2016 When Sugar Hill Was Sweet Program Booklet

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peer-reviewed publications and is a frequent participant at national and international conferences. He is also an editor and co-editor of several books. Selected publications are The Assimilationist Impulse in Representative African-American Narratives; and Black Music, Black Poetry: Genre, Performance, and Authenticity. Gordon has also had articles that appeared in refereed journals. Titles include “Methodism and the Consolation of Heavenly Bliss in Phillis Wheatley’s Funeral Elegies” (CLA Journal). Gordon received a Ph. D. in American Studies from Yale University; and holds an MA in American Studies and an MA in Afro-American Studies, also from Yale University. He received a BA in English from CCNY. Among his other professional responsibilities, Gordon is the creator, principal investigator, and director of the RAP-SI project of the Black Male Initiative. Jerry Vattamala is staff attorney for the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Marta Moreno Vega is president and founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center (the Center). She was inspired by a vision to create an international organization to promote and link communities of African descent. She guided the capital campaign for the renovation of the landmark firehouse at 120 East 125th Street that will be the Center’s new home. Marta has conducted research on Yoruba belief systems in the African Diaspora and has organized international conferences focused on expanding the knowledge and importance of sacred African Diaspora traditions. Her titles include The Altar of My Soul. Reverend LaKeesha Walrond is a native of Galveston, Texas. She attended Spelman College, where she earned a BA in Psychology and Early Childhood Development. LaKeesha went on to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel <strong>Hill</strong> (UNC-CH), where she earned a master’s degree in Education with an emphasis on Special Education, and a master’s degree in School Administration with an emphasis in Educational Leadership. She also received a PhD from UNC-CH in Special Education and Literacy. Most recently, she attained an MDiv from Union Theological Seminary. Reverend Walrond currently serves as the executive pastor of First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem. 14 The West Village Quartet is an African-American string quartet, performing works from the European classical repertoire. The quartet, which derives its’ name as a result of frequent performances in the West Village, was founded in 1987 by David Burnett-Caines, who is the group’s second violinist and manager. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote “The West Village Quartet played with vigorous musicality.....” (See separate bios for David Caines Burnett, Jessica McJunkins, Tia Allen, and Wayne Smith) Elizabeth Yeampierre is an internationally recognized Puerto Rican attorney and environmental-justice leader of African and Indigenous ancestry, born and raised in New York City. She is executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organization. She was the first Latina chair of the United
States Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) and served as member of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Advisory Council. Last year Vogue named her as one of thirteen women in the world leading the fight for frontline communities against climate change. remembering when now While We Are Still Here (WWSH) is observing a “Centennial Celebration” to laud the power of the ancestors and our community. This hundred-year anniversary is approximate, because 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue were built circa 1916-1917, but WWSH is compelled to collect and share the profoundly significant histories of these “sister” buildings now. Why now, one may ask? Because time and the erasures of so-called gentrification threaten community memory. In these two buildings, one can find people and forces whose presences are resonant, whose work set the standards for culture, intellectual discourse, and athleticism; whose struggles—legal and otherwise— were intended to ensure democracy for all. 15 As an island of neighborhoods, Manhattan has changed and changed and changed some more. How many remember when the area—say from 65th Street to 96th Street—from Central Park West to Broadway was mixed by race and class, and had many Puerto Rican and Haitian immigrants, as well as African-Americans? And going way back, how many remember when the area around Lincoln Center was San Juan <strong>Hill</strong>, and many Black folk and Indigenous People lived there, including Thelonious Monk? And going way, way, way back, how many of us truly understand how Manahatta became Manhattan, relegating the Native Americans to their current status of near invisibility in this city? How many know that when the real-estate developers of the early 20th century could not find enough white people to fill the dwellings they overproduced in Harlem, those developers allowed Black people to move in? There are countless other stories that could be recounted, but While We Are Still Here came into being to ensure that people remember the legacies of 409 and 555. Both buildings were socioeconomically mixed. Residents ran the gamut, from the famous, Black, well-to-do, to Black people who worked as servants. They were joined in community, for better or worse: New York City-style Jim Crow was in full effect. Joe Louis, world heavyweight champion; Paul Robeson, first international superstar; W.E.B. Du Bois, theorist for the ages, and others are among the luminaries, who could not just live anywhere they wished in Manhattan. Nor could their neighbors who may have been chauffeurs or maids or number runners or barbers or bootleggers. continued on back cover
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Page 7 and 8: Tia Allen, violist, has performed a
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Page 11 and 12: Sufjan Stevens, Frankie Rose, and m
Page 13: Health, Johns Hopkins University. A

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