The Institute of the Black World 50th Anniversary
#IBW50
The Origins and Mission of IBW - June 29th | 7-9 pm est
The Institute of the Black World was one of thousands of black organizations founded in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which, for more than a decade, became the foundation of the Black Power and Black Arts Movements. None was quite like IBW. This program critically assesses IBW’s role as a think tank for black struggle, discusses the role of Dr. Vincent Harding within the Institute and explores ways in which IBW’s experiences are relevant to today’s struggles.
Program:
Musical Welcome: Ghanaian Drummers
Libation: Tribute to the Elders, James Small
National Anthems: Jazz Artist Rene Marie
Official Welcome: Gillian Royes, Coordinator of the 50+ Anniversary Celebration
Statement of the Occasion: Howard Dodson, former Director of IBW
Video Presentation: “Black America since MLK, Black Power”
Keynote Presentation: William “Bill” Strickland, founding Research Associate of IBW
Panel discussion: Robert “Bobby” Hill, Joyce Ladner, Derrick White and Abdul Alkalimat; moderated by Howard Dodson
Video: Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How it would Feel to be Free”
Understanding the New Black Poetry - July 13th | 7-9 pm EST
Dr. Stephen Henderson, an intellectual architect of the Institute, taught in the first of IBW’s Summer Symposia in 1969 and wrote and produced the book Understanding the New Black Poetry. [This collection] framed the seismic shift that occurred in African American arts and letters in the 1960s. This session looks at the ways in which that shift has developed and morphed over the years since.
Program:
Panel Discussion: A.B. Spellman, Kalamu ya Salaam and Destiny O. Birdsong; moderated by Opal Moore
Poetry readings: A.B. Spellman, Kalamu ya Salaam, Destiny O. Birdsong, and Opal Moore
Music: Omelika, percussionist and former director of Giyewen Mata Dance Company
Remaking the Past to Make the Future: The New Black History - July 20 | 7 - 9 pm EST
Prior to the1960s, “Negro History” documented the victimization of black people, highlighted their roles in American history, celebrated black heroes and sheroes and challenged white American lies about their pasts, identities and characters. Missing from these approaches was an appreciation of the fact that black people were more than victims of, contributors to or participants in American history, but were active agents in making their own history.
IBW assumed a leadership role in the search for a New Black History, one dedicated to chronicling the origins of the black freedom struggle in America and creating a framework for understanding blacks’ roles as active agents in the making of their history. This program explores the evolution of Black History from the late 1960s to the present and its relevance to the future of Black America.
Program:
Panel discussion: John Bracey, Pero Dagbovie, James West, Robert “Bobby" Hill, Rachel Harding, and Jessica Marie Johnson; moderated by Howard Dodson
Education for Liberation - July 27 | 7 - 9 pm EST
The closer we examine the education that our children are getting in today’s public schools, the more we recognize the stark inadequacies of that education. It demonstrates to us that black people must commit themselves to the development of a new education for the new times in which we live. Some of us carry on this creative task in independent schools. Most of us, however, have to challenge the public school systems where the vast majority of our children, our teachers, and our educational tax monies are.
This session will look at our goals in the struggle for a New Black Education. As an IBW Monthly Report said in August 1973, “The education of our children is our responsibility. We cannot place it in anyone else’s hands.”
Program:
Presentation: Dr. Bettina Love, pioneer in Abolitionist Teaching
Question & Answer Session
Video Discussion: Memories of IBW and Learning House + “Nurturing Creative Learners” with Tayari Jones and Pearl Cleage
Conversation hosted by Carol Bebelle, featuring Tayari Kwa salaam, Leslie Bray, and more.
The New Black Studies - August 3 | 7 - 9 pm EST
The Black Power Movement hit its stride in the late 1960s and, led by black students and activist young people, found its way into American colleges and universities, black and white. Unprecedented numbers of black students enrolled in white colleges and universities for the first time, challenging the lack of black faculty and subject matter. What little they found in the curriculum mirrored the racist assumptions and attitudes of whites in American society. Black students' and black faculty members’ demands for change gave birth to the Black Studies Movement. IBW was in the vanguard of this Movement. The New York Times branded the Institute the "Vatican of Black Studies" and anointed Vincent Harding its “Pope.”
This session assesses IBW’s role in promoting, informing and supporting the development of Black Studies with an emphasis on two seminal Black Studies conferences and a variety of publications and consultancies.
Join Moderators Douglas V. Davidson and Susan Ross and a distinguished panel of guests for an exploration of IBW's foundational role in the development of Black Studies and the evolution of Black Studies to the present day.
Panelists: Abdul Alkalimat, Akua T.J. Robinson, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Howard Dodson, and James Stewart.
The New Black Agenda - August 10 | 7 - 9 pm EST
African Americans started convening and crafting collective political agendas to advance black interests as early as the 1830s. Free blacks who organized these pioneering ventures spoke on behalf of all blacks, enslaved and free. The agendas they crafted focused attention on the grievances and aspirations of the black community. These national conventions continued to meet periodically well into the 1970s.
The most dynamic modern convention took place in Gary, Indiana in 1972 when over 10,000 delegates gathered at the peak of the Black Power era to chart a new independent black political agenda. IBW drafted “The Gary Declaration,” the issues document around which the Convention’s working sessions were structured. With additions and revisions, it became the National Black Agenda of 1972. This session discusses contemporary black agendas against the backdrop of the Gary Declaration.
Program:
Video: Trailer of “Nationtime,” a documentary history of the Gary Convention by Bill Greaves, 1972
Reading: Excerpts from the Gary Declaration
Poetry performance: “What We Want” by Ras Baraka
Panel discussion with panelists Michael Simanga and representatives from Color of Change and Black Futures; moderated by William Dorsey.
Following the Ancestors’ Footsteps into the Future - August 17 | 7 - 9 pm EST
Program:
Tribute to the Ancestors, those who have gone before us: Vincent Harding, Grace Lee Boggs, Fay Bellamy, Pat Daly, Pharrell Thomas, Ruth Harmon and others.
Panel discussion: TBD
Performance: TBD