by | Jun 19, 2021 10:43 pm | Comments (9)
Maya McFadden Photo
Solar Power and community at Dixwell festival’s dance party.
Tracey Massey at Hill fest: “We’re building another Wall Street.”
From the Hill to Dixwell, New Haveners celebrated Juneteenth with dance, soul food, and investments in Black businesses.
by | Jun 13, 2021 12:30 pm | Comments (3)
Steve Hamm Photo
Painting by numbers is no longer the home crafts fad that it once was, but two New Haven artists dusted off and rejuvenated the practice for a socially-conscious mural project in the Hill neighborhood on Saturday.
by | May 11, 2021 2:37 pm | Comments (3)
Emily Hays Photos
English teacher Kelly Hope.
As public schools statewide prepare to institute African-American studies courses, New Haven Academy’s Kelly K. Hope and her students are already on the case.
Continue reading ‘NHA Points Way For State On Black Studies’
by | Apr 20, 2021 5:32 pm | Comments (0)
Monday evenings panel.
A trio of Connecticut doctors said the route to addressing Black and brown communities’ Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and historical distrust in healthcare systems begins with listening to personal experiences.
Continue reading ‘Panel: Hesitancy Healing Begins With Listening’
by | Apr 19, 2021 10:00 am | Comments (1)
Maps of the United States in a patchwork of colors. A graph like a coiled spring. A diagram like a bullseye, creased with bright spikes. Hanging on the walls of Artspace’s gallery, they can read immediately as abstract art. They are, in fact, a series of data visualizations — charts, graphs, geographic and population information — that famed Black sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois and a team of researchers created to convey some of the realities of the Black experience in America over 100 years ago.
by | Apr 12, 2021 4:18 pm | Comments (1)
Emily Hays Photos
Al Proto: Grand was the Avenue of the Americas.
A vaudeville theater becomes a church. A church becomes a parole office. An integrated boys’ swim club becomes a swim-focused nonprofit.
A group of dedicated ethnic historians sketched out these transformations and more neighborhood lore in what will eventually become an official Grand Avenue tour.
by | Mar 26, 2021 9:32 am | Comments (0)
On Thursday night, a filmmaker and two professors screened a new documentary about Soul! — the pioneering PBS show focusing on Black culture that ran from 1968 to 1973 — and found, in its celebration of Black artists and message of revolutionary uplift, serious parallels with our current moment. The screening and discussion were sponsored by the Schwarzman Center and the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale.
by | Mar 10, 2021 12:24 pm | Comments (7)
New Haven State Rep. Robyn Porter’s legislative quest to combat discrimination against Black women because of their hairstyles came to fruition as Gov. Ned Lamont signed the CROWN Act.
by | Mar 1, 2021 10:53 am | Comments (3)
Contributed Photo
Principal Mia Duff with Johnny Dye at Friday’s Black History Month ceremony.
Clemente Leadership Academy capped off Black History Month with a living example of New Haven’s Black history, Johnny Dye.
by | Feb 26, 2021 11:01 am | Comments (2)
Dr. Don C. Sawyer, a sociology professor at Quinnipiac University, mentioned on Thursday evening that he’d co-edited a book called Hip-Hop and Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline, out now as of this week. The book’s themes — of how hip hop can be used in the education system as a force to empower and uplift students — could have been the subject of a lecture.
But “rather than me talking about the book,” Sawyer said, he wanted to “bring together people who are doing the work.”
by | Feb 19, 2021 10:22 am | Comments (0)
Leigh Busby Photos
The figures in the gallery space at Creative Arts Workshop on Audubon Street stand tall and proud, majestic and welcoming. They draw you toward the gallery window. Once there, though, there is more to see. There is the way the figures hearken back to Africa. A line of bricks, each embossed with the word “freedom.”
Continue reading ‘Exhibit Finds The Gold Within The Struggle’
by | Feb 17, 2021 4:31 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photo
New day coming: ConnCAT’s Clemons pitches project at public meeting.
Dixwell Plaza’s planned redevelopment took a key step forward as alders voted to sell two parcels in the decaying mid-century shopping strip to a local team that plans to build apartments, stores, and cultural venues in the heart of New Haven’s historic Black neighborhood.
by | Feb 11, 2021 11:21 am | Comments (1)
Courtesy Jill Marie Snyder
The Snyder family in 1969.
When New Haven-based author Jill Marie Snyder found the letters detailing the romance between her parents when they were young, it was the beginning of a journey that led her to learn more about not only her own family, but the history of the Black community in New Haven, and how both contended with the racism they faced in their lives.
by | Jan 22, 2021 11:35 am | Comments (9)
CONNCORP
Renderings of the future ConnCAT Place on Dixwell.
Thomas Breen photo
Dixwell Plaza today.
“This is the time for Dixwell.”
With those words of praise and anticipation, alders moved ahead a plan to transform Dixwell Plaza into a mixed-use hub that would employ up to 550 people a year and generate up to $50 million in annual economic activity.
by | Jan 19, 2021 12:52 pm | Comments (24)
Zoom
New Haven-to-Georgia campaigners at MLK event, clockwise from top left: Naomi D’Arbell, Renee Reed, Adam Waters, Paris Robberstad.
Slide shown during Monday’s virtual celebration.
Charli Taylor was back at Helen’s front porch, trying to figure out why the Fulton County, Georgia, voter hadn’t yet hit the polls.
The reason, Helen said, was that her front door had no lock — and she worried that someone might break in while she was gone.
by | Jan 19, 2021 10:52 am | Comments (2)
Graves: Let’s spread our wings and soar.
On Monday, Probate Judge Clifton Graves had a story to tell about the time he met Martin Luther King, Jr.
But before that, he had a story to tell about an eagle who thought he was a chicken.
Continue reading ‘MLK Celebration Revels In The Words Of Kings’
by | Jan 15, 2021 4:40 pm | Comments (2)
Zoom
Friday’s virtual Love March.
To Rev. Boise Kimber, last week’s Capitol insurrection inspired by the president is proof that systemic racism is “here to stay.”
To U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Thursday night’s $1.9 trillion economic plan proposed by the president-elect is proof that sound public policy can undo the material harms of hate.
Continue reading ‘Virtual MLK Love March Puts Tumultuous Week In Perspective’
by | Dec 3, 2020 10:41 am | Comments (2)
Host Babz Rawls-Ivy beamed from the offices of the Arts Council at the over 100 people gathered virtually Wednesday evening to celebrate the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s 40th annual arts awards. She noted that it was an historic occasion — but not because pandemic restrictions had prevented the audience from gathering in person at the New Haven Lawn Club, as they have in years past.
“Forty years,” she said, “and all the awardees are Black. I love to see it.”
by | Nov 8, 2020 5:20 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photo
Cheryl Pegues led her sisters in a victory line dance for fellow soror Kamala Harris Sunday to celebrate a milestone she could barely have imagined while growing up in the Jim Crow South.
by | Nov 3, 2020 5:31 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Robyn Porter and Rahassan Langley mix it up old-school at the polls.
Outside a Newhallville polling place Tuesday, R&B singer Rashaan Langley invited State Rep. Robyn Porter to join him on the chorus of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”
First, Porter dropped some history on him.
Continue reading ‘“Party At The Polls” Reveals The Poetry Of Politics’
by | Oct 16, 2020 12:45 pm | Comments (3)
Contributed photo
Angela Robinson.
After retiring as a judge in 2018, Angela Robinson began educating the younger generation in New Haven full-time about the legal profession in hopes of diversifying the field.
Continue reading ‘Retired Judge Inspires Young Black Students To Follow Her Footsteps’
by | Oct 12, 2020 9:35 am | Comments (1)
Melanie Crean
If Justice Is A Woman.
The group stands on the steps of the courtyard. It means something that the women are occupying that space. It also means something that they’re not inside. Each of them exudes strength and resilience on her own. Bound together, their power seems to multiply. Melanie Crean’s If Justice Is A Woman is the final commission for Artspace’s “Revolution On Trial,” an exhibit running until Oct. 17 examining the Black Panther trials and May Day protests in 1970. Crean’s photograph received an unveiling on Friday at Artspace on Orange and Crown. That reception was another chance to revisit the legacy of the trials and protests, which continues to shape the city to this day.
by | Oct 9, 2020 12:26 pm | Comments (2)
Jeffries at gala: “Progress.. is inevitably followed by backlash.”
U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York addressed America’s ongoing march towards equity Thursday night with a note of optimism in a keynote address to the Greater New Haven Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 103rd Freedom Fund event.
Continue reading ‘Hakeem Jeffries To NAACP Gala: “We Are Resilient”’
by | Sep 27, 2020 9:32 am | Comments (10)
Maya McFadden Photo
After seven years of planning, New Haven Saturday unveiled a 700-pound bronze monument to one of the seminal and no-longer forgotten figures of the city’s Black history, William Lanson.
by | Sep 26, 2020 9:27 pm | Comments (1)
Ram Vishwanathan Photo
Smiles of pride discernible through their masks, Julian Lewis and Shawn Williams handed over forms Saturday to register to vote for the first time.
Continue reading ‘Mindful Of Civil Rights History, Kiyama, Fraternities unite To Register Voters’