harlem
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Black Writers Rally to Save Langston Hughes’ Home
The home occupied by one of the great leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, still stands on 127th Street in Harlem today. Hughes used the top floor of the home as his workroom from 1947 to his death in 1967; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The current owner,…
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Can Black People Be Gentrifiers?
While I was not born in the United States, I spent the bulk of my formative years in Harlem. I went to elementary school on the north end of Amsterdam Avenue and middle school on Convent Avenue. While my mom was still getting comfortable speaking English when I was younger, she found solace in the…
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Cornel West and Arturo O’Farrill Speak Truth to Power Through Jazz
In this day and age, there is little reward in seeking the truth, and less profit in sharing that truth once you have found it. So it’s remarkable that a program like Jazz and Spirit could ever come together, much less on a world-renowned stage like Harlem’s Apollo Theater. On Saturday a great philosopher in…
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On The Importance Of Getting More Black Kids "In The Right Place At The Right Time"
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending the annual gala for the Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF), an inner-city organization that I have been involved with since middle school. It was a fantastic event all around. I even had the honor of having an extended conversation with Neil Degrasse Tyson, who serves on the…
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Yup, Black Pittsburghers Have A "Pittsburghese" Too
I went to college in Buffalo, NY, a city which shares many cultural and aesthetic similarities to Pittsburgh. Well, Pittsburgh in a time warp. It’s a city that’s perhaps 10 or 15 years behind where Pittsburgh currently is, which makes it five years behind Cleveland and 225 years behind D.C. That said, I greatly enjoyed my…