Place. Id start with that and then find out why you cant get on public wifi in this building. Thank you. I want to thank professor hendricks and marc lamont hill, importantly want to thank all of you for attending here today your participation is then cached in a 10 fantastic manner. Thank you so much. If you want to get a copy of these discussions, there will be books outside a little bit later. So that is available and also very quickly we will be doing this in the book signing room. And so finally the reading series is in the auditorium next door in the Edison Jackson and they will go to the front desk and it lets you now. You can get your book signed. Next from the National Black writers conference, in brooklyn, a panel on black literature. [inaudible conversations] without further delay, ladies and a woman, brothers and sisters, those of you who are standing and not idle, those of you engaged in great conversations, please Pay Attention and welcome our panel and the moderator will be since the time and forced, shes right here and thank you. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I hope that you are settled and dry. We have an amazing panel this afternoon and im really honored to be here and this is maintaining cultural legacies and the black arts and the umbra movement. Our cultural memory is part of our collective domain. Literary texts are repositories of memory and we transmit and give shape to our memories and experiences and reveal various ways that the president has been shaped as the past. They also propose possible shapes for future understanding and living. Certainly the ideas and things and subjects represented in the literary and cultural works created by the authors gathered here have been discussed and debated and celebrated by readers worldwide. Their work has become part of what some have termed the black literary canons. And i have used the plural as a way to designate the black lineages that we turn to in order to understand and invent where and who we are plural as a way to point to the rigorous we improvisatory nature of black culture and political production and creation. The writing and the cultural work of these authors make up a part of the intellectual arsenal read by the general public and more specifically by students of color. The writers on this roundtable our Cultural Workers and activists who have been promised since the 60s and 70s, making it happen. And by it, i mean poetry, fiction, plays, librettos, political manifestoes, criticism and theory and they have been establishing writing workshops and cultural spaces and establishing teaching black cities across america. And engage and committed to both the literary and what Lorenzo Thomas has called nonliterary blackwhite and these writers reconsider the American Literary as it is read both at home and abroad. So i am pausing a moment and im hoping the other two panelists will appear. And what we have here is 2014s poet laureate of the Lower East Side, steve cannon. [applause] new orleans born voodoo doctor who has lived there since the 1960s and he lives on new yorks Lower East Side where he is known as a heckler. And the author of groove thing and plays and essays and in a couple of unpublished novels and he is also a producer and publisher and the director of the art and Cultural Organization and they gathering of tribes with a magazine and a gallery of the same name are you a gathering of tribes as the iconic east ilitch gallery Performance Space and he has been a mentor and a magnet to young poets in his residence has provided a nurturing forum for art exhibitions, poetry readings among musical events and other activities, which showcased the east villages cultural history. He is a retired professor from mentor Evers College and professor ken is also one of the founding members of the umbra movement workshop, an influential collection of poets and writers and artists and musicians. And so since i will introduce him nonetheless, David Henderson, the poet and writer was a founding umbra movement said his first book is felix of the silent forest published in 1967 under the poets press with an introduction by mary brock. And he is also the publisher of mayor of harlem and neo california as well as the critically acclaimed biography of jimi hendrix, which is sort of an expanded version that was released in 2009 with photos and more commentary by David Henderson. And he has been widely published in anthologies and magazines, including the deaf poetry reader, the paris review in essence. He has read from the permanent archives of the library of congress, born in harlem and raised in harlem and the bronx and he now lives downtown. He will be here shortly. And i should call all of these writers to acknowledge the incredible kind of work that they have done not just as writers but his writers who are trying to shape how we understand who and what we are and what kind of knowledge we received your but the professor is the winner of the Macarthur Fellowship genius award and the renowned Lifetime Achievement award and the digest award. He has been nominated for a pulitzer and a finalist for National Book award at the university of california at berkeley and founder of the before columbus foundation, which promotes multicultural american writing. He also founded 10 oakland, which issues the literary awards of josephine mylan. He is the author of over 20 volumes including the acclaimed mumbojumbo as well as essays and plays and poetry is and hes also a publisher and producer. And i could go on. And we also have an absent professor Sonia Sanchez and what is amazing that here is that i have pages of biologybiographies on these writers. But professor sanchez is known for her innovative melding of musical forms like the blues and traditional formats like the haiku she was awarded the National Education Association Award and the National Academy of arts award and the National Endowment for the arts fellowship choose one of the first to establish a writer script element San Francisco state and a brilliant and powerful person and i hope she finds her way to us. Certainly last but not least, our professor who is from North Carolina. I was born in North Carolina but raised in ohio, dayton ohio two okay, and i guess i always they where you were born. That before you were born is not necessarily where you are from. Okay. You moved to new york city and is also one of the founders of the umbra Movement Poets workshop and he joined my angelou and others at the United Nations to protest the assassination of the victim in 1961. He is then a staff writer with the liberator magazine and umbra magazine and part of the atlanta staff of sncc and joined the movement in 1960. In 1965 he founded after world. I believe it was in 1964. Okay, he founded after world then and organize the harlem of counties conference. He was also an important part of the black Arts Movement and cofounder. [applause] so please give these magnificent writers a round of applause. [applause] im also a winner of the 1989 american book award for literature and also a book, from the up your midst to the projects, and the 2003 henderson award from africa and American Literature and Poetry Society and i live now in boston and have been active with writers and young people and activists in the boston area. [applause] okay, you have to tell the story. [laughter] i have learned. I only have three questions, so i will put the questions on the table. The first question because this is a panel on cultural legacies and maintaining cultural legacies, the first question i have is about who we were reading in the 60s and 70s. Who are you reading and discussing two who are the writers not only the writers but the musicians and those who are influencing your work and that you were talking about. That is question number that is question number one. Lesson number two has to do with the work that you have done in black studies to sort of establish the studies and outreach beyond. There are so many and three or four of you are founders of the writers workshop. I was not a founders. Were not a founder but a member . I was a member as well. David henderson. They were actual founders. But we were active members. And umbra was from 1962 through 1964, right . Lets think. I think it was earlier than that. What david calls the extensions. So my question is also related to the kind of work that needs to be done. Having been associated with lack writers, we all learn from each other and sometimes its a lot of fun and other times it is like being a criminal defendant. [laughter] because we are very hard on each other and did not tolerate mediocrity. So that led to a lot of conflict. But a black repertory theatre comes out of this because some of the members compared him to nationalism. Now, he could have been the emperor of the Lower East Side and the only black person at a party somewhere. But he chose a different direction. In 1964 was listening to the radio and we were jones was wearing a seersucker sudeten tell the trends by what occurred. And he heard them call us members of umbra, revolutionaries. And then i think that there were some events that affected the direction of politics and literature. One was the assassination of malcolm asked, which, you know h affected all of us and then was the terrorist bombing of the church in birmingham. But i think that umbra was something that tommy had to be a writer because i had studied literature courses at the university of buffalo but i have never done a writing course. So it was a place where you could show your work to your peers and i always try to give people a chance to look at writers with whom they have some kind of a common experience. So we try to get women to read works by women and hispanics to read works by hispanics for example. I have a petition at the California College of the art. I was teaching at berkeley for years. But we have hispanic students who have never heard of this kind of writing because of the eurocentric perky one. And now i have black students who have never heard of faux sweetly for others. So i think the importance of this was that led to a recognition of africanamerican writers using a voice they heard instead of soccers voice or hemingways voice and it spread like a contagion around the country. And so i would say a few weeks ago and attending the conference was a chineseamerican poet that i just published her book and ron herrera who was the california poet laureate at the time. But one africanamerican writers on their voices, other people and other groups founders. Can you send some of the names of the writers who were in the workshop that youre reading a map you might guess, i can tell you [inaudible] he was part of the mission earlier in the way that i got involved was that i met david through ishmael and then ishmael brought david over and the first thing he said to me was we really have to respect this guy in anything he gets his hands on he reads and hes quite relevant and i knew him before and we joined an organization that jones had been a part of at the time called the organization of young men so used to go up to his apartment every sunday with malcolm x. , Martin Luther king, and all of that kind of stuff. So as far as the other writers were concerned, i have given unto david who knew everyone. Certainly Norman Pritchard junior, Glenn Wolcott [inaudible] lennox and Lloyd Addison at whom the movement umbra was named after. Tom feelings, Jane Poindexter logan and Raymond Patterson and mr hicks steve cannon, charles patterson, our burger and others who at the time were married. James thomson. Okay, James Thomson and im sure we have left some other people out. So please forgive me. In terms of a writer, making this statement at the revival the david put together this quite recently. And that he didnt know anything about black writers until he got down to new york and joined us. So i am from new orleans and the funny thing about getting installed, you have black professors and people who are teaching a black cry from the days you are born and among the most wonderful thing that i remember is going to booker t. Washington high school for the first time when i was 13 years old and they love this one english teacher and i couldnt understand why everyone is really about him. Come to find out this guy had memorized every single point and so we read all of those, everybody and of course i knew about him even before he came to new york and i had the pleasure of communicating this and the easiest way to get in touch if you people want to know, you write a letter to the publisher. To rent a letter to the publisher and they got to him in paris and he wrote me a long letter back explaining why we had gone to spain and i have found so much in love with his work that when a got ready to sit down and compose this, it was a reference to what he was doing with what he talked about back in his days as opposed to some of these other things. A just completed a book on mohamed ali called the complete mohamed ali that will be published next year in montreal. They had a more complex view of the nation of islam of just a bunch of thugs, some of the members were scientists and mathematicians and scholars and the man who set up made us think of harvard graduates. But i found that ironic that there was one sidetrack that sidetrack the movement. This idea that white people were created by a mad scientist. And i met a man in 1934 that it was fascist and racist. And then i talk to someone in the inner circle that told me that people are writing material about this and some of those had answers as a lot of us i think do. But some of his best friends were jews and he was very complimentary of their culture and that is according to the book and i think that is the difference between a businessman and an artist because a businessman has to deal with all kinds of people in order to negotiate a trade and i also found looking at the nation of islam was that you are darned if you do and darned if you dont. Africanamericans right now, we have paul ryan is that the people in the inner city are lazy and have been that way for generations to welcome its black labor that built the capital and built the white house for free. We need to get back to umbra. This has a lot to do with umbra. But he said that i am writing a book with Kathy Jackson and ive learned a lot that the whole objective of the private and public sectors through understand that they dont include black business. And we just lost so much of it is because of criminal banks like wells fargo and bank of america and criminal operations. So even when he tried to do business, they sabotaged anyway. The farms, they were sabotaged on the cattle were posed and when they had it with lucrative deal with the bahamas and they tried to do this as well. Who very very active. As i recall, we had a harlem Youth Conference after brother malcolms death in harlem where my great brother larry neal and i cohosted that. I believe our brother baylor is in the audience. He was one of the young progressive students who np invited us to have that conference. Black people were devastated by malcolms assassination and wasnt over the slaying of others and the children in birmingham and so forth. And we collectively came together to try to restore the moral and sense of purpose to the people of harlem. We had had uptown Youth Conference where our good brother buraka, jones and the black reptory Theater School were introduced to the harlem community. Some of the elders at that time that set in with us were dan watts, the publisher oof of obliverateer magazine. A professor and doctor John Henry Clark. Hail cruz, the great scholar and writer of the negro intelligence. This collective group of scholars welcomed leroy jones and the young theater black activist from harlem with open arms. That has to be said. I hate sonya isnt here. You know, black reptory theater was a blackonblack crime scene where people were assaulted, beaten up. Larry neal was shot. So you can sugar coat it and we have always given credit for being a philosopher. So you got credit for that but you cannot sugar coat this because there was a negative side period. If you allow me to continue i stick my two cents in here, if you dont mind. It is funny. You have to tell the truth. You have to be square deal on this. Well in terms of [ applause ] in terms of unravel just look. Back to where we were for one moment. Umber is probably the most important artist group to ever be in america. Boy, that is a heavy statement. Sure is. I think so. I would defy people to match the output of such a workshop. And in that respect, i think that nowadays, students are studying writing but before there wasnt a possibility and i dont think any of the umber writers studied formally. We learned from each other. And in the practice and the i ivanguard of the Lower East Side. I wanted to say that, okay . I am also wondering in the conversation excuse me. My narrative was interrupted by. Not by you. I was going to address your narrative and bring us back but tie in the focus of the Panel Discussion and that idea of maintaining cultural legacy. I think it very important to realize there were negative elements even somewhat in umber because some of those forces went uptown with biraka when he went up to harlem and one of the problem he had with the negative force, particularly the patterson brothers, william and charles, and they recruited a character named johnny moore and they came and they were the right wing thug forces that he is eluding it. Sonya and some of the sisters who have worked with the black arts, including our sister for brooklyn people, barbara killings, complained because the pattersons were extremly sexist and disruptive and paranoid toward the scholars. So you know, what happens was finally they got so outrageous and craze because i was a feature writer for liberator magazine and after brother malcolm was assassinated we did two things at the magazine. I continued being in tclose connection with amari and other people. But we presented a malcolmx issue of liberator magazine and we got word there was going to be response to that. And then we a mass march from 110th street up to the auduboau. Thousands of people came out. I was there, larry, amiri and several people were there. There was a lot of tension and apparently a cooler took place inside the black arts theater. R can i interrupt . I would like to interject into this narration. Im going to finish soon jesus christ. You are acting Lower East Side. This is important because it is part of history. These people apparently physically assaulted amiri and drove him out. They called a what you would say a truce. And invited people who had been interacting with the black arts into the theater. We got in there. And they locked the door and pulled guns on us. I am telling you the truth. This is my life. I know that. I am not lying about this. I can say whatever i want to say i would like to interject a question for a second. What happened was these forces pulled guns on us and were going to publically execute at the black arts. What saved my life was brother oosman who was one of malcolms body guards and another brother john ferris. John had a hat and he had his hand under a hat and these thugs had guns on us and he said well what you got under the hat . And john said we are not going to shoot anybody. Roland or anybody else. You call for a truce and pull guns on us. And the brother was on my side and john was in front. And the brother said listen brother slowly back out. Okay . Slowly back out. And he was kind of behind me. He and i backed out and john backed out. I have a different story. And they closed the door. Okay. After that i had to get out of town because within a day the department that i had was too Young Brothers was bombed. It frightened the people in the apartment. We were in a whirlwind and when people saw me again we were in atlanta. There was noprovocitation of anybody. This happened by itself. There was a scholar a couple days ago with a book of letters out and she made illusions to the violence and i had to point out to her that at that time there was a lot of violence in the community, of course. The assassination of malcolmx and kennedy. But the reason there was such a strong Civil Rights Movement is because people were being lynched in the south. There was violence all over. We were in an environment that wasnt less violent or anywhere less violent than harlem or anywhere else. But we dealt with it on our own level and we came up to harlem to help launch the school but went back downtown to a community where we lived. I was born in harlem and murray went and he had good reasons for trying to do what he did. And there were people that believed they needed to protect themselves. John a williams said have guns. People told malcolmx to arm himself. We were not living in a dainty environment here. And what happened at black arts is unfortunate. But that is why a number of us stayed downtown. Black people lived longer Downtown Manhattan than harlem. We have been down there since 1609. So if we live downtown we are at home. I was living in chelsea all the time so i missed out on the fun. When people associate me with the black Rights Movement they associate me without things that i am not responsible for. I want to tell you about another situation. I want to comment we had someone in the audience and i want to come up with a question on your freedom way. Gus newport was the former mayor of berkeley, california. In the 60s, he was known as school boy. He is a courier for bobby johnson. Bobby johnson just got out of singsing. And he associated with man who was like the head honcho at the red rooster. This gentlemen opened a place called the truth coffee shop. Amiri goes in there and he said at one point i should have been murdered. That is okay. People exagexaggerate on pages. He said he came in one night and if they didnt fire all of the white waitresses within 24 hours he was going to come back in and smash all of the glass. Bubba johnson told them to deliver a message and that was if amiri doesnt get his ass out of harlem he would be dead in three days. And he left town. I dont know what to say about that. But can i get you to see something about freedom ways and your association with freedom ways. The first question i asked was who were you reading. I will get back to that who you are ready. I asked because it maybe instructed for the ways of what informs black legacy and what we think of as a legacy. I will ask in two ways. First, you had asked who are the musicians and artist at the time. In fact, ishmeal was talking about one of them earlier today, the show that kelly jones put together at booker museum. Who am i thinking about . Kelly jones over there. And some of the artist in that show were originally down on the Lower East Side including joe overstreet. I ishmeal mentioned that piece he loves where aunt jjamima got a machine gun. There were a lot of them down there. Archy chef was a musician. The musicians were held with a lot of when i got to the east side, people like taylor and r coreman. Those were the people that would come through. A club opened up on the Lower East Side and it was a shit hole and didnt last long. It was called slugs and went we played there on a weekly basis. We came in and played every monday night. Who am i thinking about . Jacky mccain . They would come and sit at the bar and miles would play in new york and he would play there once a year. So every time he had a gig at l Lincoln Center he would get in a car and listen to the other mus musicians. One night he was in the corner of slugs and i remember going over there and the musicians talking about what a great person he was. The other musicians got worried miles was in the bar and someone ran up to him and said look at my arragement and he got so mad he slappmmed down his drink and said he needs to be arranged. I read freedom waves and a lot of people contributed and wrote reviews. Freedom wave was on 10th and broadway. 11th i was close. I am sorry. But that was heading toward the west side and we were deep in the east village down where steve is still at the gathering of the tribe and galleries down there. That is the area where they had the workshop and a ghetto part of the east village still. Freedom waves was a very important part of your situation. Without a doubt. I recall specifically when John Henry Clark was editor. He would ask the young writers, poets and writers, to contribute and i was surprised because ms. Jackson, we thought you were our stern elders and reaching out to us like that, which was wonderful and we contributed home poems and essays. I am not going to sit up here at 76 and sugar coat anything. I love freedom waves but when they said we were decadent i took offense to that. I was raised a methodist. A guy wrote a poem about us and called us everything under the sun. But a lot of us were very happy to be sonamed. It kind of made us famous. I was there when he read the poem and someone got up and said i saw you with a white woman and i remember he was speechless. He was quite. I will never were forget the expression on his face. There was a lot of going around and speaking around. They said we were having all of the fun. You guys up there practicing polygamy. We were a chase in comparison to th that. This is getting realistic. Garther the personalities together and you remember gather i remember how i met the umbra workshop and its leaders. I was an art student at the Art Student League of new york and a closet poet but my drive was through painting. Tom sealings was like a brother to me and i met him with a lot of people in brooklyn. He got in touch with me and said you want to come back and meet young black writers on the east side . And i said there are young black writers on the Lower East Side and he said yeah, come on. I went with him to the meeting and i saw the young people reading from the manuscripts and they were debating and he opened my eyes because i didnt know a thing like that existed. And they were fierce in terms of c c critiquing each other. I said i wrote poetry and couldnt take it back. They said bring some by and so forth and i could not get out of it. I came back and i did. And i was shocked. I found out they were being very kind to me. And then Calvin Hunter recommended books i should read and so forth and i never told him before, i swore i would never say this, but david, i thought he was younger than me and he road this poem about harlem with are of these internal rhythms from the music and i never said that but it influenced me early on. [ applause ] david was like almost a kid and they called him the boy wonder. And so that was the first nurturing atmosphere poets i was a part of it. We had our differences as you can see. And we are elders and stuff. But it was just tremendous. We had some differences, political differences later, and i think that looking with the longer eye, i wish he had been more tolerant towards each other at that time. That was impossible. The only way i am going to mention is because you keep bringing up. The original question was who are some of you readings. Aside from hooty musicians were the Lower East Side has been the very immigrant neighborhood. So you have the people in that neighborhood from people all over the world. And back in the days of umber it was the same thing. So in terms of writing, many of us as young black writers were not just reading black rigwrite we were reading hispanic and white. And ishmeal introduced me to victor cruz and he is a prominent poet now. He read asians as well. And i think shang is supposed to be on a panel today and she was part of that. And reading the jewish artists. I had a party at my apartment on 4th street and alan gwensburg crashed that one. Calvin put together a big reading up at Columbia University and what we used to do all of the time was grab me and get me to mc the meetings. So they put together Speed Reading with the beats that was david and i did that and put it together. And then they got me to mc it and peter larcy got up there and took off all his clothes and what the purpose of the reading was back in those days people didnt take crap from these dam landlords. If they didnt get heat and something was something you are seeing sheets and bed sheets from fire escapes saying no heat no rent. People challenged their landlords back in those days. And that is what that reading was for to help people having trouble with landlords and their housing situation. And calvin took the same thing at the Jefferson Memorial church. Where i made the stupidiest remark saying will all of the poets in the room come to the sign and the whole audience came up. And very important cultural intersection took place. There was a fistfight at a cafe called metro where the owner was a gold water supporter and that looks like a radical next to these guys we have in office now. Somebody attacked tom den and we went to support tom. And all of the poetry that was being read that night ended and we left after the fit fist fight. I went back and told walter if he keeps reading that this place he can forget about a relationship with us. The guy that ran this place was a facist. That thing was closed down that night and paul blackburger and i went around to find another venue. The minister at st. Marks church said we could hold them there and that a was the beginning of the st. Marks cultural institution. I ran a fiction workshop. A if you go to the archives, they dont even mention that connection. So i had to write an article in the New York Times last year to straighten that out. And we used to hang out at stanleys and king would go in there and others came because of the connections. And alan came later and took credit for this but when life magazine picked a white poet and put them on the cover i talked to others and he said the same thing happened at columbia. [laughter] so that was the kind of backandforth. But the most important than the longestserving writer there was another that wrote brilliant pieces of journalism together. So i want to mention my influence, by the way and he gave us his mailing list and he was very helpful and invited us to his house and we got to that point and he did not like that and so he had a problem with leroy as well. And i want to bring something also. They asked me to do a book jimi hendrix and i said no, i want to do a book about henry kissinger. Because i was 29 years old and full of myself. [laughter] i had my contract and my friend soon end you know, dining at french restaurants and all that stuff hurts i said you give him mike david, David Henderson wrote the best book on jimi hendrix. It is a classic. It is a classic he bought me a bottle of wine and 100 burden that was really awesome. [laughter] and i say thank you. I wanted to give time for the audience to ask you questions, and im sure that there are many. Im glad youre turning it over to the audience. We read the japanese come the mexicans come a lot of us were very influenced and i was and one of my great and it is up to the great civilian poet and i was looking because i didnt know of any africanamerican individuals other than walker and i was looking for the influence so i Read Everything that i could get my hands on. Also yeats in terms of his restoration of the irish people and the celtic revival and so forth. And it is to us as a people, we are trying to make it like we are just these narrow types that didnt have any impetus for study other cultures and for years i was into yoga and i read all the yoga journals that i could get in the poets of the east and stuff and this includes a great hindu port and so all of us were influenced by poets from all over the world. There are these narrow types that quote unquote hated whitey, and thats just not true. That is very important. [applause] i dont think we have any bigger class that can come up other than the mumbojumbo. Its a fabulous book. But also the catechism of the church, it is another great piece of work and so steve had to drive around, which is probably really important publisher, published by them from the project from the peer mentors to the project. And so i think you influence of a lot as well. Because someone should try to listen to this. There is an archive tapes very early on and i didnt even know who this was. But who is this . Well, it was amerian back then. So you can see the transition rian back then. Nfluenced. So you can see the transition between being influenced. A lecturer and black magic poetry. And this is the epic lac arts column that defines the movement. One of the things that i see, he has a ton of moral authority and he will not back down from that even if some fool pulls a gun on him. He is really strong about that. And he had Serious Problems with the way the media is projecting this and he wrote his great column, ghost in birmingham. The only goes in birmingham is his holy ghost. Proving and moving in and out of things. And it just blew my mind. He used to say what about malcolm and this and that a nice and yeah, you know it but i said that they go on in the south and it was a regional problem and that was part of what puts on the culture to resurrect the archetype that shows the rebelliousness of the black masses of the country. And another thing is the long hot summers when they fight all over this country. We have a question. [applause] thank you. When we were putting this panel together, i wanted the audience to experience the exchange that i experienced when i went to the panel and saw all of the umber poets and people from the black Arts Movement coming together and talking and its really been interesting and exciting. I expected to see a little but more fighting. It was very conscientious. And i would like you to comment on do you see any contemporary black artist we can say or influence by the umber movement and can you share your insights and thoughts on that . Singing the praises of what he did, darius james should have been invited to this and i was very soul sinking when i first met him. I was about 19 years old and he is a very good writer and not only him but at Columbia University and unfortunately he wasnt invited to this conference and paul says that he is very into this as well and he has commissioned a and every time paul comes to see me, its like what the david duke . What does ishmael do and i just wrote a new book for him. And we have a lot of young people now that have that back in her days and and people are reading it from time to time and the only reason that i stay involved are about how they influence him. And there is a great poet twersky published his first book and many others from a flybynight press. And you know Tracy Morrison is a good example. Thats good, go ahead. That whole spoken word thing is happening downtown. Yes, i would like to thank the panelists as ishmael said, not sugar coating things. The fact of the matter is that the black Arts Movement came out of the africanamerican masses of approximately two decades from the 50s through the 70s, they matched at all as various forms of struggle, and there is a lot of violence. Thirtyfour dead where i am from areas 34 dead were i am from, detroit. Were my mothers brother is from. Twenty plus in newark, new jersey. And on and on and not to mention malcolm, mlk and jane featherstone. And i appreciate you bringing that to contextualize how the spark came out. And that comes out of the struggle of the black masses. Take it far away from that. And the music in my opinion, needs a kind of leader has led, in my opinion mississippi, nina simone, for women, and oscar brown junior and his whole catalog of stuff. And trains alabama and so forth. So what im going to ask today is that i am wearing a badge that is a great culture worker on the whole world stage and robinson said that the artist must choose between slavery and read him for freedom and slavery. And today when we see on tuesdays, assassinations being carried out and watching over on africa, what is the role of artists today . What should our Culture Workers are doing today
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