IN CINEMA
MADE IN HARLEM – THE LAFARGUE CLINIC REMIXED
FRANZ FANON: BLACK SKIN WHITE MASK
Thursday, February 15th at 7PM
Tickets: $15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price
Isaac Julien, 1995, 70 min.
Franz Fanon has been acclaimed for writing “The Wretched of the Earth” (1961) and for his professional life as a psychiatrist in Algeria during its war of independence with France. In Isaac Julien’s FRANZ FANON: BLACK SKIN WHITE MASK, interviews, reconstructions and archive footage tell the story of the life and work of the highly influential anti-colonialist writer, based on his seminal autoethnographic book (1952) of the same title.
POST-SCREENING PANEL DISCUSSION with Gabriel N. Mendes, author of Under the Strain of Color: Harlem’s Lafargue Clinic and the Promise of an Antiracist Psychiatry (Cornell University Press, 2015) (Zoom); Dr. Anna Ortega Williams, Assistant Professor at Silberman School for Social Work, Hunter College; Desiree Joy Frias, JD, MPH, South Bronx Mutual Aid
Special thanks to Jazz Hooks
Made In Harlem – The LaFargue Clinic Remixed
Founded by Reverend Sheldon Hale Bishop (Pastor of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church that housed the clinic in Harlem) with co-founders Richard Wright (author of “Native Son” and former Harlem bureau chief for the Communist Party’s Daily Worker) and Fredric Wertham (German psychoanalyst who emigrated to the United States after the rise of the Nazi Party), The Lafargue Clinic was the first of its kind in Harlem: a pay-as-you-wish anti-racist mental health clinic, staffed largely by volunteers. Operating 1946-1958 out of the basement of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, The Lafargue Clinic pioneered a form of social medicine that linked patients' medical needs with the struggle for housing and economic justice. MADE IN HARLEM – THE LAFARGUE CLINIC REMIXED is a series of films, talks, and seminars on the legacy of this groundbreaking Harlem institution and its impact today on radical healthcare organizing, mutual aid, and collective wellbeing.
Curated by Kazembe Balagun
“The films in this series look to highlight the cost of white oppression on the Black psyche starting with Richard Wright’s “Native Son” and following with Issac Julien’s “Black Skin White Mask,” which looks at the life of Franz Fanon. We also have a rare 16mm documentary produced by the Communist Party for city council candidate Ben Davis, “What’s Happening in Harlem,” which also underscores the connection between racism, police brutality and health care.”
