Anderson@Large

Veterans Day 2018

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11 as Armistice Day:

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations.

November 11 commemorates the armistice agreement Allied powers signed with Germany bringing hostilities to an end on the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.

In June 1954, Congress passed legislation changing the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day, a day to honor veterans of all wars. On October 8, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first Veterans Day Proclamation.

Just six years earlier, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order No. 9981 establishing the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. The EO signaled the government’s commitment to integrate the military.

United Service Organizations (USO) policy expressly banned racial discrimination. However, there were separate facilities for African American servicemen in the Jim Crow South and segregated North. In Philadelphia, USO sites for African Americans included Parker Hall and South Broad Street USO. Billie Holiday entertained the soldiers at both locations.

Parker Hall was located on the top floor of the Parker Building.

The Parker Building is now home to the ACES Museum whose mission is to preserve the history of World War II veterans and restore Parker Hall as a functioning USO for black veterans and their families. The ACES Museum is headquarters of the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Association of Black Veterans.

For more information, visit www.acesmuseum.online.

Philadelphia Jazz Summit 2018

The inaugural Philadelphia Jazz Summit will be held November 2-3, 2018. Spearheaded by jazz bassist Gerald Veasley, the event will bring together musicians, jazz enthusiasts, advocates, funders, and the arts and culture community.

Veasley, president of Jazz Philadelphia, said in a statement:

The time has come for Philadelphia to be recognized as the world-class jazz destination it is. Philadelphia has been fertile soil for jazz for over 100 years. The city has served as a launching pad for the careers of legends such as John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Lee Morgan, Melody Gardot, Christian McBride, Grover Washington, Jr., Sun Ra and many more.

Veasley added:

Jazz Philadelphia is here to provide more opportunities for the next generation of musicians to play here, stay here, and share their talent with the world. I've had a wonderful career as a Philadelphia-based musician, and I want to ensure that others can do the same.

The schedule includes speakers, workshops, and panel discussions that cover a wide range of topics, including applying for grants and residencies, educating artists and audiences, and playing in unconventional spaces. I’m on the panel, “The Philadelphia Story.” I’ll talk about my ongoing project to document Philly’s jazz spots from A to Z, from the Aqua Lounge to Zanzibar Blue.

Nnenna Freelon, a jazz singer, composer, producer, arranger and six-time Grammy® nominee, is the keynote speaker. Freelon was selected in recognition of her cultural activism and commitment to social justice.

The Philadelphia Jazz Summit is free but you must register.

27th Philadelphia Film Festival

The 27th annual Philadelphia Film Festival kicks off this week with the screening of Ben is Back starring Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges as mother and son who are grappling with a history of addiction.

The story is ripped from the headlines as Philadelphia struggles to deal with the opioid drama unfolding on the streets of Kensington.

Executive Director J. Andrew Greenblatt said in a statement:

From our powerful, socially relevant and incredibly timely Opening Night screening of Ben is Back to the definitive look at Philadelphia music legend Teddy Pendergrass for our Closing Night selection, and the incredibly diverse line-up in-between, the films premiering in this year’s Festival will be discussed and remembered for a long time to come.

Artistic Director Michael Lerman added:

Andrew and I have been doing this together for ten years and I love that we continue to find fresh, unique films that delight and challenge audiences. I'm so proud of the program the team has put together and I can't wait to share the adventure we have in store for you.

What’s in store is a lineup of more than 100 films over 11 days. As a curator of art, technology and social change content, my must-see films include:

• Studio 54
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• The Price of Everything
• Bodied
• General Magic
• Empathy, Inc.
• Green Book

The film is based on a true friendship. Art also imitates life. Before passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, African American motorists used the “Green Book” travel guide to vacation without humiliation.

The Closing Night film, Teddy Pendergrass: If You Don’t Know Me, tells the untold story of Philadelphia’s legendary R&B singer whose “For Women Only” concerts were the stuff of, well, legends.

To view the full schedule and purchase tickets, go here.

Up Against a Brick Wall

Last week, Mural Arts Philadelphia unveiled Portraits of Justice, a public art project to engage ordinary citizens in conversations about transforming the criminal justice system.

Jeffrey Krimes and Russell Craig’s powerful murals overlook the statue of Frank Rizzo, a former police commissioner who had close ties with Italian mobsters and hung out at Black Mafia-owned joints on “The Strip” in West Philly. As mayor, Rizzo was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for a pattern of police brutality that “shocks the conscience.”

The murals’ bricks represent barriers to reentry. With their close proximity to Rizzo, the background brings to mind the former police commissioner gloating that his officers ordered Black Panthers up against a brick wall and forced them to strip naked in front of the news cameras. The August 31, 1970 incident is one of the many reasons Rizzo is loathed by African Americans.

The murals are designed to empower the public to reimagine a criminal justice system that is more than “just us.” To my surprise, they helped me reimagine a Thomas Paine Plaza without the Rizzo statue. The sheer size of the murals and the facial expressions are a silent rebuke to the monument to racial injustice. Tellingly, the family-commissioned hunk of junk has to be caged to protect it from the public.

No Goode Way

On May 13, 1985, I was living in San Francisco. On that day, a bomb was dropped on a row home on Osage Avenue occupied by 13 members of MOVE, a black liberation group based in Philadelphia. The bomb incinerated 11 African Americans, including five children.

I watched the horror unfold on TV. I was later horrified to learn a black mayor – Wilson S. Goode Sr. – gave the approval for the police to drop the bomb. He also said nothing as firefighters stood by and let the fire burn. In addition to the 11 lives lost, two city blocks were destroyed.

I now live in Philly. Anyone who has lived here longer than a minute knows African Americans remain traumatized by what Goode now dismisses as “one day.” Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. poured salt into an open wound when he quietly introduced a resolution to rename the 2400 block of North 59th Street after Goode. Jones didn’t bother to tell the residents he was renaming their street.

At the street renaming ceremony, Goode said he “accepts responsibility.” Really!? It happened on his watch. Goode is responsible for the senseless killing of 11 people. The little man then proclaimed:

I’m going to man up for what happened on May 13. …You will not define me by one day of my life. I am more than that.

Indeed, he is. He’s an arrogant “child of God” who thinks he can erase history and define his legacy.

Goode will forever be known as the mayor who bombed his constituents, some of whom are still living with the consequences of that fateful day. Milele Sullivan-Gailliard posted on Facebook:

All kinds of PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] symptoms continue with the neighbors. Until this day, if some of them hear helicopters, it causes rashes and hyperventilation. Many of them suffer from Insomnia and still have nightmares. Ramona Africa the only adult MOVE survivor recently had a stroke and was diagnosed with cancer. A cancer that is believed to be related to inhaling the smoke and fumes from the military grade C4 chemical incendiary bomb!

…

Another neighbor who was not a part of MOVE, who was only 15 at the time, was interviewed on the radio the next day after the street renaming for Mayor Goode, about how his family continues to be impacted by the crimes committed on that day by Governmental officials on hundreds of his neighbors.

Get this: The mayor of the poorest big city in the country said he will replace the sign if it is defaced or taken down. Jim Kenney will continually pour taxpayers’ money down the drain because it’s only a matter of time before the sign is defaced.

With memories of that “one day” still fresh in my mind, I think this is a more accurate representation of Goode’s legacy.

Countdown to 400 Years of African American History

The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition was first observed in 1998 in Haiti. UNESCO designated August 23 because it marks the beginning of the 1791 slave rebellion in Santo Domingo (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) led by Toussaint L’Ouverture. Slavery was abolished in Haiti in 1783.

Enslaved Africans resisted their captors from the moment they were brought over on a ship.

Enslaved African Americans led rebellions, including Denmark Vesey, Charles Deslondes and Gabriel Prosser.

On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner led a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Over a two-day period, Turner and his army freed every enslaved African American they encountered and killed 55 whites.

Attorney and Philadelphia Tribune columnist Michael Coard, founder of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), writes:

Nat and his guerrilla army — a group that had grown to approximately 70, including about 40 enslaved and 30 free (with nearly 300 suspected of providing direct or indirect assistance) — ultimately killed 55 whites but spared many others. Despite Nat’s death, he was ultimately victorious in freeing you and me.

In the spirit of Nat Turner’s resistance, ATAC will hold its annual birth of slavery commiseration event on Monday, August 20, 12:00pm, at 6th and Market streets. Fittingly as we begin the countdown to 400 years of African American history, the event will be held near The President’s House.

Charlottesville: One Year Later

In the year since the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, there has been a growing awareness that public art is about public memory. It matters whose story is told in public spaces. From Maryland to Texas, Confederate monuments have been taken down. It took Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh three days to send the Confederate monuments in “Charm City” packing.

Conversations about public memory and symbols of hate were also held “Up South.” The Pittsburgh Art Commission voted to remove the monument to Stephen Foster, the “Father of American Music,” who is memorialized with a barefoot slave seated at his feet.

A task force appointed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the removal of the statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims, who operated on enslaved African American women to develop advances in gynecological surgery.

In Philadelphia, calls grew louder for Mayor Jim Kenney to remove the monument memorializing Frank Rizzo, a former mayor. As police commissioner, Rizzo presided over a police department whose practice of beatings “shocks the conscience.” That was the finding of the U.S. Justice Department which, in 1979, filed an unprecedented civil lawsuit against the city over its abusive policing tactics.

On the eve of the first anniversary of Charlottesville, Kenney did an about-face and said the Rizzo monument would stay at the gateway to municipal services for at least two to three years. The Mayor claims he is concerned about “incurring additional costs” of $200,000 $100,000. Truth be told, the police department will likely spend at least $100,000 quarterly protecting a monument to police brutality, racial bigotry and misogyny.

But get this: Kenney presides over a city government that spent $5 million on a computer system and has nothing to show for it. Also, City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart recently reported the city cannot account for a whopping $33 million in taxpayers’ money.

The Philadelphia Inquirer called out Kenney on his flip-flop:

Mayor Kenney has taken pains to publicly underscore the value of our city as welcoming and diverse. That’s a message undercut by the delay in moving the controversial statue that for some stands for oppression. That it was confirmed so near the anniversary of Charlottesville is sadly tone-deaf — especially at a time when better listening is critical.

Meanwhile, Frank Rizzo Jr. said that if his father’s statue is removed, “there’s going to be a fight.” Listen up, Junior: It's on.