Saturday, September 26, 2015

A King, a Saint or a Traitor? MLK's Last Year

This Tuesday September 29th, AAL will be discussing Tavis Smiley's Death of a King, an eye-opening behind the scenes look at the travails, struggles and failures of Martin Luther King's final year. Given the hagiographic tone of most popular treatments of King, complete with the sanctification of his January 15th birthday, few remember that towards the end of his career, King's legacy was far from assured. Accused of being a communist and traitor by the FBI, and of being a sellout and an Uncle Tom by the newly militant Black Power movement; his fervent, outspoken critique of the Vietnam war lost him key allies. President Lyndon Johnson felt betrayed, and many of the core Civil Rights leaders: Adam Clayton Powell, Bayard Rustin, and Roy Wilkins feared that King had weakened the movement by expanding his vision to include anti-war and anti-poverty efforts. Plagued with depression and self-doubts, King turned to alcohol and adulterous liaisons.

How did such a reviled, controversial and at times self-destructive figure become America's patron saint of racial understanding? Smiley's answer is to show the warmth, strong faith and devotion to the down and out which kept King going in the face of unimaginable pressure. His description of King's respectful and open hearted conversation with a group of young prostitutes who had been heckling him is reminiscent of Pope Francis' bypassing photo ops with world leaders to break bread with the homeless.

Yet Smiley argues that King’s radicalism toward the end of his life has been papered over, while King himself has been reduced to “an idealistic dreamer to be remembered for a handful of fanciful speeches”. How well do most of us today know the "real" King as opposed to the tolerant, peace loving, icon trotted out every January 15th?

In his January 2015 essay "Time to Take Back Martin Luther King Day", Rick Cohen argues that "This year, more than any in recent times, the onus on all of us should be to take back Martin Luther King Day from the emphasis on top-down, one-day, feel-good volunteer fix-up projects and refocus attention on strategies and actions to address racial inequity and injustice today...In 2015, we should all be showing courage to analyze, address, and attack overt, structural, institutional, and implicit racism on the day on which we all too often miss the point of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and legacy by making his holiday one that doesn’t forthrightly address issues of race".

Is Cohen right? Join our discussion this Tuesday!

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Monday, September 7, 2015

African American History at Chicago Humanities Festival, Court Theatre and Siskel Film Center

 Dear Friends,

Last week's discussion of Americanah rocked! Thanks so much to all who participated. Hope to see everyone on September 29th for Death of a King : the real story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final year. We've got copies at our 2nd floor desk; stop by or call 847-448-8620 to get one.

There are echoes of our AAL discussion topics everywhere this fall. a few upcoming programs to watch out for...


Chicago Humanities Festival October 24th-November 7th  (tickets available September 8th for members, September 14th for nonmembers)

Saturday, October 24 | 12:30-1:30 PMHarris Hall, Room 1071881 Sheridan Rd | Evanston, IL | 60208Members: $9Public: $12Students and Teachers: $5Chris Abani is a true citizen of the world. The self-identified “global Igbo” is the son of an English mother and a Nigerian father who wrote his first novel at age 16. Through his prolific and varied writings – which include novels, novellas, plays, and poems – Abani has sought to capture the specifics of his own experience while conveying the political and emotional dramas that transcend and tie together disparate cultures. The Northwestern University professor will share his exploration of literature’s capacity to connect humanity.A book signing will follow this program.Presenters:Chris Abani is a novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright, and has taught in numerous countries around the world ranging across sub Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe. His fields of interest include African Poetics, 20th Century British and American Literature, West African Music, Postcolonial and Transnational Theory, Robotics and Consciousness, Yoruba and Igbo Philosophy and Religion. He is the recipient of the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a PEN Beyond the Margins Award, the PEN Hemingway Book Prize and a Guggenheim Award.Americanah piqued my interest in Nigerian culture, so I was delighted to see that one of the CHF Evanston programs is  "Global Igbo" a reading by English/Nigerian author Chris Abani. Abani is a Northwestern professor, and is the son of an English mother and a Nigerian father who wrote his first novel at age 16. Through his prolific and varied writings – which include novels, novellas, plays, and poems – Abani has sought to capture the specifics of his own experience while conveying the political and emotional dramas that transcend and tie together disparate cultures. Abani will be speaking Saturday October 24th at 12:30 pm on Northwestern's campus.

Photo by Nina SubinSaturday, October 24 | 3-4 PMCahn Auditorium600 Emerson St | Evanston, IL | 60208Members: $9Public: $12Students and Teachers: $5Ta-Nehisi Coates has become one of the most powerful writers today. A staffer for the Atlantic and author of a memoir, The Beautiful Struggle, he shares his stunning and evocative reflections on what it’s like to inhabit a black male body in contemporary America. In Between the World and Me he asks how we, as a nation, can reckon with our fraught history and free ourselves from a troubling legacy. Taking us from the Civil War battlefield to Chicago’s South Side, Coates attempts to answer one of the most pressing and relevant questions of our times.Preorder your copy of Between the World and Me for $20 through the CHF box office for pickup at the program.A book signing will follow this program.Presenters:Ta-Nehisi Coates is a National Correspondent for the Atlantic, the author of The Beautiful Struggle, a former writer for the Village Voice, and a contributor to Time, O, and the New York Times Magazine. Among the prizes he’s received for his writing are the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, the George Polk Award for his Atlantic cover story, “The Case for Reparations,” and his Atlantic blog was named by Time as one of the 25 Best in the World. Journalist Natalie Y. Moore is an urban affairs reporter for Chicago Public Media. She has been a reporter for the Detroit News, St. Paul Pioneer Press, and the Associated Press in Jerusalem, and her work has appeared in many publications, including Essence, Bitch, In These Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune. She is coauthor of the books The Almighty Black P Stone Nation and Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation.
Also on the program that afternoon at 3:00 pm: Ta-Nehisi Coates!! He'll be discussing his new memoir,  Between The World and Me, in which he  shares his evocative reflections on what it’s like to inhabit a black male body in contemporary America. Expect this to sell out fast, so call early!






Two Events for Stokely fans:

From the Bullet to the Ballot: Black Panthers and Chicago's Racial Coalitions
In his recent book, From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago, native South Sider Jakobi Williams uses sealed secret police files and first-person interviews to explore the history and impact of the Black Panther Party and Rainbow Coalition.  He'll be speaking Sunday October 25th at 3:30 in Hyde Park


305 | From the Bullet to the Ballot: Black Panthers and Chicago's Racial Coalitions
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
 will be showing at the Siskel Film Center in Chicago September 25th- October 1st. On Sunday September 27 at 5:00 pm director Stanley Nelson will be present for an audience discussion. (This is NOT part of the Chicago Humanities Festival; tickets are available from the Siskel Film Center)




Image from A Chosen Exile by Allyson HobbsSunday, October 25 | 5:30-6:30 PMReva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Film Screening Room 201915 E 60th St | Chicago, IL | 60637Members: $9Public: $12Students and Teachers: $5 Between the 18th and 20th centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families, friends, and community. It was, as Stanford historian Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and a leap into another. Her work explores the way this racial indeterminacy offered an escape from slavery in the antebellum South and helped defy Jim Crow. But in looking back at both American history and the story of her own family, Hobbs also uncovers the terrible grief, loneliness, and isolation of passing, and the ways it continues to influence our thinking about racial identity and politics. This program is presented as part of the annual Karla Scherer Endowed Lecture Series for the University of Chicago and is presented in partnership with the Stanford Humanities Center.Presenters:Allyson Hobbs is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University and the author of A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. Allyson received a PhD with distinction from the University of Chicago. Allyson teaches courses on American identity, African American history, African American women’s history, and twentieth century American history. She has received numerous fellowships and teaching awards. She gave a TEDx talk at Stanford, she has appeared on C-Span and National Public Radio, and her work has been featured on cnn.com and slate.com.

Crossing the "Invisible Line"
Remember our discussion of Fatal Vision and the Invisible Line last year? You'll want to catch
Passing in White America, also part of the Humanities festival.  Stanford historian Allyson Hobbs looks at the "chosen exile," a separation from one racial identity and a leap into another experienced by countless light skinned African Americans as an escape from slavery in the antebellum South and  Jim Crow. But in looking back at both American history and the story of her own family, Hobbs also uncovers the terrible grief, loneliness, and isolation of passing, and the ways it continues to influence our thinking about racial identity and politics.
Sunday, October 25 | 5:30-6:30 PM in Hyde Park.


Northwestern Profs Look at Echoes of Slavery in Popular Media

Image from 12 Years a Slave by Fox Searchlight PicturesSaturday, October 24 | 4:30-5:30 PMHarris Hall, Room 1071881 Sheridan Rd | Evanston, IL | 60208Members: $9Public: $12Students and Teachers: $512 Years a Slave was the most recent and acclaimed movie to depict plantation slavery, but this genre has a varied, complicated history. Northwestern University professors Miriam Petty and Nick Davis will unpack these traditions through close analysis of important works, from television landmarks like Roots to independent films like Sankofa and Daughters of the Dust. They will then invite the audience to debate different storytelling approaches to this painful but vital subject. Presenters:Miriam Petty is an assistant professor in the Department of Radio/Television/Film and African American Studies at Northwestern University, and the author of a forthcoming book Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood. She writes and teaches about stardom, reception, genre, race, and media, and also produces public programs. Her recent projects include the 2012 symposium “Madea’s Big Scholarly Roundtable: Perspectives on the Media of Tyler Perry” at Northwestern University and the 2014 film retrospective “Mama and Papa Lala: 30 Years of Hatch-Billops Films” at Emory University.Nick Davis is Associate Professor of English and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Northwestern University, where he teaches in the areas of popular film, feminist and LGBT studies, and American literature. His book The Desiring-Image (Oxford University Press, 2013) outlines new aesthetic and philosophical approaches to contemporary queer cinema. He has published additional essays on Julie Dash’s Illusions, Alfonso Cuarón's Y tu mamá también, Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, and Pixar's film The Incredibles, among other films. If you missed last year's wonderful Slavery on Screen presentation, you have a second chance to see our old friends Miriam Petty and Nick Davis unpack the traditions of slavery and plantation films from television landmarks like Roots to independent films like Sankofa and Daughters of the Dust. They'll be speaking Saturday October 24th at 4:30 in Evanston


Gem of the Ocean at Court Theatre



 Aunt Ester (Greta Oglesby) shares a quiet moment with Solly Two Kings (Anthony Chisholm) in this scene from the Goodman Theatre's world premiere production of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean.


Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson continues his triumphant tour through August Wilson's iconic century cycle with Gem of the Ocean, his seventh Wilson production at Court Theatre.  Featuring Court favorites A.C. Smith (Fences, Jitney), Alfred Wilson (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Jitney), David Alan Anderson (The Mountaintop), and Tyla Abercrumbie (The Piano Lesson). Nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 2005, Gem of the Ocean is a fantastical story of freedom, justice, and redemption.  

Enjoy, and keep reading!! 
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