Dance on Fire: Spring Programs at the Library for the Performing Arts
The Dance Division is ON FIRE this spring with programs and exhibitions featuring dance from around the world, all at the Library for the Performing Arts! An exhibit on flamenco, 100 Years of Flamenco...
View ArticleMemorial Day: Commemorating and Remembering Our Veterans and Those Who Serve
May 27th is Memorial Day. Did you know that this U.S. federal holiday goes as far back as the American Civil War in the 1860s?Memorial Day, formerly known as Decoration Day, occurs ever year on the...
View ArticleWhen They Trod the Boards: Giancarlo Esposito, Breaking Bad-Ass on Broadway
Being an actor doesn't shield you from having a conscience.—Giancarlo EspositoGiancarlo Esposito, as Gus Fring, stares down a sniper in the TV series Breaking Bad, 2011.Giancarlo, as Julio, sings in...
View ArticleClassroom Connections: The Underground Railroad to Canada (Gr. 6-8)
"I left the States for Canada, for rights, freedom, liberty. I came to Buxton [Ontario] to educate my children" —Henry Johnson (pp. 307 A North-side View of Slavery: The Refugee, Or, The Narratives of...
View ArticleClassroom Connections: Lists for Lesson Planning (Gr. 6-12)
Aguilar Library, 1938 - Librarian w/ students. Want to know more about our current educational initiatives? See The ABC of Education: Why Libraries Matter by Maggie Jacobs, Director of Educational...
View ArticleClassroom Connections: 'Little Lionhearts,' Young People in...
"I could not move because history had me glued to the seat. It felt like Sojourner Truth's hands were pushing down on one shoulder, and Harriet Tubman's hand pushing down on another shoulder"...
View ArticleClassroom Connections: 'Two Wars,' African Americans, Emancipation,...
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of...
View ArticleON THE AIR: Music Landmarks in NYC - Yankee Doodle to Jay-Z
Pearl Street Native/Indigenous AIR is a Native American and ancient colloquialism for music and voice, as heard upon the earth. Musicians and singers performed at festivals at sacred places like Pearl...
View ArticleAugust Wilson's How I Learned What I Learned
Frederick August Kittle Jr. loved libraries. That's a point clearly made in How I Learned What I Learned, August Wilson's autobiographical play at the Signature Center, directed by Todd Kreidler,...
View ArticleZora Neale Hurston and the Depression-Era Federal Writers' Project
In 1933, the US government established the first of many New Deal projects and initiatives. Four years later, in September 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston was published in New...
View Article12 Years a Slave. What About 15 Years in a Cave?
We’ll know soon if Steve McQueen’s film gets an Oscar. But one thing is sure: the heretofore largely unfamiliar Solomon Northup has become a household name. For the past few years, he has also been one...
View ArticleDr. Cheryl LaRoche Presents "Free Black Communities and the Underground...
Dr. Cheryl LaRoche’s book, Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance was released on January 13, 2014 and she says it’s been a long journey to get to this point....
View ArticleOne Man’s Library Education and the "Double V"
Jefferson Wiggins was born in 1925 in Houston County, Alabama where he had almost no formal education in the schools he attended as a child. One can search the “World War II Army Enlistment Records,...
View ArticleLorraine Hansberry: Dreamer Supreme
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in the midst of the New Negro generation and at the beginning of America’s greatest economic collapse.Politically active, defiant of Jim Crow laws,...
View ArticleA Trip Down Memory Lane: The Lasting Influence of Illmatic
Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of Nas's debut album, Illmatic. On Wednesday, I had the privilege to attend the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival to watch my friend and former colleague Erik...
View Article"Paroles de Femmes" is French for "Words of Women"
What could be more gratifying than a talented group of performers that can deliver a laudable show! Well, that is precisely what we saw on March 27th at the Mid-Manhattan Library in the program Paroles...
View ArticleSymphony of the New World: 50th Anniversary of a Pioneering Organization
In May 1964, two months before The Civil Rights Act (outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin) became law, noted conductor Benjamin Steinberg formed a committee...
View ArticleSong and Dance: The Power Of Black Music
The artist's "Magisterial" Four Murals convey the pervasiveness of music and religion in African and African American lives, through labor, sorrow and joy.In the 1930s, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who...
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Schomburg Treasures: WPA Artwork
Harding Field, by Caroline Durieux, 1943Part of FDR's New Deal, the Works Progress/Projects Administration (WPA) was created in 1935 to provide paying jobs for the unemployed at every skill level....
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A Decade for People of African Descent
The United Nations has proclaimed 2015-2024 the International Decade for People of African Descent. In the next ten years, the international community will be tasked with combating racism and...
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