In search of the Harlem Renaissance: A 40-year journey

The African Diaspora  International Film Festival is Hosting   a fund-raiser for filmmaker William Greaves,
Thursday, Dec 9 @8:30PM -
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
For Ticket Information Call the Schomburg Bookstore 212-491-2206

ADIFF is proud to serve as host to a fund-raiser for William Greaves’ upcoming 90-minute film exploring the cultural life in Harlem: Once Upon a  Time in Harlem.  The program  will include screenings of three short works about
Harlem, the Renaissance and  African-American culture, themes that the filmmaker has been exploring for over  40 years.
-   Memories  of the Harlem Renaissance  a rare public screening of  an unfinished work using footage shot by William  Greaves and his crew in  1970 at a party held at the elegant town house of Duke  Ellington.  There, legendary figures  of the Harlem Renaissance share memories of a time 40 years earlier when they  were part of that extraordinary cultural phenomenon;
-     An excerpt from Once Upon a Time in Harlem.  This version, which is currently in  production, incorporates some of the same footage but intercuts it with video  footage of Harlem today.  It looks  back to the roots of African-American culture and its future in the  multicultural, “postracial ” America of the 21st century;  and
-     From  These Roots  (1971), this completed film, the first documentary about the Harlem Renaissance  ever made, is constructed entirely from photographs, music and poetry of the  period, a novel approach to filmmaking at that time, earning it over 22  international film festival awards.
-    A  discussion and  Q&A with special guests will  follow the screenings.
The  program will open with a catered reception hosted by ADIFF and William Greaves’  friends and family. Proceeds from the evening will be donated to William Greaves  Productions to support the completion of Once Upon a Time
in Harlem. To  date, the production has received support from the Ford Foundation, the  Independent Television Service, the National Black Programming Consortium and  the New York State Council on the Arts.
For tickets, go to _rsvp.adiff@gmail.com_ (mailto:rsvp.adiff@gmail.com)   (Suggested donation $40)
William Greaves
Considered the dean of African-American filmmakers, William Greaves is  one of the most respected independents in film and television, producing,  directing and editing films for over four decades.  His documentary films  on the African-American experience include such classics as From These  Roots; Ida B. Wells: A Passion For Justice, and Ralph Bunche: An  American Odyssey.  He was writer and director of the two acclaimed  Symbiopsychotaxiplasm feature films (1967 and 2005), and was executive  producer of the successful Richard Pryor film, Bustin’ Loose.  His  documentaries have won over 70 international festival awards.  Greaves has  been the recipient of many honors and awards, including an Emmy for his work as  executive producer of the pioneering public television series, Black  Journal.  He is a member of the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, received  a Lifetime Achievement Award from the  Association of Independent Film and  Videomakers, and was honored with a Career Achievement Award from the  International Documentary Association.  He is a longtime member of the  Actors Studio, where he often substituted for Lee Strasberg as moderator of  acting sessions. For more information, visit www.williamgreaves.com.

TWO FRIENDS, TWO JOURNEYS, ONE BIRTHDATE

1925 was a very good year for milestones: The Harlem Renaissance was in swing; Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington produced their first recordings; the first working television was invented;  Civil Rights icons Malcolm X and Medgar Evers were born; the first potato chip factory opened, thanks to African-American pre-Civil War chef George Crum; A. Philip Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Pullman Sleeping Car Porters; the popular song “Sweet Georgia Brown” was composed; and on December 16 of that year,  in Cairo, Georgia, “City of Hospitality,” Grace and Arch Weatherspoon gave birth to Jane Lee Weatherspoon (“Janilee”) and, in Asheville, N.C., “Land of the Sky,” Macon and Gertrude Roseboro welcomed Alma Roseboro.

Infants Alma and Janie shared more than a birthdate.  They were destined to marry jazz lovers, Joe “Bebop” Carroll (Alma) and Daniel Cal Green (Janie); live within two blocks of each other; help shape Central Brooklyn’s antipoverty programs of the ’60s; and become outspoken Bedford-Stuyvesant community organizers and education activists. 
At 84, they are still determined and fighting.  Pictured inside this issue  are Ms. Alma Carroll at her rousing afternoon birthday celebration with Jitu Weusi, the nationally known educator, community organizer and founder of Brooklyn Jazz Consortium, inside Herbert Von King Park’s Cultural Arts Center. (at left).

And Mrs. Janie Green regales guests at a family-hosted Sunday church buffet and dancing birthday celebration, with U.S. Rep. Edolphus “Ed” Towns  (NY-10), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and his wife, educator Gwendolyn Forbes Towns  at Eleanor Roosevelt Houses’ 400 Hart Street Community Center. 
Currently, Mrs. Carroll, working with community organizer Sydney Moshette Jr. of the Oldtimers Foundation, is committed to naming the amphitheater in Herbert Von King Park after the late educator Almira Coursey, who was instrumental in introducing Mrs. Green to Mrs. Carroll in 1965 at the then-newborn Bedford-Stuyvesant Youth-in-Action program. These pioneers were longtime board members of Community Board #3.  

Also, their late husbands Joe, the jazz great, and Danny, the jazz buff and collector, were close – if not best -  friends.
There was another milestone in 1925: Countee Cullen, sometimes quoted by  Mrs. Green, published Color, his first volume of verse.  That year, he wrote the following excerpted from I Have a Rendezvous with Life.
.
I have a rendezvous with Life,
In days I hope will come,
Ere youth has sped, and strength of mind,
Ere voices sweet grow dumb.
I have a rendezvous with Life,
When Spring’s first heralds hum.
    Birthday well-wishers to both women included Assemblywoman Annette Robinson, Councilman Al Vann, Hon. Jim Sullivan, Rev. Taharka Robinson, Sydney Moshette Jr. and scores of other friends and community leaders.
  -Bernice Elizabeth Green