Blackout for Human Rights hosts a celebration honoring and moving the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in partnership with the Campaign for Black Male Achievement (CBMA), Color of Change, PICO National Network, and The Root, MLK Now 2018 will feature Oscar-Winner and BLACK PANTHER star Lupita Nyong’o, Grammy-Winning Hip Hop MC/Lyricist Black Thought of The Roots, and A WRINKLE IN TIME star Storm Reid, with Comedian and Author Baratunde Thurston, M.C.

The Riverside Church of the City of New York 

 #MLKNOW2018

Catch Your Breath

Kerry James Marshall's Mastry exhibit at The Met Breuer in New York City interrogates as well as celebrates diasporic black life through history and culture his work extends a contemporary canvas for reimagining African Americans within an incomplete narrative of American History.  According to The Met Breuer:

"Encompassing nearly 80 works—including 72 paintings—that span the artist's remarkable 35-year career, it reveals Marshall's practice to be one that synthesizes a wide range of pictorial traditions to counter stereotypical representations of black people in society and reassert the place of the black figure within the canon of Western painting."

Marshall's work offers stunning narrative, artistic forms and layers of technique in creative expression where learning, healing, and understanding of the African American experience can be appreciated.

This clip is from Creating Mastry a full day program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is available for online reviewing.  Rashida Bambray's ring shout dance with echos of her sister singing "Run, Mary, Run" left me catching my breath.

"I am reminded of the value of black spaces." — Rashida Bumbray

A video posted by Katherine Ellington (@katellington) on Feb 1, 2017 at 5:05am PST

 Did you experience the Mastry exhibit?  Please share your comments.

We're Still Staying Together

Maya Angelou and Gloria Steinem, March on Washington (1983)

photo:  Getty Images 

Last weekend this time I had traveled south to Washington, D.C. for the Women’s March, which moved an unprecedented, unanticipated phenomenal national as well as global groundswell.  I was in the company of few good friends, we had hats and posters.  During the drive down we spoke with family and friends who all resounded the same messages of encouragement and hope.  I come from a family and community where the long arm of the  Civil Rights movement of protest and resistance were lived experiences so I did expect the “be safe” comments as well as “we’re proud of you.”  It was unexpected feelings of solidarity that surprised me with them and those we met all along the way. As we headed down late Friday night the roads were jammed, we didn’t stress we were just in awe, passing up crowded rest stops with sighting those pink hats.

Just past midnight we arrived, unpacked and my friends finished up posters on the spot in the living room leaving the final touches for before our Saturday morngin departure. We slept for a few hours with new feelings of excitement about the day ahead.  My friends husband made a pot of oatmeal and we all talked in then kitchen moving around getting ready for the day. Before we got on the DC Metro we went to get coffee where we saw others with the same idea and more pink hats.   Our Metro ride was an educational experience as we sat down with an eccentric, wise old-timer who kept our attention.  We also started reading and sharing posters with others on the ride. The day was full with lots of walking, stories, sharing and connecting with all kinds of people from everywhere nodding and making other gestrures of solidarity.

All this week I have been moving my ideas in the power of this experience.  I have been intentional with regard to pressing a few of the emanating points:

• Identitfy and move on issues that resonate with you.
• We still will work better together, collectively.
• Embracing difference builds unique strength for new work.
• The strength of this moment here must carry us forward over a great distance.
  

As my Saturday morning starts, I reflect here and well, to catch my breath.  We must show up for what matters. Here's the call:

Clip via @voguemagazine: "And just in case you needed an extra pep talk...with a few of the march organizers—Carmen Perez, Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Sarah Sophie Flicker, and Cassady Fendlay—that outlines other ways to make a difference. Whether it’s donating time or money to an organization that defends your rights, volunteering on a local level, or simply isolating the issues that matter most to you, there’s a lot you can do.."  And yes you should read the Vogue magazine article too. 

As women when we stand in solidarity with men, young people and elders in our families and communities.  It's important to recoginize as we say in public health where we live, work, learn, play and pray is the ground to move against all forms of hate as we work for progress for our health and well-being.

Local efforts matter.  It’s remarkable to me that in the last week as I sat down in in meetings and other gatherings institutinoal leaders joined marches and shared their experiences.   While I note the visible numbers (shout out to the the pink hats and yes, I have one) around in Washington, D.C., across our nation and globally — it is the power of a sense of unity felt standing in the midst of it all that remains with me.  

Now on to my Saturday schedule of exercise, research, meet ups and time with family.  Please leave comments with your experience and insight.

Seeing the Lines

Carmen Herrera (2013)

On the last day of last year I went with a friend to the Whitney Museum of American Art (The Whitney) for Carmen Herrara’s exhibit “Lines of Sight” closing on January 9, 2017.  The Whitney is a capacious setting for art as it sits at the southern end of The Highline with phenomenal views of its neighborhood including the Meatpacking District, Chelsea. On a clear day you can see beyond the Freedom Tower down the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty.  The visual lines of connection here are phenomenal. Architect Renzo Piano’s Building Workshop moves through history and place to create this transformational space with its scaling outdoor terraces where art installations merge with the city skyline.  “Architecture is that art, the poetry of construction. Every building is a story.  Every building tells a story,” says Renzo Piano.  

On my first visit in January 2016 it was the Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist exhibit and also sculptor Elizabeth Catlett’s work is in the permanent collection moving my attention.  I discovered that The Whitney had returned to the neighborhood of its origins, rejoining local artists and galleries in a downtown Manhattan community among the oldest neighborhoods in New York while also opening its doors to a neighbor, Cuban artist Carmen Herrera.  At 101 years old, Herrera continues to live and work from her modest apartment where her studio is just beyond the living room. 

Herrera emerges with a global intergenerational futuristic lens where her creativity continuest to progress through daily practice. Herrera's work with color and form create artistic lines of connection as her work and life also offer a few notes on well-being:

• Herrera’s vocation is painting.  It’s important to work at your raison d'etre.
• Aging in place with family and friends for support is a strategy for healthier living.  Herrera has lived in her apartment for 49 years.
• Across life span learning new things never grows old, Herrera is an avid reader, she studied architecture in Cuba and trained as an artist in Paris and New York. 
  

As you start another new year what will you construct in your life to live well?  Do you or will you make time for a creative practice?  Share your experience.

Wellness Wednesday Notes: My Take on Hidden Figures

On Christmas day after early morning gift giving with my family, Sunday worship and dinner I went to see the movie Hidden Figures. 

 

About last night.  @hiddenfiguresmovie is a phenomenal American story. All kinds of brilliance shines through. Glad for the movie crowd @amctheatres. #KatherineJohnson #dorothyvaughn #maryjackson #hiddenfiguresmovie🚀 #christmasnyc2016 #nyc #STEM #science

A photo posted by Katherine Ellington (@katellington) on Dec 26, 2016 at 7:39am PST

Although I had planned for an early viewing the unexpected crowds left no ticket availability at my selected theater so I went to Times Square to get one of the last few tickets for a later show that night.  While waiting I read more about the movie back story on the Black Girl Nerds blog.

Reading while I'm waiting at the movies to see @HiddenFigures. @BlackGirlNerds   https://t.co/VUb6wXHUQ8  #HiddenFigures

— Kat Ellington (@katellington) December 26, 2016

 I had listened to the movie sound track last week and have just downloaded the Hidden Figures book by author Margot Lee Shetterly.  The layers of this American story unfolding in Hidden Figures are worth seeing (and reading). The new horizon of science, the young gifted black women and the global context that yield so much to enjoy and learn.   The backstory is also fascinating.  Listen here to The Charlie Rose interview

Hidden Figures challenges us to understand the tools of collaboration, commitment in an era where science and technology surround us; we can still do things that seem beyond us.  While I believe children should be able to move through math and science whether or not it becomes a chosen profession, adults need this kind of understanding to navigate not just the world of technology, but science and systems shaping more and more of our everyday lives.   Hidden Figures is also story on collective courage moving through America during the Civil Rights era.  It is uplifting.   It reminded me of my early days in high school and college with algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus.  Learning to solve problems as well as think critically will lead on a good path.

On “Wellness Wednesdays” I am intentional with experiences moving me forward with healthier practices in eating, physical activity, relationships and being enabling my growth and development for living well.  I do share some of this on social media with the hash tag #WellnessWednesday.  In my year-end reflection here are a few a notes on helpful approaches:

• Prayer and meditation shape my creative and practical life. I read scriptures, journal too.  Sometimes I have 15 minutes other time I have hour, but I need this time.  

• Walking and yoga have been at the core of my physical activity.  I walk about 3 to 5 miles (10,000 steps) daily and stretch a few times a week.  

 

•  I do plan to eat well with new recipes including more fish and legumes, but there are many new takes on food to keep my good habit going forward. 

• Getting in at least 7 hours is a challenge, but I also take time to rest because I have long days  usually starting very early in the morning. 

Each effort listed above is easier on glance, but challenge me to stay focused on my health and well-being. It is phenomenal that at 98 years old physicist Katherine Johnson lived to see her story revealed in Hidden Figures. Dr. Johnson is living proof like my grandmother that the power of learning never grows old. 

What new things have you learned this year?  Do you have plans next year to try something new?  Feel free to share comments here.

"Between the World and Me" Live @NYPL

What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live in it? And how can we all honestly reckon this fraugh histrory and free ourselves from this burden? —Ta-Nehisi Coates

Since the early part of the summer a growing number of folks I know have been reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  I also admit having lots of conversations in my head as well as a few brief remarks with others even strangers on the subway.  

Tonight, The New York Public Library is hosting a live moderated conversation in a space and place that offers a broad view and a wide dialogue.



Questions are as important as answers.  As I read on and watch, I'll have more to say in the days ahead.   Feel free to share you insights and and comments.

BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play preview notes

How she dances

patterns like a dust-heavy bee retracing

its travels in scale before the hive.  —Gregory Pardlo, “Double Dutch”

Camille A. Brown & Dancers in "Second Line" photo by Christopher Duggan

 As a little girl I would watch my mom dance to popular music in the house, I kept asking, “how do you find the beat?  Can you teach me those steps? She said, “just keep listening to the sounds until your body moves with it.” She also decided to enroll me in local Saturday morning dance classes.  As I read through The Games Black Girls Play by Dr. Kyra Gaunt I felt a cadence with my early childhood experiences in dance, music and play. She states, “Every day black girls generate and pass on a unique repertoire of chants and embodied rhythms in their play that both reflects and inspires the prince of black popular music making.”   It is the power of play at its best where relationships, connections and friendships find roots.  

Set design by Elizabeth C. Nelson; Burke Wilmer, lighting design. 

Last week, I rushed to a downtown dance studio in Chelsea where I found choreographer Camille A. Brown sitting on a studio floor with her notebook open watching and talking dancers through preparation for their upcoming world premiere performance and national tour. BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play (#BlackGirlLP) by Camille A. Brown & Dancers at The Joyce Theater, dancers also include Beatrice Capote, Timothy Edwards, Catherine Foster, Fana Fraser, Juel D. Lane, Mora-Amina Parker, Willie “Tre” Smith III and Yusha-Marie Sorzano.  There are solid musical vibes composed by electric bassist Tracy Wormworth and pianist Scott Patterson.

#BlackGirlLP is a collective, collaborative, creative force of energy in dance and music — where the games African American girls still play takes center stage in contemporary form. 

“#BlackGirlLP uses the rhythmic play of African-American dance vernacular - including social dancing, double dutch, steppin’, tap, Juba, ring shout, and gesture - as the black woman’s domain to evoke childhood memories of self-discovery.”  —Camille A, Brown

As I sat there in The Joyce Theater I remembered my Saturday mornings in dance class where for the first half hour our group would sit down on the dance floor with legs folded, heads up, dressed in our required black leotards and tights with composition notebooks.  We learned to pronounce, spell and memorize the names of positions to be practiced for the day, but interpretative dance was our last session — a time of African drums and other rhythms to move through improvisational playful moves. My first dance lessons involved visual cues and listening for sound rhythms. It was my first kinesthetic learning lab experience.  It was also another kind of playtime.  

 
Camille A. Brown with Tracy Wormworth in BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play (excerpt) from Camille A. Brown & Dancers on Vimeo.

 #BlackGirlLP pulls at the power of play with dance to move us beyond and with language. There is also a reference guide in the program and online. Black Girl: Linguistic Play will also move through a national tour. I hope you are moved to see an upcoming #BlackGirlLP performance, listen to the music as well as read up for self-discovery and your enjoyment.  

A Snapshot of Freedom Summer

Because we want to live as decent human beings in America. 

                                                                                    — Fannie Lou Hamer

Photo collage posted by Katherine Ellington 1963 SNCC in Atlanta, GA photo by Richard Avedon on Aug 16, 2015 at 8:43am PDT

Freedom Summer (also known is the Mississippi Summer Project) is a remarkable moment in American History made more visible in a PBS documentary directed by Stanley Nelson.  This film sheds light on ten weeks in 1964 where a collective effort against exclusion, discrimination and segregation moved throughout Mississippi while the nation and the world watched on television.  A movement of more than 700 young people who were mostly college students from across the United States traveled for the Mississippi Summer Project to support the grassroots leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in advancing voter registration efforts, teaching in freedom schools as well as local supporting leadership in organizing the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party. There was guidance from co-founders Ella Baker, Robert Moses, Julian Bond, and other Civil Rights leaders.  The aim was to move people take possession of their own lives in communities. 

Nelson talks about it:

In Mississippi a historical persistent struggle for socioeconomic opportunity leads poverty and a hard life where many families and communities felt powerless. In the documentary a resident's letters describes the lethal aspect of the climate she says, “…violence hangs overhead like dead air. It hangs there, and maybe it will fall.” 

Historian John Dittmer was interviewed in the documentary, in his book The Good Doctors he describes the role the Medical Committee for Human Rights with fifty-seven physicians, eighteen nurses and thirteen other health care professionals who were there on the ground with SNCC providing clinical care. The Medical Committee also saw its role as alleviating the conditions produced by the stress…." Furthermore, the Medical Committee had a critical in the investigation into the deaths of Mississippi Freedom Project volunteers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Congress of Racial Equality worker Michael Schwerner who lost their lives on June 21,1964 in Neshoba County.

You can see the PBS Freedom Summer documentary online. Here's a clip:

 

Freedom Summer (Trailer) from Firelight Media on Vimeo.

A final SNCC legacy is the destruction of the psychological shackles which had kept black southerners in physical and mental peonage; SNCC helped break those chains forever. It demonstrated that ordinary women and men, young and old, could perform extraordinary tasks.

                                                                                —Julian Bond, 1940-2015

I was watching Freedom Summer again last the weekend when Julian Bond passed away.  His work for civil rights and human rights is experienced throughout our nation and beyond.  Condolences during this time go to his family, friends and beloved community. 
 

Black Life Matters: Here is the Evidence

The heat of this summer struck me when I saw this photo in the news from the Watts Riots in Los Angeles — 50 years ago. 

In this Aug. 12, 1965 file photo, #demonstrators push against a police car after rioting erupted in the #Watts district of #LosAngeles. It began with a routine traffic stop 50 years ago this month, blossomed into a protest with the help of a rumor and escalated into the deadliest and most destructive #riot Los Angeles had seen. The Watts riot broke out Aug. 11, 1965 and raged for most of a week. When the smoke cleared, 34 people were dead, more than a 1,000 were injured and some 600 buildings were damaged.

A photo posted by ABC News (@abcnews) on Aug 11, 2015 at 7:37am PDT

  
At the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture an exhibit, Curators’Choice: Black Life Matters up until August 15, 2015. It holds layers on the complexity everyday black life for reflection on #BlackLivesMatter.  "The exhibition presents issues of history and culture, art and society, memory and narrative, intimacy and rejection, joy and comfort, race and justice (of life and death) that are just a relevant today as ever before."

A large exhibit banner hangs high outside at the top of the building almost as a memorial. I have moved through the exhibit space a few times. First musing Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence and other visual artists then the storytelling of Browngirl Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. There are moving images and recorded sounds in the "Evidence of Things Un*Seen" with a documentary on the Civil Rights Movment.  A global diaspora lens into black life around the world is found in the wonder of the photojournalist lens of Richard Saunders.  I am eager to see more of his work and there is so much more behold in this exhibit.

I also have an exhibit postcard on the back cover of my journal as a reminder to write and create in response to the darkness. In the spirit of Arthur Schomburg's 1925 seminal essay, I feel an urge to dig deeper to create my own retrospective of black life through reading, visual art, music, performance and other cultural experiences. Uncovering historical evidence of generational black life genius. When time permits I have pulled down archives, reviewed photographs and artwork also reading what has meaning for me. 

There are long summer nights to grab hold of films, move through music, take hold of vast amounts of online educational lectures as well as other interactive material including social media.

I understand freedom as a process where every generation has tough questions to consider for a response in better days ahead. 

 

Summer Muse Snippers

“It's where my imagination is fecund and I am really at my best. Nothing matters more in the world or in my body or anywhere when I'm writing. It is dangerous because I'm thinking up dangerous, difficult things, but it is also extremely safe for me to be in that place.“ —Toni Morrison

In the summer when I sit at my ephemeral desk looking out the window I can get a clear view of a magnolia tree. Some early mornings when I leave the blinds open if I’m awake I catch a glimpse of bold orange-red hues through the slits for a new start to the day with sensory cues signal wakefulness at daybreak.

Magnolia spring blooms remain throughout summer.

An early morning riser my grandmother with her Southern roots was once an avid gardener. She believed firmly in planting perennials.  Her exotic plantings were dramatic with strange-shaped leaves of unfamiliar blooms.  In the rich soil I remember playing with worms, snails, slugs and getting bee stings as there was a hive in the back yard that kept me curious. When in full bloom there is a fragrant richness in her yard that is still something to behold. When I was growing up some neighbors would ask others while others would just help themselves to snippets to plant in their yards. Snippets come from when you pinch or use a garden tool to break off a piece of a plant in the right place to regrow in a new setting.   

In a recent NPR interview Toni Morrison talked about losing her lush jade bush that she’d grown from a snippet when a fire destroyed her family home.  She relishes her life as a snipper. Her storytelling in the interview moved my unplanned reading of her newest novel God Help the Child, which imaginatively opens a lucid conversation about race as determined skin color and culture. In this story unhealed racial childhood wounds infect the life of Bride. Morrison still writes to teach, her point:  "Distinguishing color — light, black, in between — as the marker for race is really an error:  It's socially constructed, it's culturally enforced and it has some advantages for certain people." 

I’m reading from e-books on the 3M Cloud, the Kindle app, but still find great pleasure in the feel of turning pages especially in my favorite chair, outdoors or on the beach.  How many books do you read over three months?  I also like listening to writers on writing.  Morrison continues to use her stories for broader, meaningful conversations.   

As we move through summer here’s my list of titles on my bookshelf in no order, but there are few themes. 

1.   Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series by Leah Dickerman and Elsa Smithgall moved to read by the MoMA One Way exhibit and experience. 

2.   God Help The Child by Toni Morrison whose work I have been reading since The Bluest Eye.

Poetry and stories for such a time this:

3.   Native Guard by Natasha Tretheway

4.   Rise by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis

5.   The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander

6.   Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

7.   Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

8.  Aimless Love by Billy Collins

New writers and writing from my summer scene including the #blklitchat group:

9.  Dear Continuum: Letters to a Poet Crafting Liberation by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie

10.  Everything to Teach Nothing to Learn by Marc Polite

11.  BALM: A Novel by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

12.  The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

There are titles from the #Charleston Syllabus and because freedom is a process: 

13.  Staging Migrations Toward an American West: From Ida B. Wells to Rhodessa Jones by Marta Effinger-Crichlow and I also just read The Light of the Truth by Ida B. Wells. 

14. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

15.  Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

16.  Gateway to Freedom by Eric Foner

 

Selection inspired by family and friends reading:

 17.   Where the Wild Grapes Grow by Dorothy West her short stories are among my   favorites so I will be reading a new short story and enjoying poems by her cousin Helene Johnson another Harlem Renaissance writer.

From the world of science, medicine and health care:

18.  History of the Present Illness by Louise Aronson

19. The Patient Will See You Now by Eric Topol

20.  Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

For many years July has been the month where I am intentional about reading and writing on my own and in good company.  In Literary Reading, Cognition and Emotion: An Exploration of the Oceanic Mind, a literarly scholar and professor of rhetoric, Dr. Michael Burke notes: 

      "When readers sit down in a comfortable location of their own choosing to read a book, they experience subconscious echoes of where they came from and what made them. These are implicit, somatic, affective memory prompts."  

Like many I also find a time just before going to sleep a good time to grab a book.  As for writing, hypnagogia the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness moves my creative expression.  Early morning writing works for me especially in the summer.

Black Lives Matter:  The loss of lives among our families, friends and communities has morphed into collective grief and many are suffering.  Anger, rage and outrage must find new ground. Our stories can help shed light on pain and suffering as we search for relief to work for better days ahead. While I read and write in this climate, I also walk and travel to reflect and work more effectively each day.  

Please share titles from your bookshelf and reading experiences.  Feel free to leave comments.