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Jungle Fever

Written by Sady on November 11th, 2011

We’re getting ready for the 20th anniversary screening of Jungle Fever (1991)
at BAM next Tuesday 11/15 7PM.

People who haven’t seen the film an awhile remember that awesome Stevie Wonder song and that it was Halle Berry’s first film role:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re interested in talking about how gender, race, and interracial romance play out in this film and we’re curious about how people will receive the film 20 years later – especially a Brooklyn audience who will know why it’s particularly relevant that Angie Tucci (Annabella Sciorra) is not only white, “H-bomb,” says Cyrus (Spike Lee), but from Bensonhurst, “Megaton bomb!”  Reading this New York Times review of the film from 1991 brings you back to that time.

Join Imani Perry, author of Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop and More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States;

Historian Renee Romano, author of Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America and co-editor of The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory;

And Michele Wallace, film critic, daughter of artist Faith Ringgold, and author of Black Macho and The Myth of The Superwoman and Dark Designs and Visual Culture in a conversation after the screening.

This event is co-presented by BAMcinématek.

Jungle Fever 20 Years Later
Tuesday, 11/15/2011 7PM

BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene
$12 / $7 for BAM and BHS Members

UPDATE:  Check out this Op-Ed on Jungle Fever & Harlem’s Identity Crisis from THIRTEEN’s MetroFocus.

Posted in Brooklyn Past & Present, Events, Oral History, Public Programs | 1 Response »
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Fort Greene / Clinton Hill Audio Tour

Written by Sady on January 13th, 2011
Photo by Muemaphoto.com

Photo by Muemaphoto.com

To complement the Fort Greene / Clinton Hill Neighborhood & Architectural History Guide by Francis Morrone, the Brooklyn Historical Society presents a new audio tour of Fort Greene / Clinton Hill.

The tour is hosted by author, filmmaker, and longtime Fort Greene resident Nelson George.  It features excerpts from oral history interviews from the Brooklyn Historical Society’s collections: artists, community activists, and longtime residents both past and present including professional basketball player Albert King, WNYC’s Jad Abumrad, and former Freedomways managing editor Esther Cooper Jackson.

Historian Francis Morrone tells us about landmarks like the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument and Underwood Park as well as the poet Marianne Moore.  And we learn more about keystones of the neighborhood like BAM, Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, and Pratt Institute from the inside.

You can listen here, or download the audio tracks via iTunes: Search the iTunes Store for the free Brooklyn Historical Society podcast.

  1. Fort Greene Park: Now the park is beautiful and safe, but for residents who remember the 1970s and 80s, it wasn’t always that way.

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  2. Prison Ship Martyrs Monument: The soul of Fort Greene Park commemorates a sad moment in U.S. history.

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  3. Fort Greene Houses: The Brothers King.

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  4. Washington Park: Home to industrialists, artists, and organizers for social change.

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  5. Richard Wrights’ Legacy: From Native Son to Do the Right Thing.

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  6. Marianne Moore and more Poets: A city of churches, a city of trees.

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  7. Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church: Abolitionists set the standard.

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  8. Brooklyn Academy of Music: The oldest performing arts center in the country.

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  9. Clinton Hill: The Hill.

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  10. Underwood Park: Typewriters and Crack.

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  11. Pratt Institute: When Pratt Center was accused of subversive activities.

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Music intros by Black Star, Mos Def, Living Colour, Betty Carter, Erykah Badu, Biggie Smalls, Talib Kweli, and  all outros by Bill Lee and The Natural Spirit Orchestra (with Branford Marsalis)

Produced by Sady Sullivan, Director of Oral History, Brooklyn Historical Society, with production help by Dorothy Saint Jean, Long Island University

Thank you to Nelson George, Ina Howard-Parker, Edward Lee, Spike Lee, Francis Morrone, and all the other artists heard here, for your time and creativity.  And to the New York Center for Visual History and the Media Arts Department at Long Island University.

Special thanks to Hillel Arnold, Alexis Taines-Coe, Ann Heppermann, and Selma Jackson who contributed interviews to the collection; and YouTube users dominoize and oojenoo who captured great footage of important events in Fort Greene: Soul Summit 2009 and 2010 and election night 2008.

And a very special thank you to the people of Fort Greene / Clinton Hill who shared their memories with the Brooklyn Historical Society’s oral history collections.  We’re so happy your voices are heard in this tour: Jad Abumrad, Marianne Engberg, Dr. Josephine English, Yolande Garcia, Hal Glicksman, Ruth Goldstein, Colvin Grannum, DK Holland, Karen Brooks Hopkins, Esther Cooper Jackson, Albert King, Irene Levy, Karla Murthy, Ron Shiffman, and Mary Elizabeth Smith.

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Calling Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Written by Sady on December 7th, 2010
buggin-out-3-new21

Image via scene-stealers.com

You know that part in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) where Buggin Out tells the guy in a Larry Bird jersey to move back to Massachusetts?  That’s one of those highly charged interactions we’ve all had at some point with our neighbors, to both positive and negative effect.  Our neighborly confrontations may not be as heated as Buggin Out’s or directly address big topics like gentrification and race, as his does, but they still stick in our minds for a long time, replaying over and over — and when we share these moments, they say a lot about our neighborhoods and what it’s like to live nowadays…  Which is exactly the kind of cultural snapshot BHS is trying to capture and preserve.

I’ve been starting my day lately by reading The New York Times Opinionator blog Disunion, about the Civil War; they do a great job of bringing that time period to life in a dimensional way.  I like thinking about historians 100 years from now painting a picture of life in Brooklyn in 2010 and using the audio and video interviews BHS has collected with people (500+ people born as early as 1890 and as recently as 2004) to add authentic voices to their history-telling.  Imagine how amazing it would be if we could hear 500 people from Brooklyn in 186o talking about slavery, secession, and the abolitionist movement in their own words, unfiltered by news reports.

Which speaks to why BHS is asking people to call the new STORY HOTLINE: 718.222.4111 x203

Leave us a message with one story about your neighborhood.  We’re starting with Fort Greene / Clinton Hill because these messages will be included in the Fort Greene / Clinton Hill audio walking tour (forthcoming January 2011).  You can tell us your name, or not, it’s up to you.  You can share a story about neighborly confrontations, neighborly love, whatever defines the neighborhood for you.  It could even be a song or a sound…

We look forward to hearing from you!

718.222.4111 x203


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Hancock Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant

Written by Julie on April 9th, 2010

There are certainly some architectural gems in Bedford-Stuyvesant.  A researcher in the library today researching her block for the purpose of landmarking it and The Brownstoner making 247 Hancock Street the Building of the Day drew me into another section of our Photography Collection.  In the early 70s, BHS president James Hurley, with others, photographed this beautiful block of Hancock Street.

Hancock Street between Marcy & Thompkins taken by William Cox, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.2.

Hancock Street between Marcy & Thompkins taken by William Cox, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.2.

Hancock Street between Marcy & Thompkins taken by William Cox, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.4.

Hancock Street between Marcy & Thompkins taken by William Cox, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.4.

Hancock Street between Marcy & Thompkins taken by William Cox, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.9.

Hancock Street between Marcy & Thompkins taken by William Cox, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.9.

Kelly Mansion 249 Hancock Street between Marcy & Thompkins built by Montrose Morris taken by William Cox, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.9.

Kelly Mansion at 249 Hancock Street between Marcy & Thompkins built by Montrose Morris taken by William Cox, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.9.

239 Hancock Street between Marcy & Tompkins taken by James Hurley, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.16.

239 Hancock Street between Marcy & Tompkins taken by James Hurley, 1972. Brooklyn Historical Society Hargrave Collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant Photographs, v1974.5.16.

Posted in Brooklyn Past & Present, Library & Archives | 4 Responses »
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Coming Up in Bed Stuy

Written by Sady on July 29th, 2009

2007 marked the 40th anniversary of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration, the oldest community development corporation (CDC) in the United States, founded in 1967 through the efforts of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Jacob Javits.

Robert F. Kennedy, Image courtesy of Restoration

Robert F. Kennedy, image courtesy of Restoration

To celebrate this anniversary, BHS and Restoration partnered on an oral history project interviewing founding Board members, supporters, activists, artists, tenants, and other community members, over 50 narrators total, to document Restoration’s pioneering work.

Elsie Richardson and Shirley Chisholm, image courtesy of Restoration

Elsie Richardson and Shirley Chisholm, image courtesy of Restoration

Audio from these oral history interviews was included in the exhibit Reflections on Community Development: Stories from Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BHS Feb 28 – Aug 31, 2008, Restoration’s Skylight Gallery, March 5 – June 30, 2009) and the full interviews will soon be available for listening in the Othmer Library.

Coming Up in Bed Stuy

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We Made Sure Everybody Had a Voice

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The Word Blight

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Kennedy Really Did Listen

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We Have to Show It Can Be Done

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From Milk Factory to Restoration Plaza

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To hear more stories from Bedford Stuyvesant visit the Brooklyn Historical Society on iTunes!

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