Made In Harlem: Ralph Ellison Seen & Unseen
April – December 2023
Presented in collaboration with Harlem Stage, National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Studio Museum in Harlem, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Ralph Ellison Memorial Committee
70 years ago, when Oklahoma City-born writer and thinker, Ralph Ellison, published Invisible Man (1952), he produced not only a magnum opus of Black political, intellectual, and artistic activity, but an incendiary depiction of antiblack racism in the US. His (fittingly unnamed) protagonist journeys from the Deep South to the cultural capital of Black America, where he finds himself navigating the bustling, dizzying streets of Harlem. Harlem – at once real and imagined, everywhere and nowhere – is a container for a multitude of social, economic, cultural, and political change. It’s a place where Invisible Man’s protagonist – as well as Ellison himself – always return.
In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Ralph Ellison Memorial (erected outside of Ralph and Fanny Ellison's long-standing home on Riverside Drive) — and the 70th anniversary of Invisible Man — Made In Harlem: Ralph Ellison Seen and Unseen brings together film screenings, panel discussions, teen filmmaking/writing classes, public workshop, musical performances, readings, archival/memory projects, and Harlem walking tours for a Harlem-wide celebration. Our aim with these events is to honor and expand Ellison’s magnificent literary legacy, political convictions, and Harlem home by elaborating on the theme of (in)visibility that courses through Ellison’s work. Our series draws inspiration from Invisible Man’s opening lines, which haunt and resonate through the present day:
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
Louis Armstrong’s
Black and Blues
Sacha Jenkins, 2022, 106 min.
LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK AND BLUES offers an intimate and revealing look at the world-changing musician, presented through a lens of archival footage and never-before-heard home recordings and personal conversations. This definitive documentary, directed by Sacha Jenkins, honors Armstrong's legacy as a founding father of jazz, one of the first internationally known and beloved stars, and a cultural ambassador of the United States. The film shows how Armstrong’s own life spans the shift from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, and how he became a lightning rod figure in that turbulent era.
Followed by a live band and reception
Presented in collaboration with the National Jazz Museum of Harlem
Ellison’s Harlem: Walking Tour
MEETS AT: AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS & LETTERS
(633 W 155TH ST)
12pm on Saturday, April 15
Drawing on themes of space and immersion, Ralph Ellison Memorial Committee Chair John Reddick will lead a walking tour of Harlem centered around Ralph Ellison’s life at 730 Riverside Drive. By sharing stories, reflections, and histories, and visiting the relevant cultural institutions — Academy of Arts and Letters, Trinity Cemetery, and local establishments — of a vibrant and ever-changing Harlem, participants will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the local geography that has been memorialized through Ralph’s writings and photography.
Co-Presented by: Ralph Ellison Memorial Committee and Maysles Documentary Center
Join us!
Sunday, April 30th at the Ralph Ellison Monument!
More info on the program here.
If you continue to have difficulties streaming, please contact us at virtual@maysles.org or text/call (646) 853-1296 before 8pm.
