Thursday, April 18th, 6:30pm
Made in Harlem: Columbia Revolt
This is a Free Program
@ The City College of New York
Shepard Hall
259 Convent Avenue
Co-presented by the Documentary Forum at CCNY, Third World Newsreel, and Maysles Cinema
Columbia Revolt
Newsreel, 1968, 50 min
1968 was a year of revolution and turmoil across the world. Columbia University was one site of protests and takeover, as the university was on the one hand, attempting to build a gym that would take land and isolate Harlem and on the other, was discovered to be working with the Department of Defense - at a time when sentiment was growing against the ongoing Vietnam War. Between the racist gentrification and the collaboration with the military, students and Harlem residents protested, and things culminated in April 1968 as students took over university buildings and the university and the NYC police responded. Columbia Revolt was one of the early films of Newsreel (now Third World Newsreel) and was shot uniquely from the inside as the filmmakers joined the students. It is an amazing documentation of the inside of the struggle, as students organize, debate actions, conflict between the white and Black students becomes clear, as is the over reaction of the authorities.
Q&A with Shawn Walker, photographer, and former Third World Newsreel member, to follow screening.
Shawn Walker, photographer, and Former Third World Newsreel member, was born and raised in Harlem, NY. Shawn Walker has a BFA from Empire State College and was a founding member of Kamoinge, the longest existing Black Photographers' collective. A professional photographer for more than 40 years and a photographic educator for more than 30 years, Walker has traveled extensively and exhibited, lecture and been published throughout the world. Walker is a photographic artist and a master black-and-white printer whose work is included in numerous permanent collections.
This program is part of Made In Harlem: Class of ‘68 Fall 2018- Spring 2019
In the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King (April 4th, 1968) and the subsequent riots throughout America’s tapestry of urban centers – a fruitful reformer’s zeal possessed the U.S. which lead in part to the dawn of Black and Ethnic Studies programs, and the first community colleges. More locally in Harlem the Studio Museum was founded, as well as the National Black Theater, and El Museo del Barrio. As well in 1968, galvanized by the assassination of MLK, the New York City Ballet’s first African American star Arthur Mitchell (1934-2018) began teaching at the Harlem School of the Arts, and formed what would become the Dance Theater of Harlem in 1969.
Made in Harlem: Class of ’68 unpacks and explores the period before, during, and after the birth of these key cultural institutions in Harlem, as well as their impact, a period where Black Power, the Civil Rights Era, and Black Arts Movement coalesced and helped forge new aesthetics, politics, understandings and philosophies – the legacy of which is found everywhere throughout the planet in the early 21st century.
As Harlem, the United States, and the planet goes through rapid transformation there is hunger and yearning for context, understanding and literacy of our shared, and often erased history. This is an opportunity to quench that thirst. Made in Harlem is programmed by Jessica Green.
This series is supported by the West Harlem Development Corporation.
