IN CINEMA
MADE IN HARLEM
THE LAFARGUE CLINIC REMIXED: NATIVE SON
Tickets: $15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price
Thursday, January 25 at 7PM
Curated by Kazembe Balagun
One of the most controversial novels of its day, Richard Wright’s “NATIVE SON” (first published in 1940) exposed the injustices of urban African-American life, witnessed through the eyes of Bigger Thomas, whose violent tendencies and moral confusion were the natural result of a lifetime of deprivation. In prison for murder and sentenced to death, Thomas reflects on the circumstances that led to his fate.
When it was initially released in the U.S., NATIVE SON was heavily censored by regional state/municipal censor boards where it played. Kino Lorber presents a new restoration of the 1951 film version of the novel, directed by Pierre Chenal and starring Richard Wright as Bigger Thomas. A complete 16mm print of the original Argentinian release and an incomplete 35mm duplicate negative of the uncensored cut were combined for the current restoration, the most complete version of NATIVE SON ever shown in the United States.
Screening introduced by series curator, Kazembe Balagun. Recorded intro to NATIVE SON restoration by Eddie Muller and Jacqueline Stewart. Reception to follow!
Made In Harlem: The Lafargue Clinic Remixed
Co-founded by Richard Wright (author of “Native Son” and former Harlem bureau chief for the Communist Party’s Daily Worker) Fredric Wertham (German psychoanalyst who emigrated to the United States after the rise of the Nazi Party) and Reverend Shelton Hale Bishop (Pastor of St.Philip’s Epispocal Church that housed the clinic in Harlem), 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
