deruba, Geronimo, Asada, Mumia, Garville, Yashel Hammond Alfea Sutton, who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton, Medgar Evers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel? Who tried to keep the Vietnamese? Who the devil on the real side? Who got rich from Armenian genocide? Who the biggest terrorist? Who changed the Bible? Who killed the most people? Who do the most evil? Who don't worry about survival? Who have the colonies? Who stole the most land? Who rule the world? Who say they good, but only do evil? Who the biggest executioner? Who, who, who, who? Who own the oil? Who want more oil? Who told you what you think that lady you'll find out is a lie? Who fount been latent? Maybe they satan. Who paid a CIA? Who knew the bomb was gonna blow? Who know where the terrorists learned to fly in Florida and San Diego? Who knew why five Israelis was filming the explosion and cracking their sides at the notion? Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't going nowhere? Who make the credit cards? Who get the biggest tax cut? Who walked out of the conference against racism? Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy and his brother? Who killed Dr. King? Who would want such a thing? Are they linked to the murder of Lincoln? Who invaded Grenada? Who made money from apartheid? Who keep the Irish a colony? Who overthrew Chile and Nicaragua later? Who killed David Subeco, Chris Honey? The same ones who killed Bico, Cabral, Neruda, Allende, Checavara, Sandino? Who killed Cabela, the ones who wasted La Mumba? Manlain, Betty Shabazz, Princess Di, Ralph Featherstone, Lil Bobby? Locked up Mandela, Deruba, Geronimo, Asada, Mumia, Garville, Yashel Hammond, Alfea Sutton, who killed Huey Newton? Fred Hampton, Medgar Evers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney? Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel? Who tried to keep the Vietnamese oppressed? Who put a price on Lenin's head? Who put the Jews in ovens? And who helped them do it? Who set America first and okayed the yellow stars? Ho, ho! Who killed Rosa Luxemburg? Good morning. Thank you Diane and Lorela for bringing us into this day. My name is Kathy Engel. I'm the chairperson of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Department of Art and Public Policy. And it is my honor and privilege to welcome you today. Thank you for being here. Give yourselves a round of applause. Just for being here. It's a beautiful day. We're right next to the park. So we know why we're here in this room, right? I want to call up to stand up and make yourself visible. The co-sponsors of this one-day gathering. Jaira Placide, the associate director of the Institute of African American Affairs at NYU. Thank you. Thank you for your work. And Robert O'Mealy, Institute for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University. Thank you. And thanks to all your students as well. Sinaita Mendes from Manhattan Neighborhood Network. Thank you for your support. My colleague and friend and mentor, Dr. Martha Moreno Vega. Can you come a little closer, please? I want to thank... There's so many people. There's always a team, right? So I would be here all day if I named everyone. But I particularly want to call your attention in the program to the original organizing committee because it's always a vision, right, that starts anything. So let's just give a round of applause to the organizing committee who really thought up bringing us here today. All that the staff of CCCADI, hello, and the staff of the Department of Art and Public Policy I want to also call out HowlRoundTV and very particularly mention Emily Brown, Kristen Kalaki, Regina Bultron-Bengoa, Janet Sackie, Crystal Marich, Antonio Lyons, Courtney Brown, Peter DeGeneres, and all the students and staff in the different groups who brought us here today. Thank you so much. If I forgot to name anyone, it is because there are so many always. So thank you for that. I'm going to share with you, in the spirit, honoring those who came before, I just want to share a very short poem by a dear sister, a poet, who left us too soon, but is definitely present here today. Sophia Henderson Homes. ML King Day, New York City, 1989. Sophia Henderson Homes. We are here at one of the campsites of the dream, still far from the mountaintop, still. We the women, we the children, we the men, black, brown, red, yellow, white. We've heard the speeches and prayers. We've been in the wars. We carry our dead at times as casually as air. The hopeful and the wounded sit closest to the fire. Soon it will be morning again. Soon it will be time to march again. Sophia Henderson Homes. And of course, I join in my thanks to Amiri Baraka. Thank you. I want to also thank Nestor Ortero. Look at that poster, isn't that gorgeous? Thank you, Nestor. Are you here? Could you stand? Please stand. Gracias. It's beautiful. Thank you so much. And you know what it is to make a poster for a group, right? All the backs and forths and changes. Thank you. We're going to next have a slideshow offered by Kwame Brathway from the Patrice Lumumba Coalition, followed by Felipe Luciano, poet, chairperson, Young Lords Party. Before we do that, I've been asked to be the housekeeper and to make some announcements. The restrooms are upstairs, so you go to the right out of this door and up the stairs, or you can take the elevator. Not hard to find, just at the top of the stairs, straight ahead or to the right. How to purchase black Renaissance noir, is that a question? Did you bring that? No? It's on the website. Okay, so at the registration table, we can tell you that. The Story Project. Our students are asking that the panelists, after each, at 12 noon and at 5.30, and we'll be escorting you, go to, there's a corner set up. Sophia, is that right? Do you want to describe it? Thank you. Before we move on to our program, thank you Sophia. Thank you for all the work. I want to just honor the person who really built the Department of Art and Public Policy, who is very much present today, and that is Randy Martin. Just want to, and on a very personal level, I want to thank my dear friend and my sister, Valerie Maynard, for coming here from Baltimore, because the work is really built on relationships, and Valerie, you have mentored so many people. You have made so much work. You have led so many of us, including me. And so I wanted to particularly thank you for being here today with us. Now we're going to have a slideshow. Kwame Berthwaite. Thank you. You're my friends. Have you put me between Baraka and Felipe? I'm not a speaker, I'm a photographer. I've been covering events, well, for 57 years, African liberation struggle, not just covering it, but helping to organize with several groups here in New York basically, but closely tied with the movement and the various liberation groups in Africa, particularly southern Africa, very close to SWAPO, southwest African peoples of organization. First, but then, well, let me follow the slides here. This is Carlos Cooks. This was a Carlos Cooks for African Nationalist Pioneer Movement with one of the leading nationalists, as a matter of fact the only organization ahead was built in the name of African Nationalists, all right? And this, they started in 1943. They're a Garvey movement who was formed after Garvey's death, but anticipating it got a permission from Garvey to form a new movement. I couldn't take too much on the slides, but this is part of the previous slide was African, it was a Marcus Garvey movement which we celebrated every year and still, of course, he's passed now, right? Now, I got involved in the African Liberation struggle in 1960 when I say we now talk about myself and others, my brother is not a graph, and others who really started organizing mass demonstrations against South Africa and such. And we did that after hearing of a speech made by Salma Nyomo, who was the leader of South Africa, the South African Liberation Movement fighting South Africa. And that was him on a desk there in a meeting call with my colleagues, when they heard of the speech he made at the UN and invited me to speak to the people of Harlem, and that's how the movement... Shortly after that we formed the Grand National Model and the Blackest Beautiful Movement that stretched not only across this country, but across the world to give the dignity and support of African women and when I say African women, I mean us here, you know, all of us. This is a group of A.J.S. and the Grand National Model group. A.J.S. was a cultural group that pushed the movement and the Grand National Models were the models that pushed it, which is all one group. The Blackest Beautiful Climate here, some of the people at Marcus Garvey Park prior to a shooting to promote the shows. That's the last from 1962 to 88. Here are some of the very nice models here. Some of the original group, as I said, the group continues from that moment. There's a group shot in 1968, some of the posters, some of the shows that we did, the Blackest Beautiful Show, the African Liberation Story pieces, etc. This is Alame Brand, the founder of A.J.S., co-founder myself, my brother and my handful of other artists who were graduates of high school industrial art. This is Alame Baraka. This is Aristide in the Lucas and some of the other shows. Anyhow, this was a thing we had for Aristide when he came here and we had a little function for him at the Schaumburg and County College. This is June 10, 1990, when we brought, we didn't bring them over, but we hosted Nelson Mandela on the left. I don't know if you can see it, but the country has to where it is. This is Alame, the state office building, which ran all the way about three or four blocks. About 200,000 people were estimated by the city. This is my brother, Alame, who was the head of the opposition, and he was the host of the Mandela celebration. We had Uba Ben-Mahar, who was on the right before, who also did 27 years in prison for his political activities, and the second part as opposed to ANC. Not opposed to ANC, as opposed to Mandela, rather than ANC. Some of the folks of the party were struggling and presenting it. This is Salman Yolo. His inauguration, we helped him from the time from 1960 until his inauguration in 1990, when the battle was finally won, when they belonged with Cuba and other Mozambique and Angola to defeat the South African Army. You don't hear too much about them saying they defeated the South African Army. The way they produced it, they talked about it now, and they're right about it. It's like when the clerk just woke up and said, I think we're going to have you all give you our independence. I know he might have been thinking ahead, because even though we have our independence in South Africa, it doesn't look that good, because the same 20% that own and control all the wealth there still owns and control all the wealth, but we haven't been speaking on that sometimes there. This is Mandela being sworn. These are photographs I've taken throughout here and other African countries. This is Mandela's inauguration in South Africa. I was there to invite it by ANC to cover the events and to be there at that glorious occasion, since we were so far too much part of the struggle in helping them while they were here. Here are some of the different categories that came from various nations to celebrate Mandela's inauguration. Next. And of course you see who was dead center. The person that should be talking about when they talk about the liberation of South Africa and Namibia, because of the word for intervention of Frito Castro, that he would still be having the clerk or somebody at the helm. It looked like he hears anyhow, but that was, we have just given credit for, and the people of Cuba, for assisting when Africa called and nobody answered, feel answered. And 66,000 Cubans, civilians volunteered to help fight that struggle and joined with ANC and Namibia as well as Angolan Mozambique who provided the basis in their countries and took a lot of people and a lot of damage because of that. There are a couple of things, and I know I'm a little longer than I am, so I'm going to speed it up here. And of course you see the crowd there with Mandela. Continue please. That's it. All right, thank you. Thank you, Paul. I would like to make an announcement. There should be no refreshments in this room. We're not supposed to have any food in the room, so thank you please acknowledge that. Also, if you notice, this is a kind of relaxed presentation form. Nobody has been asked to give formal papers. They've been asked to talk about their life experience, and all the people participating have been practitioners in terms of the struggle that we're talking about. And if you want the bios, the four bios are in the brochure I'll put together for the program. So please, you can just pick up the brochure and follow along too. Our next presenter, who's actually going to orient this panel and it's Felipe Luciano. Felipe is looking decidedly presidential today, so he decided to have President Felipe. How are you, beloved family? You know, when we greet and you see me looking amazed, it's that I'm amazed that so many of us made it. We were not supposed to. I, when I greet you, I kiss and I smell you, and I receive your light. Hi, Jenica, because I am amazed that we made it. We are walking miracles. There are three people who are here today who I'd like to stand up because they have had such an impact on my life. They're three women. And being known as a male advocate, sometimes male chauvinist, I thank God for their presence. The first is my mentor, my sister. I think it could have been my wife, Dr. Marta Moreno Vega. The second is a woman who labors silently, but labors intensely for the aesthetic of black Latinos. I love her. I think she's an amazing woman, Zenaida Mendes. Dominican, Dominican. Due. And the third is a person I met 40 years ago at Queen's College Seek, who amazed me with her... with her lucidity. She would point me out all the time and put me right up against the wall, verbally, of course, sometimes physically. She happened to come from home, from Spanish Harlem, and I haven't seen her in about 30 years, but she's an incredible writer, an incredible woman, and I've loved, I have always wondered where she was. I saw her today, I didn't recognize her. Alexis de Vaux, would you stand up, please? And sister. Bear with me as I go through this. Art and creativity, family, have always been about humanity, about inclusivity. And very often adults stifled with the weight of family and the specter of imprisonment or professional discredibility do not stand up to the plate. And very often the youth will hear the trumpet call and meet the challenge. And it's not that we are getting old, it's that the frame of reference for us is slightly different. It's easy to punch somebody in the face and I've done it often out of impulse, out of reaction. As you get older, you learn that there are subtleties and nuances and things that maybe are not so black and white. But the youth, thank God, have a very different attitude toward aesthetic and toward politics. They fight injustice in a different way. It was the youth of the 60s who poeted, who painted, who danced, who sculpted, who wrote, who broke through the bubble of lies America had placed over the minds and bodies of its citizens. And that art morphed into a political movement that changed the country, changed the consciousness of people of color. Guided by the black arts movement, and you saw it up here, there I am, and Amiri Baraka. And not enough can be said about what Amiri meant to us. Remember, here's a man who was born in New York, educated at Howard University that has turned out more middle-class dwarfs than you can shake a stick at, including the entire historically black colleges. Let's just be honest. We have created a black bourgeoisie, which in its own way is necessary, to revolutionize consciousness of what are we talking about? So now, out of that, he decided he's in the village and had an epiphany after Malcolm was shot. For me, it was Martin Luther King. It blew me away. Martin Luther King, when that happened, I took it to the next level. For him, it was Malcolm. And he came to Harlem, and let's be historically correct, he was not welcomed. The black art movement started in 1964. He came to Harlem and told people, not only should you produce an aesthetic this revolutionary, your politics has to be revolutionary. So he began to separate the western notion of art and politics. When Robin Redford started talking about his son dancing and talking about what was the injustice in America, he was lambasted. When George Clooney talked about what was happening in the fore, he was lambasted. Folks, we must be careful that we don't allow the American panacea, the Kool-Aid, to affect the way we think. Art is the only way to do that. Art that morphs into a sort called politics. So he came to Harlem in 1964 and he forced these primordial feelings out. First of all, he began to criticize black politicians, which apparently in the days of nationalism and culture you weren't supposed to do. They threatened him. He was shot at. And that's why he left Harlem and went to Newark and started the Spirit Ensemble players. This is the history that you should know. It's not that he just voluntarily left. There were folks in our community who made that happen. We heard and appreciated western music, but Mozart and Bach and Beethoven never made you smile like miles. Never made you dance like Machito and Eddie Palmieri. Never made you jump in the spirit like Kirk Franklin or fall to your knees like Mahalia Jackson and Dr. Martin Luther King. There was a difference to our aesthetic. But it not only changed the black aesthetic, it changed white folks too. Let me tell you something. Everything that we should be very proud, everything that is happening in America, happened then. It just started then affected the women's movement, affected black kids, affected white kids. Things are beginning to change. And I contend that it's that revolutionary zeal and spirit that's beginning to affect the continent of Africa and of course the entire space of Asia. Look what happened in Hong Kong. And affected also the Muslim, the Muslim nation and Islam is going through a reformation right now. We see it as a war, but it's a reformation. Very much like the Christian reformation with the killings included. We changed the war. 55,000 American lives were killed. Out of that art came the last poets in the East Wind, the East in Brooklyn, the New York Rican Poets Cafe and Miguel Algarin, Eddie Figueroa's New Rican Village. Out of that art came Don L. Lee, Third World Press, Woody King's New Federal Theater, the National Black Theater Bar-Rant here, the New Breed clothing that popularized the dashiki, the grandassa models that show black women in their fullness and in their beauty, black arts flourished all over the country. I was blessed and privileged to have been at the core of it and I will end with this because Danny's giving me that sign. I will say this, I am blessed and honored to have been a black Puerto Rican involved in both movements, both Latino and black to the core where we put our lives on the line and I will just say this, there will come a time when those of us who are in our 50s and 60s will be asked to make a final commitment. It is not over. Young people don't have a frame of reference of victory so they don't know how to fight. I've never seen this before. A species that is attacked and it stands there and allows itself to be attacked and produces art that does not address the injustice is a species that is willing to die. And I don't mean dying fighting. I mean dying needlessly. Dying like martyrs, not warriors. People ask me why, what do we need to do? How much do you need? Your children are being killed in front of you. Your grandmothers are being killed in front of you. This is a 12 year old St. Louis had a pellet gun and in 12 seconds they killed him. There was a kid in the Bronx who ran into his grandmother's house and beat his grandmother and killed him in front of his grandmother. How much more do you need? There will be a time where you, the elders will be asked to stand up and be counted and say and do more. We need educational warriors, we need cultural warriors, we need political warriors, we need physical warriors. You will be asked to do it because the kids don't know. They've never had a victory. They don't know about the pandas. I can't believe it. Standing else and just put out a film you mean the pandas were not terrorists? They didn't want to kill white people. It's unbelievable to me. I have every kid coming to you. My father was a young lord. I said, your father's lying to you. I know most of them. We have a girl who's a lady here who just did Millie the Young Lord's great film if you get a chance to see it. Talks about a young girl's evolution into the young lords in that mentality. Folks, you will be asked to fight. I don't know any other way to say it. I pray that we meet the challenge because, for me, if you have nothing to die for, you're not fit to live. Thank you very much. Thank you for your presence. You talked about his long history of the arts, but we want to thank him for that also. We should learn about it in his bio too. Our next presenter will be Antonio David Lyons, who actually represents a new generation of kind of multicultural, multi-nationalized, African from the Americans. Thank you. Can you guys hear me? Is that better? My name is Antonio David Lyons. It is a pleasure to present some of this work with you. This is an excerpt from a piece called We Are Here that was born in South Africa. We continue to do work with men and boys in South Africa around identity, masculinity, and gender-based violence. It's a place I've called home for the past 12 years. And this particular excerpt is called It Was Hot. It was... I mean, one of those clear blue sky days when nothing seems to separate you from the insistent fire-tipped rays on the sun except the hope that you might make it to your destination before you have to wipe another drop of sweat from your tentacles' forehead and lay the pond of the damp spot left on the side of your pants. It was hot. I mean, and people move slow. The people will make the heat of the day pass over them more quickly, but my pace is a little faster as New Yorkers are wherever they go, but a bit later, I slow my rhythm to match the pace of Johannesburg and her people well versed in heat and exhaustion and hunger. We shall recognize that our children are hungry after running around this busy city in the midst of construction mayhem. I mean, roads dug up leaving gaping wounds of red urquivillia, heightened tendons and wiring veins and buildings build this rise of speed and certainty and traffic diversions leave commuters confused and residing everywhere thrones of people going nowhere slowly and my day is almost done. I shall bus stop in the deep of residence in most non-African Jews. I've learned that the right inflection can keep me from missing my mom. In that seat where four bodies have been wed together in two little land rooms and not enough space for roms to breathe. I squeeze, I squeeze through, through, through, through. And I'm out on a sidewalk and I'm about to cross a busy intercession of queen and land women and I raise my high, weary eyes and a couple about a block ahead having a public dispute. And I watch them, you know, silently play out this dance and my pulse quickens and my hungry body's amplified irritation level goes to red alert and my throat tightens and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth like I just ate a spoon full of peanut butter. I mean, my steps speed up and I want to do something. I mean, I can see where this thing up ahead is going. She pushes him and jumps into his face. His side steps and continues his forward motion. She spins around unwilling to be dodged. His face left determined to continue moving forward. I stop and listen and address her knees and she's so discerning to drive on mark she misses the signs. Then on a too hot thing anticipated needs intervened as the heat of the day drives eternal thermostats to explosions of slow thoughts and fast action of hands on flesh and just at that moment of no return I think they're becoming aware that they are not alone on this slow moving, baking sidewalk and stop. There's a man for something I know not what and I release my attention about body and I stroll past and he refuses to meet my sideways glance and she seems to be in the world all her own and I tell her body just focused on getting home. So generally when I use this piece in a workshop atmosphere with young men one of the questions I ask is why doesn't anybody get involved? And I'm asking the same question why do you think nobody gets involved? On that slow moving, baking sidewalk lots of people around. Just think about who's there. People going to shops, going to school, work, traveling. Why? I think they think that it's personal and not their business. Did everybody hear her? Okay, over here. The fear of violence. What do you mean the fear of violence? Many of us aren't prepared to address violence at all. I think that a lot of times when we see violence when we're in the presence of violence I'm not equipped to respond to it. So when you see violence your natural instinct is to either run from it or run towards it. But if you run towards it you now understand that you are now going to be a part of that violence. I don't think that many of us are really prepared for what is going to be the outcome of that. So instead of engaging in it it's easier to say I don't want to. Thank you. Two more, let's go back to everyone over here. I think that at times people could base themselves on their own environment. So they're basically not pleasant themselves within their own surroundings due to trauma, fear, etc. There's one left hand over here. Like you are not aware of the art of a public resolution and there is that fear of her So I'd just like to say thank you Blessings and need you with a thought. What will you do and how will you do it? Our next presenter is Dr.