Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

By Jennifer Cunningham

Photos: Nadezda Tavodova

Seniors took uptown’s center stage this week for an event that honored the neighborhood’s sages as part of HARLEM WEEK.

Hundreds of seniors braved the sweltering temperatures to attend the annual HARLEM WEEK New York City Senior Citizens Day at the Adam C. Powell Jr. State Office Building on W. 125^th St.

Hospitals, universities, city agencies and other health and wellness organizations pitched up tables in the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. state office building’s plaza for a health fair, offering blood pressure screenings, smoothies, and information on everything from free classes to adults to protection from the Zika virus.

Harlem Hospital brought its mobile health care van out to offer on the spot screenings, while exercise instructors put the seniors through their paces with exercise classes on the main stage.

“I’m here because I believe good health starts in the community,” Claudia Boykins, the engagement and policy director for the Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership told the Harlem News as she took seniors’ blood pressure. “They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to keep the village healthy.”

Inside the Adam Clayton Powell Jr state office building, seniors who have made a difference in their community were honored at the “Elder’s Jubilee” luncheon. Utilizing the theme of “Our Past, Future and Present Inspirations,” the event honorees included Robert (“Bob”) Tate, the founder and president of marketing firm Unlimited Contacts. Tate received the 2016 Joseph Roberts Community Service Award. Also honored was Charlotte Sutton, the daughter-in-law of Harlem legend Percy Sutton, and part of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce.

Reps from insurance company United Healthcare spoke to the seniors about their insurance options, and the city’s Department of Health handed out pamplets on wellness issues like safe pest control and preventing heat exhaustion. And over at the Manhattan Educational Opportunity Center, marketing coordinator Yveline Legagneur handed out information on the free high school eqivelency classes and career training the school – part of the state University of New York – offers.

“We’re right here in the building,” Legagneur said. “We are a resource for the community, and we’re really pushing people to go back to school.”

It was an event that Harlem native Linda Pierce, 68, said she wouldn’t miss, even though she now resides in the Bronx.

“We did exercise upstairs,” Pierce said proudly as she got her blood pressure checked at the Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership’s table. “I was born in Harlem, in Harlem Hospital. It’s in the blood baby. It’s in the blood.”

HARLEM WEEK, which is presented by The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce and sponsored in part by the MTA and Apple Bank, celebrates all things uptown through a series of music, cultural and community events all summer.

By Jennifer Cunningham

photo credit: Nadezda Tavodova

With draws like soul singer Eric Benet, a dance party in the middle of 135th Street and soul food galore, it’s easy to see why scores of people flocked uptown over the weekend.

HARLEM WEEK’s signature events, “Summer in the City” and “Harlem Day”, drew thousands to West 135th Street between Lenox and St. Nicholas Avenues on Aug. 20th and 21st. The events had the feel of a state fair, with concerts on the main stage, a children’s festival, an old-school dance party and vendors selling everything from jumbo shrimp and fried catfish to Africa-inspired jewelry and natural hair and skin care products.

“I love seeing all the people,” Udetta Chestnut, 68, a retired educator and Harlem transplant who now lives in Wayne, NJ, told the Harlem News. “No arguing or fighting. Everybody is getting along. Just to see our culture come together. I’m here and I’m enjoying it.”

On Saturday, Eric Benet headlined the “Harlem Music Fest”, where he performed all of his hit songs and even coaxed the audience to sing with him on his duet with Faith Evans, “Georgy Porgy”. The Traditional Afro-Cuban Dance Troupe also performed an energetic showcase. Closing out the show was the Jeff Foxx Band, which honored Vaughn Harper of WBLS.

Also on Saturday, representatives of Historically Black Colleges like Hampton University, The University of the West Indies hosted a higher education fair and expo to encourage kids uptown to consider their schools.

“The camaraderie with the HBCU’s is very high and I just enjoy coming here,” said high school teacher Nia Modest, who headed a table for Clark Atlanta University. “I got introduced to a lot of people in the eighth grade. I told them to start visiting colleges in their sophomore and junior years because it’s never too early.”

On Sunday, the crowd marveled at some of the classic cars and buses on show as part of the Upper Manhattan Auto Show. The U.S. Tennis Association hosted a clinic and there were honors for Rep. Charles Rangel, Prince and Muhammad Ali. The evening culminated with artists from the Harlem/Havana Cultural Exchange playing a musical tribute to Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire.

The weekend was a boon to local businesses like Charles’ Pan Country Fried Chicken and owner Charles Gabriel, known as Harlem’s “King of Fried Chicken”, said HARLEM WEEK was a great way to get his Southern comfort food staples in front of a wider audience.

“Business has been great,” the chef said in between dishing up fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and collard greens to his customers. “A lot of people don’t know we exist, so we came to introduce ourselves to the public.”

Inside the Children’s Festival, restaurant chain Applebee’s, which has two locations in Harlem, gave away a college scholarship on Saturday as well as prizes like free appetizers and kids’ meals via a prize wheel.

“It’s a favored event because it’s family and kids,” said Ken Feldman, vice president of marketing for Apple-Metro, Inc., the company that owns Applebee’s. “We want people to know that we’re in the community and we’re part of the community. We love the opportunity to connect with the public.”

Meanwhile, sponsors like MetroPlus, The Color Purple, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Central Park North Orthodontics, set up booths to talk to the public about their programs and services. Reps from the Apollo Theater handed out literature on their historic tours and “Amateur Night” auditions while HealthFirst workers talked to passersby on their health insurance options.

“We’re here because we’re part of the community,” said Roland Garcia, who works in community engagement for HealthFirst. “We’re here to answer questions about health insurance in terms of Medicare and Medicaid – and the Essential Plan. If people don’t qualify for Medicaid, they can qualify for that plan.”

HARLEM WEEK, which is presented by The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce and sponsored in part by the MTA and Apple Bank, celebrates all things uptown through a series of music, cultural and community events all summer.

Milton Allimadi’s Book Reading 

Saturday, August 27 from 4pm to 6pm

@ Nicholas Brooklyn,

570 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

What people are saying about “The Hearts of Darkness, How White Writers Created The Racist Image of Africa”

Molefi Kete Asante, Professor and Chair, Department of Africology, Temple University. Author of The History of Africa.

“Milton Allimadi has written a perceptive and enlightening book that will resonate with those who have examined the current conditions and challenges in the African world. I am certain that Allimadi’s book will take flight with its illuminating messages. This is a profound work.”

Kathryn Barrett-Gaines, Ph.D., Associate Professor of African and African-American History. University of Maryland Eastern Shore. 

The only cure for racism is knowledge, and Allimadi mines a deep deposit of racism and its practitioners in the archives of the New York Times, Time magazine and National Geographic magazine.  In talking to retired editors and reporters from these publications, Allimadi reveals himself as researcher activist….This is why ‘Hearts of Darkness’ will be the first book my students read in my History of Africa courses.

Dr. Joyce Watson/Educator

The world now eagerly awaits the book’s sequel, addressing motives/rationales/intents behind the perpetual historic negative depictions of Africa/Africans

by American and European Powers!

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

My book, “The Hearts of Darkness, How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa” (Black Star Books), deals with the history of demonization of Africans in Western media from the 18th century to the contemporary era. It critiques the “journals” of the Europeans who traveled to “discover” lands where Africans had lived from the beginning of humanity and who renamed lakes and mountains after European monarchs and paved the way for later colonization. The book also critiques writings about Africa in newspapers such as the New York Times and magazines like the National Geographic, beginning in the 19th century.  The book analyzes letters exchanged between New York Times editors and reporters sent to Africa beginning in the 1950s at the beginning of the decolonization process; many of the letters were very racist. The book shows how the root of some of today’s biased/stereotypical/racist coverage of Africa can be traced to the template created by the so-called “explorers”.