EVENT: African Burial Ground Programs & Meetings
AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND NATIONAL MONUMENT
–PARTICIPATE IN ONE OF OUR PUBLIC MEETINGS-
Friday, September 22, 2006
Day Location: U.S. Custom House, 1 Bowling Green, Auditorium
Time: 2-4 p.m.
Evening Location: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard
Time: 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Location: Ted Weiss Federal Building, 290 Broadway, 30th Floor
Time: 1:30-3:30 p.m.
The National Park Service announces a series of public meetings and invites your input at this preliminary stage before choosing the best alternative that will be developed into the exhibits for the African Burial Ground Interpretive Center. The center is part of African Burial Ground National Monument, a new National Park Service area in Manhattan.
Amaze Design, Inc. will share three alternate proposals for presenting the African Burial Ground through exhibits. The exhibit planners and designers will show how they intend to distill the body of research, the interpretive stories, and major interpretive themes into messages easily understood in exhibits. In this early stage of development, attendees can expect to see a bubble diagram, a tentative floor plan, and a few illustrations.
Madison David Lacy of Firethorn Productions will also present a brief overview of the short film that is in progress.
Scheduled for completion in 2008, the interpretive center will reveal the stories of free and enslaved Africans who lived and worked in Manhattan in the 17th and 18th centuries, and who were interred in the African Burial Ground. The center will also acknowledge the civic movement credited with preserving the site and making its significance known, and will demonstrate the site’s continuing relevance to American society.
African Burial Ground
National Monument
290 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
2006 Celebration of Ancestral Heritage
Friday, September 29, 2006
Come and Celebrate the Third Anniversary of the Reinterment of Ancestral Remains
10am – 12pm – YOUTH RING SHOUT, Children’s Assembly
at Chambers Street and City Hall Park
1-2pm – Lobby of 290 Broadway
Special Guest Guy Davis
Roots of the Blues and Storytelling
2-3:30pm – OPEI
MoCADA (Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art)
Digital Presentation of Tom Feelings’ The Middle Passage
Dr. Lorenzo Pace – Visit Triumph of the Spirit at Foley Square
4-5pm – OPEI
Documentary Film – South Africa : Journeys of the Freedom Songs (60 Min)
As he was being led to his death, Vuyisilli Mini, political activist and composer of many South African freedom songs, was asked by his jailer if he was going to sing on his way to the gallows. In a show of rebellion and solidarity, the prisoners of Pretoria joined Mini and as they intoned, “Watch out Verwoerd, the black man will get you” one of the songs written by Mini.
5-6pm – Lobby of 290 Broadway
Open Mic – Poetry
6-7pm – Lobby 290 Broadway
Ancestors, Slavery & Heritage: Poetry and Readings on Slavery
7-9pm – Lobby 290 Broadway
Jazz Performance and Dancing
AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND NATIONAL MONUMENT
Office of Public Education and Interpretation
Presents
AN AFRICAN FILM FORUM
6-9PM
Thursday and Friday, October 12, 13, 2006
290 Broadway (corner Duane St.)
Learn more about Africa’s triumphs and challenges as the continent struggles against neo-colonialism and moves toward true independence
SPECIAL GUESTS – October 12 – 6PM
Mahen Bonetti – Executive Director; African Film Festival
Nancee Oku Bright, Producer and Director; Liberia: America’s Stepchild
Thursday, October 12, 2006 – Liberia: America’s Stepchild – Zvi Dor-Ner, Executive Producer; Jean-Philippe Boucicaut, Producer; Nancee Oku Bright, Writer, Producer and Director – 90 minutes
Once the pride and hope of black Africa, Liberia was founded in 1821 by American freeborn blacks and former slaves who returned to West African shores and the land of their ancestors. Liberia was also the home of indigenous tribes who were not always welcoming to the American expatriates. This documentary traces the aspirations, struggles, wars and volatile political history that led to the establishment of Africa’s first independent republic and to the devastating civil war of the 1980’s which lasted seven years and left the country in poverty and despair.
Friday, October 13, 2006 – Africa: The Story of a Continent – Written and presented by Basil Davidson – Each program 60 minutes
Program 6: This Magnificent African Cake – 60 minutes – In 1884, the major western powers of the world came together in Berlin to negotiate questions and end confusion over the control of Africa. For three months these colonial powers haggled over geometric boundaries in the interior of the continent, disregarding the cultural and linguistic boundaries already established by the indigenous African population. By 1914, the conference participants had fully divided Africa among themselves into fifty countries. Only Liberia and Ethiopia (Abyssinia) were never subject to colonial rule.
Program 8: The Legacy – 60 minutes – Post-colonial Africa struggles with growth, crime, electric power shortages, drainage, traffic congestion, and problems associated with many urban centers. Contemporary political leaders and past statesmen discuss neocolonialism and its effects on the economy of Africa, as well as Africa’s successes as she moves towards true independence. Included are: President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; Alhaji Shehu Shagari, president of Nigeria (1979 to 1983); Leopold Sedar Senghor, first president of Senegal (1960-1980); Jerry John Rawlings, President of Ghana (1981-2000); Uganda’s Idi Amin (1891-1979) who was exiled to Saudi Arabia where he died in 2003, and Samora Machel, first president of independent Mozambique (1795 until he was killed in 1986).
Space is limited.
Please call for reservation: 212 637-2019 or 212 637-2039
Free of Charge