The voice of the intelligence…is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all, it is silenced by ignorance.
–Dr. Karl Menninger
The Brothers’ Network Newsletter
December 2011
Here are some of the things we are doing and following this month, organized along the lines of the groups on our social networking website. If you have not joined our groups already, we encourage you to become a member and join the conversation.
Art and Artists

“30 Americans” Exhibit Their Works at the Corcoran
The Corcoran Gallery in Washington is currently displaying an exhibition that serves as a fitting companion to Touré’s new book on “post-blackness” (see “Politics and Society” below). “30 Americans” features works by 31 established and emerging African-American artists, each of whom offer their own unique take on racial, sexual and historical identity in American culture. From openly gay artist Kehinde Wiley’s reinterpretations of the Old Masters (shown here: his “Napoleon Crossing the Alps”) to openly gay artist Glenn Ligon’s intertextual works to Leonardo Drew’s large-scale sculptures, the works on display in “30 Americans” reflect the complex dynamics of black and American identity today.
The exhibit runs through Feb. 12 at the Corcoran Gallery, 500 17th Street NW, Washington, D.C. Visit the exhibit website for more information. The Brothers’ Network will sponsor a docent-guided tour of this exhibit in January. For information and to participate, email comments@thebrothersnetwork.org.
The Stage
“The Scottsboro Boys” Comes to Philadelphia Theatre Company
The Brothers’ Network continues its community partnership with the Philadelphia Theatre Company, now in its fourth year, and welcomes ”The Scottsboro Boys” to Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Theatre Company will present the controversial Tony Award-nominated musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb based on the wrongful convictions of nine young African-American boys in 1930s Alabama from Jan. 20 to Feb. 19, 2012. For information about TBN’s annual PTC Theater Night featuring “The Scottsboro Boys,” send email to comments@thebrothersnetwork.org.
Dance, Choreography and Movement
Philadanco Founder Joan Myers Brown to Lead Discussion of Her Life and Legacy
Join us on January 14 for a conversation on African-Americans in dance led by Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO!) founder Joan Myers Brown, part of the release party for the new book “Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance” by Brenda Dixon Gottschild. In this book, Gottschild uses Brown’s life and career as a fulcrum to leverage an investigation of the interface between performance, cultural formation, and race politics as evidenced by the development of a dance community in Black Philadelphia and the rise and spread of its influence beyond community and regional borders to national and international distinction.
Joining Brown in the conversation will be Philadanco dancer Justin S.M. Bryant, who will discuss the growth and development of a community of black male dancers in Philadelphia.
Our January book discussion will take place on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012, at 2 p.m. at the Moonstone Arts Center, 110A South 13th Street, Philadelphia. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and autographing at Moonstone.
Politics and Society
Black Beyond Boundaries
Author and cultural commentator Touré argues in his new book “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness: What It Means to Be Black Now” that the monolithic notions of black identity promoted in the wake of the Black Power Movement have outlived their usefulness and that there are as many ways of being black as there are blacks in America.
Join us for our Black History Month discussion of this book on the third Saturday in February. In the meantime, check out Touré’s interview with Michelle Norris of NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
Special Program at Blockson Collection Celebrates Marcus Garvey
The Marcus Garvey Foundation, a non-profit educational foundation, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a public event at the Charles L. Blockson Collection, Temple University Libraries, Saturday, December 10, 2011, at 12:30 pm. Alongside a special viewing of the historical exhibition, “Marcus Garvey and Global Black History,” the event will feature a number of honorees and guest speakers, including:
- Sonia Sanchez (Poet & Professor Emerita, Temple University)
- Rev. Dr. William Shaw (Pastor, White Rock Baptist Church)
- Barbara Mason (Recording Artist)
- Dr. Tommy Bogger (Historian, Norfolk State University)
- Jamaladeen Tacuma (Musician)
- Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad (Director, Schomburg Center)
- Grachan Moncur (Musician)
The event will also feature Sonia Sanchez presenting an original poem written for the occasion in honor of Amy Jacques Garvey and a special composition honoring Max Roach written and performed by Christopher Acree.
The event will take place on the first floor of Sullivan Hall at 1330 Pollet Walk on the Temple University campus.
Cinema Noir
“Kinyarwanda” Opens This Month
The first film by a black filmmaker about the tragedy in Rwanda, Alrick Brown’s Sundance Award-winning “Kinyarwanda,” opens Dec. 2 in eight cities nationwide: Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.
In “Kinyarwanda,” a young Tutsi woman and a young Hutu man fall in love amidst chaos, a soldier struggles with being absent from her family to foster a greater good, and a priest grapples with his faith in the face of unspeakable horror.
Readers and Writers
New Lorene Cary Novel Looks at The Ties that Bind
Lorene Cary’s new novel “If Sons, then Heirs” examines the complexity and tragedy of the historic ties between African-Americans and ancestral lands in the South. Its protagonist, a young African-American businessman on the rise in Philadelphia, is called to put his rapidly evolving life on hold in order to head to South Carolina to attempt to save his family’s farm. His trip plunges him into a complicated and troubling past that he must uncover and heal. Cary, author of “Black Ice” and “The Price of a Child,” writes with intimacy and compassion about the power of family secrets, the hard legacy of lynching and segregation, and the resilience of the human spirit.
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