The Rosenwald Schools work in progress to screen at upcoming D.C. event

by Cieslafdn | Feb 11, 2014 | Film Production, Rosenwald Screenings

The Historical Society of Washington D.C. presents “Visionaries of Early Black Education and Basketball: Julius Rosenwald and Dr. Edwin B. Henderson,” a special Black History Month event that will take place at the historic Carnegie Library (801 K Street NW) on Thursday, February 20th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. A full flier (PDF format) is available here.

The evening promises a fascinating glimpse of the origins of basketball in the District. After Julius Rosenwald collaborated with Washington’s African American community to build a YMCA, Dr. Edwin B. Henderson (an influential physical educator) organized the new Y’s first basketball team. Henderson, who earned the moniker “the grandfather of black basketball,” is just one of the basketball greats connected with the YMCA: as we learned in an interview with Norris Dodson a year ago, John Thompson, Elgin Baylor and Dave Bing also graced its walls.

The 12th Street YMCA, Washington, D.C.
Photo credit: Michael Rose, March, 2012

We wrote about how Rosenwald came to support D.C.’s storied 12th Street YMCA in a previous blog post, and we have since shot interviews in the historic structure with local preservationists Lori Dodson and Norris Dodson. The modern building, built for the black residents of Washington, was the first of 24 YMCAs that Rosenwald supported with challenge grants between 1911 and 1933.

The program is co-sponsored by The Ciesla Foundation, the D.C. Basketball Institute, and the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Get your tickets today ($10/HSW member; $15 non-member)!

Featured films clips include:

• The Rosenwald Schools, a work in progress produced by Aviva Kempner
• Basketball, More than a Game: the Story of Dr. Edwin B. Henderson, a short film produced by Beverly Lindsey-Johnson
• Supreme Courts: How Washington DC Basketball Changed The World, trailer produced by Pennington Greene, John Ershek and Bijan C. Bayne

Panelists will include:

• Bob Kuska, author, Hot Potato: How Washington and New York Gave Birth to Basketball and Changed America’s Game Forever
• Aviva Kempner, filmmaker, The Rosenwald Schools
• Stephanie Deutsch, author, You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South
• Edwin B. Henderson II, grandson of Dr. E.B. Henderson, Tinner Hill Heritage Association

Moderated by: Bijan Bayne, author, Elgin Baylor: The First Superstar

WJFF closes with ‘The Rosenwald Schools’

by Cieslafdn | Dec 12, 2011 | Film Production, Rosenwald Screenings

JT Johnson, DC Film Festivals Examiner

Aviva Kempner has no need to impress.

Everyone else will do that for her.

As the founding director of the 22-year-old Washington Jewish Film Festival, she’s done enough to enable and catalyze random and decisive acts of filmmaking in the D.C. area at every turn.

As if further evidence of due adulation were necessary, Kempner was awarded the WJFF Visionary Award for her demonstrable “courage, creativity and insight” in representing the “diversity of the Jewish experience” in film. Then, she was made to exhaust her arsenal of work in retrospective form during this past Saturday’s festivities–a night with her name written all over it.

Read the full article.