by Cieslafdn | Dec 4, 2014 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
The New York Times, and their writer Brent Staples are to be commended for shedding light on racism in health care. Discrimination in health care practice, against both practitioners and recipients, has been an undercurrent of overall racism in U.S. history. The new “Showtime” tv series “The Knick” features a controversially innovative New York City hospital at the turn of the 20th century, where an accomplished African American physician encounters prejudice and the hospital’s acerbic chief of surgery Dr. Thackery, portrayed by Clive Owen. Andre Holland plays the gifted Black surgeon, Dr. Algernon Edwards, who is assigned menial tasks, discreetly treats Black patients in the hospital’s basement, and lives in a flophouse in a rundown section of the city. Edwards’ fictional plight recalls the real life challenges faced by medical pioneer Dr. Charles Drew (1904-1950), whose development of blood plasma banks saved the lives of thousands, including Allied soldiers during World War Two. Drew’s daughter, former D.C. City Councilwoman Charlene Drew Jarvis, is interviewed in the film “The Rosenwald Schools”. Dr. Drew finished Howard University because of a Rosenwald Fellowship that allowed him to complete his studies. In the 1930’s Drew assumed a clandestine residency at Harlem’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, under the tutelage of a doctor far more supportive than “The Knick”‘s Thackery.
New York Times writer Brent Staples’ October 13 column addresses medical racism vis-a-vis “The Knick”, and Dr. Drew:
by Cieslafdn | Nov 26, 2014 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
On Wednesday, November 5, 2014, at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s Behring Center, Aviva Kempner, filmmaker of “The Rosenwald Schools”, attended a Director’s Preview and Reception commemorated the opening of “Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College”. We reported here in August that it was likely that Woodruff was awarded his Rosenwald Fellowships in 1943 and 1944 on the strength of this work. Two of the Woodfruff works in this exhibit were painted under Rosenwald Fellowships, including the painting “Poor Man’s Cotton”. This support allowed Woodruff to move away from the segregated South, to New York City, where he worked and taught the rest of his life.
The murals depict chapters from African American history such as The Amistad Trial, and The Underground Railroad. Woodruff, like Julius Rosenwald, was a native of Illinois, born in Cairo.
The exhibit runs at the Museum of American History through March 1, 2015.
Woodruff working on the Talladega murals:
Photo credit: Library of Congress via FSA/OWI
by Cieslafdn | Oct 3, 2014 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
The Christian Science Monitor reports that a large multimedia exhibit at the new National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta were designed by the talented director and playwright George C. Wolfe. The article talks about Wolfe’s childhood, growing up in segregated Frankfort, Kentucky. Attending the Rosenwald School in Frankfort was a highlight of Wolfe’s childhood. He will speak about the school and his mother, a teacher at “Rosenwald,” in our upcoming documentary about the Rosenwald Schools.
You can read more about the museum and Wolfe at the Christian Science Monitor.
by Cieslafdn | Oct 1, 2014 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
Hank Stuever, writing for The Washington Post, gave a positive review to Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s new documentary about the New York Review of Books. Stuever writes that the film, called The 50 Year Argument, “does a thoughtful and appealing job of opening up the rarefied literary realm of the NYRB to a viewer who may have never heard of it.” Stuever mentions Rosenwald Fund fellow James Baldwin as one of the authors frequently found in the pages of the NYRB.
You can read more about the new documentary at The Washington Post.
by Cieslafdn | Sep 28, 2014 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
The Washington Post reports that the William H. and Camille O. Cosby collection, which contains masterpieces by many great African and African American artists, will have a rare exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art starting in November of this year. In keeping with Camille Cosby’s statement on the importance of “[showing] people that African American artists have been working for a long time,” the collection has many works from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries by artists of color. 20th century pieces in the collection include works by Rosenwald Fund-supported artists like Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Eldzier Cortor and Augusta Savage.
Don’t miss this chance to see the Cosby collection in person. Read more about the show at The Washington Post.
by Cieslafdn | Sep 24, 2014 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series, a monumental work of 60 paintings that depicts scenes from the early 20th century migration of African Americans away from the Jim Crow South, was made possible through support from the Rosenwald Fund in the early 1940s. The stoic figures and powerful compositions in Jacob Lawrence’s panels have inspired a New York-born artist to capture what she terms “The New Migration” of African Americans, who are compelled by gentrification and urban renewal to return to their roots in the South. The installation is part of 5×5, an annual project supported by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
During a 10-day trip from Washington D.C. to Florida, Abigail Deville collected ephemera, debris, stories and photographs, which are now on display in a storefront gallery in Southeast Washington D.C. Deville followed historical rail routes used by the migrants depicted in Lawrence’s work to collect the materials, which she has transformed into a collage installed at a gallery in a gentrifying area of the nation’s capital.
Click here to read more about the artwork in Deville’s artistic statement. You can view Deville’s Instagram account, which contains photos documenting her trip, here.
Recent Comments