Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Apollo Theater is hosting its 18th annual celebration of Dr. King’s heavenly birthday, “Uptown Hall: The Inconvenient King,” in partnership with WNYC and March on Washington Film Festival. A panel discussion focusing on Dr. King’s enduring legacy on the culture, and the context and complexity of racial discrimination, will be followed by music, spoken word and other forms of creative expression.
The celebration will be presented live at the Apollo and available via livestream on Sunday, January 14, 2024 at 2:00 pm ET.
In the coming months, you will be told the 2024 Election is the most consequential election since, well, the last presidential election. The hype notwithstanding, the right to vote is the right that secures all other rights. If voting didn’t matter, conservatives would not try to block access to the ballot box.
National Voter Registration Day, the country’s largest single-day voter registration drive, is September 19, 2023. Since 2012, more than five million Americans have been registered to vote on this civic holiday.
Your vote matters. You can register to vote here. If you are already registered, check your status to make sure you are #VoteReady. And on Election Day, be careful how you vote.
Like most enslaved people, Frederick Douglass did not know his date of birth. He assumed he was born in 1818. Douglass chose to celebrate his birthday on February 14. The first Douglass Day was observed in 1897.
In December, Philadelphia250 announced the winners of its “Leave a Legacy” competition. The three finalists will each receive $250,000. The projects focus on immigrants, Special Olympics, and toys for children. Philadelphia250, without a single historian on its staff or board of directors, claims they are “setting the stage for Philly’s most high-profile event in decades.” African Americans make up 40 percent of the City’s population but they will play a bit part in official celebrations.
Philadelphia250 whitewashing the country’s origin story is of a piece with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ rejection of the College Board’s Advanced Placement course in African American studies. To honor Douglass’ legacy of resistance and agitation, I will file Right-to-Know requests to try to find out why the organization that is planning Philadelphia’s Fourth of July semiquincentennial celebration excluded Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved valet, Robert Hemings, who was with him at Declaration (Graff) House where Jefferson wrote the nation’s founding document. The nonprofit is not subject to Pennsylvania’s open records law but some of its board members are.
Still in his early teens, James Forten was a powder boy during the Revolutionary War. The Museum of the American Revolution’s new exhibition, “Black Founders: The Forten Family of Philadelphia,” chronicles the life of this revolutionary figure who was present at the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776.
Like Forten, Crispus Attucks, the first person to die in the American Revolution, and Cyrus Bustill, who served in the Continental Army, are invisible to Philadelphia250.
George Washington’s enslaved valet and aide-de-camp, William Lee, who is depicted in Emanuel Leutze’s painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” is not represented.
Black Revolutionary War patriots are not honored by Philadelphia250. Instead, they awarded Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse $250,000 to teach children about “revolutionary action figures.” The action figures include wannabe political candidate Ya Fav Trashman.
You can’t make this stuff up. The struggle continues.
From Auburn, New York to Ypsilanti, Michigan, the commissioning of a Harriet Tubman statue has been a source of civic pride. In Philadelphia, the city where Harriet first experienced freedom, the public art acquisition process is tainted by white privilege, lies, and fuzzy math. The Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) manipulated survey data to minimize public support for a permanent Harriet Tubman statue. OACCE claimed that only 25% of respondents want a statue of the American icon.
When OACCE was called out by a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer, the “full report and report summary were revised on November 22, 2022, clarifying the result for question one.”
Mama Maisha recounted that OACCE Director Kelly Lee told her that the City planned to award a no-bid commission to Wesley Wofford “because he’s in the system already. We can expedite it faster because he’s already in our system.” Her response: “Of course he is. White men are always in the system.” In a majority-minority city, two African American women are gatekeepers for white privilege.
These unaccountable bureaucrats want to sign the contract for the Harriet Tubman statue – or random African American figure – while their boss, Mayor Jim Kenney, is still in office. To do so, they have set an arbitrary timeline that would require artists competing for the commission to work like slaves through Christmas, Kwanzaa, Watch Night, New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend. By contrast, Lee and Anglin spoon-fed Wofford inside information for months as he prepared his proposal.
Mama Maisha notes the disparate treatment of Black and other underrepresented artists:
Now they got a speedy timeline. They want everything in by January, over the holidays. People busy, people committed to their families. They got stuff to do at the end of the year. So now you got a rushed timeline. You didn’t have a rushed timeline for Wesley Wofford. But now that you’re dealing with people of color and women, you got a rushed timeline.
The Celebrating the Legacy of Nana Harriet Tubman Committee said in a statement:
Enough! OACCE’s misinterpretation of the data and the lack of transparency in their decisions and actions minimize the importance of community engagement in public art acquisition. We demand a moratorium on the current statue commission Open Call until new, competent, transparent, and accountable oversight is created.
Mama Maisha told Attorney Michael Coard:
We want a moratorium on this Open Call, and we want Kelly Lee and Marguerite Anglin removed from any oversight. We’re going to the Mayor. We’re going to City Council. And if necessary, we will put boots on the ground in front of the Mayor’s Office. We’re ready to hit the streets.
If you have had enough of the coonery at OACCE, contact Mama Maisha Sullivan-Ongoza at (215) 385-0214 or Dr. Michelle Strongfields at (267) 231-0092; email: nanaharrietlegacydefense@gmail.com.
The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on February 3, 1870.
Section 1 of the Reconstruction Amendment reads:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
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