Washington Informer
The crowd danced to the samba beat and created works of art during the National Museum of African Art’s first ever “Africa Under-ground” / Photo by Roy LewisThe inaugural crowd of more than 900, came out to the National Museum of African Art’s first ever “Africa Underground” on Fri., Feb. 18 and danced the night away to samba. Although this was not the Smithsonian museum’s initial foray into the world of after-hours activities, preceded by the Sackler and Freer Galleries’ “Asia After Dark” and the Hirshorn Muse-um’s late night soirees, it was a first for the underground museum dedicated to the art of Africa and the Diaspora.
Memorabilia from the Ben’s Chili Bowl collection on display at The George Washington University Gelman Library in Northwest. / Photo by William Atkins / The George Washington University.Students, scholars, administrators, and District insiders attended a gifting ceremony on Wed., Feb. 16, to celebrate the merging of two renowned Washington, D.C., institutions: Ben’s Chili Bowl and The George Washington University.
The event, held at The George Washington University’s Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, was attended by more than 200 people, including Virginia Ali and her three sons Haidar, Kamal, and Nizam—the widow and sons of the late Ben Ali, Ben’s Chili Bowl’s iconic founder.
The entrance to Ground Zero Blues Club is "littered" with old sofas, signage, and marker scrawlings. Visitors are encouraged to "leave their mark" on the furniture, windows, and posts, both inside and out. / Photo by Thomas JohnstonThe first thing visitors to the Mississippi Delta notice is the heat. Thick, stifling, and at times unyielding, the heat, locals warn, can only be calmed by the cool of shade trees and a steady supply of sweet tea. As with the Delta’s generations’ old blues traditions, its heat is as much about climate as it is passion. In fact, it remains the most consistent element in the Mississippi blues, right next to cheating women and no count men. Where some like Big Momma Thornton and Robert Johnson married a coded language of sexual innuendo with references to hot and sultry nights, others made folklore of working fields of crop under a burning sun.
David E. Talbert, brings one of the most anticipated and highly acclaimed plays of the year "What My Husband Doesn’t Know"Williams is certainly no stranger to the stage, having delivered outstanding performances in the Broadway production of The Color Purple, earning rave reviews for her role as jazz singer Shug Avery.
Andre Hayes addresses the contestants waiting to audition. / Photo by Roy LewisLifestyle guru, fashionista and entrepreneur [Barbara] B. Smith – acclaimed for her upscale B. Smith’s restaurants which feature “down-home cooking” – has created the “B. Discovered” competition in which 28 area singers, ages 21 and up, are vying for a $1,000 cash prize coupled with an opportunity to perform at various restaurants in the District and New York City -- including Smith’s Union Station and Manhattan establishments.
Sam Sweet. /Courtesy Photo***Sweet will lead the burgeoning five year old arts center located in the heart of the historic H Street NE neighborhood***
The Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Board of Directors has selected Sam Sweet to be its new Executive Director. As Executive Director, Sweet will manage and coordinate programming for the Atlas’ performance venues, enhance the organization’s visibility, build its management team and emphasize the Atlas’ role as a vibrant collaborative arts center in Washington’s most dynamic neighborhood. Sweet is no stranger to the Washington arts scene having served as Managing
Director for Shakespeare Theatre and Signature Theatre for six and seven years, respectively. Having successfully led both organizations through critical transitions, he is an accomplished leader focused on helping non-profits thrive through the advancement of their missions. During the past year, Sweet has served as a management consultant to and Interim Executive Director of the Atlas, implementing strategies to strengthen its organizational capacity. Sweet’s selection comes as the result of a national five month search, and his tenure as Executive Director will begin immediately.
Participants of the First Annual Washington Informer African American Heritage Tour posed for a picture in front of the White House in Northwest on Sat., Feb. 12. The tour started at THEARC in Southeast. From there, buses transported participants to the Frederick Douglass home in historic Anacostia and onto the White House and the Freedman’s Bank Northwest. The last stop along the tour was Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill in Southeast. Frederick Douglass, a Republican, frequented the White House when he served as an advisor to several presidents including Abraham Lincoln. / Photo by Khalid Naji-AllahHovering high above the Anacostia River , which zigzags south into the Potomac, and across the street from a quaint, chartreuse, Victorian-style home to the East, Douglass’s home, Cedar Hill, continues to attract D.C. sightseers east of the river.
The pale khaki-green, two-story, brick home is capped with a terracotta-colored tin roof and nestles up to a giant, waxy-leaved magnolia tree located on its eastside. A variety of other conifers and hardwood trees, including cedars, spatter the landscape around it. A redbrick staircase, which starts at street level, climbs up to a redbrick sidewalk on the top of the hill, and then proceeds to wrap around the entire house. Flower-embroidered, white-lace curtains hang in the windows.
Photographer Ernest Withers documented the struggles and the victories of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s through shocking and inspiring images that evoke the injustice and the rage of history, even today. /Courtesy photo.But, along the way, he became an icon.
When Withers photographed the mutilated body of Emmett Till, slain for allegedly whistling at a white woman, the photographs spread like wild fire across the country and the world in magazines and newsprint – most notably in JET and LIFE magazines, and the Chicago Defender – forcing the nation to zero in on the blatant injustice.
Withers, was so moved that he vowed to attend each day of the trial and photograph those accused of the lynching.
Courtesy photo.You and a few million neighbors are sick of snow, ice, cold, and more snow. No doubt you could use a hint of summer or, at the very least, a whiff of the tropics to get you through until warm weather.
So here’s the antidote to antifreeze: “Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae 1975-1976: The Photographs of Kim Gottlieb-Walker.” This book, which includes commentary by Cameron Crowe, Roger Steffens & Jeff Walker, drops the feel of summer right into your lap.
Back in the early 1970s, Kim Gottlieb was an up-and-coming photographer just starting to make a name for herself when she met Jeff Walker, a music writer working for several California magazines.
Rebbie Jackson. /Courtesy photo.When your last name is Jackson, as in the musical dynasty Jackson family, it’s not unusual to be asked to headline any concert. But for Rebbie Jackson, the eldest of the singing Jackson family, her involvement with the “Pick Up The Phone” Tour, which comes to the Ellington Theatre in Northwest on Fri., Feb. 25, is much more personal.
The tour, which showcases artists to bring heightened awareness about depression, suicide and the stigma of mental illness to the public, was created through a partnership between several organizations—the Kristen Brooks Hope Center, 1-800-SUICIDE and 1-800-PPD-MOMS (for mothers suffering post-partum depression) among others.
For Jackson, the tour reflects the struggles she and her daughter Yashi experienced and conquered. Jackson said that suicide is prevalent among people diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.
Mooz-lum, enjoyed a record-breaking opening weekend at the box office, due in large part to word-of-mouth advertising and sccial networks like Facebook and Twitter. / Courtesy photo.When writer-director Qasim Basir originally penned the script for the film, Mooz-lum, he hoped that it would serve as both a catharsis for American Muslims, and a vehicle for dialogue on America’s growing intolerance of Islam.
A coming of age tale of a young African-American male, Mooz-lum follows the character, Tariq (Evan Ross) as he navigates life on an American college campus. Torn between a strict Muslim upbringing and the peer pressure attached to college freedom, Tariq’s growing pains are further complicated by the terrorist attacks of September 11.
Based on Basir’s own upbringing within Islam, Mooz-lum, examines the many misconceptions Muslims face within mainstream culture, as well as the representation of Muslims with which he is most familiar.
El DeBarge. Courtesy photo.Born Eldra Patrick DeBarge on June 4, 1961, he took on the nickname of El during his childhood. He discovered his musical talents at a very young age and began singing in the choir at age 7. He also received private vocal and keyboard lessons.
During the 1970s, a few DeBarge siblings formed a singing group, with him as the lead singer. They named the band after the family sir name, DeBarge. After an audition in front of Jermaine Jackson, they signed with Motown in 1980. The group consisted of El, his brothers Mark “Marty,” Randy, James, and sister Bunny.
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