This event is the second in a series of three events curated by Cortney Lamar Charleston in collaboration with The BreakBeat Poets and Haymarket Books, to celebrate the release of his new collection, Doppelgangbanger.
Cortney Lamar Charleston is joined by Patricia Smith for this event. NB: Nate Marshall was unable to join the event, but his work is read by Cortney.
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Speakers:
Nate Marshall is an award-winning author, editor, poet, playwright, performer, educator, speaker, and rapper. His book, Wild Hundreds, was honored with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s award for Poetry Book of the Year and The Great Lakes College Association’s New Writer Award. He is also an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and he also co-curates The BreakBeat Poets series for Haymarket Books. Marshall co-wrote the play "No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks with Eve Ewing", produced by Manual Cinema and commissioned by the Poetry Foundation. He also wrote the audio drama "Bruh Rabbit & The Fantastic Telling of Remington Ellis, Esq.", which was produced by Make-Believe Association. His last rap album, Grown, came out in 2015 with his group Daily Lyrical Product. His second book, FINNA, was released in 2020 from One World/Random House.
Nate was born at Roseland Community Hospital and raised in the West Pullman neighborhood of Chicago. He is a proud Chicago Public Schools alumnus. Nate completed his MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers' Program. He holds a B.A. in English and African American Diaspora Studies from Vanderbilt University. Marshall has received fellowships from Cave Canem, The Poetry Foundation, and The University of Michigan. Nate loves his family and friends, Black people, dope art, literature, history, arguing about top 5 lists, and beating you in spades.
Patricia Smith is the author of eight books of poetry, including Incendiary Art, winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the 2018 NAACP Image Award, and finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Blood Dazzler, a National Book Award finalist; and Gotta Go, Gotta Flow, a collaboration with award-winning Chicago photographer Michael Abramson. Her other books include the poetry volumes Teahouse of the Almighty, Close to Death, Big Towns Big Talk, Life According to Motown; the children's book Janna and the Kings and the history Africans in America, a companion book to the award-winning PBS series. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, The Baffler, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Tin House and in Best American Poetry, Best American Essays and Best American Mystery Stories. She co-edited The Golden Shovel Anthology—New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks and edited the crime fiction anthology Staten Island Noir.
She is a Guggenheim fellow, a Civitellian, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, a finalist for the Neustadt Prize, a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, a former fellow at both Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history. Patricia is a Distinguished Professor for the City University of New York and an instructor in the MFA program at Sierra Nevada University and in the Vermont College of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Residency Program.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/OlnZUi3W1As
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
More Episodes
Mar 1, 2021
On the Road With Abolition with Mariame Kaba, Dean Spade, and more (6-12-20)
We are in a historic moment brought on by the consistent exertion of people power across the country and around the world. This has brought us to a place where our communities are poised to win significant victories against the violence of policing on a large scale. To guide us in this moment, we need to hold central that Abolition is both a vision and a political strategy. Part of this strategy is recognizing and actualizing that we cannot call for reforms that further entrench and legitimize policing in any form as a solution to social, economic or political problems. As prison industrial complex abolitionists, the reforms we call for in our demands must be aimed at diminishing the political power of policing.
How can we assess which proposals to support or to oppose in our organizing? What are some abolitionist proposals? Join Dean Spade, Woods Ervin & Kamau Walton from Critical Resistance, K Agbebiyi from Survived and Punished NY and Mariame Kaba from Project NIA and Survived & Punished to discuss these questions and more. Join us for this conversation to deepen our shared analysis and to discuss how we use abolition as a politic, practice and framework to move us toward liberation and self-determination.
Co-sponsored by Critical Resistance, Project NIA, Survived and Punished, Reclaim the Block, and Black Visions Collective.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/GHdg4dqBMyk
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 1, 2021
Celebrating Juneteenth with Charlene Carruthers, Marc Lamont Hill, & Critical Resistance(6-13-20)
Join Critical Resistance for their annual fundraiser: this year a conversation with Charlene Carruthers & Marc Lamont Hill in honor of Juneteenth!
Two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued ordering states in the confederacy to release their slaves, Black people in Texas achieved their liberation from chattel bondage. On June 19,1865, General Order Number 3 was read from the Ashton Villa balcony in Galveston, Texas, that demanded that slaveholders free their slaves. That day, Juneteenth, has become an annual occasion for celebration, reflection, and education about the meaning of freedom and the on-going, universal struggle for liberation from domination.
These questions about the true meaning of freedom are more relevant than ever to the work of abolitionists and those working to eliminate the prison industrial complex (PIC) and its attendant harms.
To explore the legacy of Juneteenth and ongoing struggles for Black (and international) liberation, CR is happy to host a conversation between two prominent Black thought leaders and firebrands, Charlene Carruthers (BYP100 cofounder) and Marc Lamont Hill (BET news host).
For more information on Critical Resistance: https://criticalresistance.org
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/UazJ0_7o1vA
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 1, 2021
This is an Uprising! with Boots Riley and Noname (6-15-20)
Join us for a conversation on art, politics and revolution with Boots Riley and Noname.
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The global uprising against racism and police violence has brought millions of people around the world into the streets to make Black Lives Matter, and has catapulted radical demands for police and prison abolition into the center of public consciousness.
It’s also brought new urgency to discussions of reform and revolution, challenging the power of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism in the 21st century, and the role of artists can as participants in political struggles.
Join us for a wide-ranging conversation on art, politics, and revolution with Noname and Boots Riley, hosted by Khury Petersen-Smith.
Noname is a rapper from Chicago. She’s the founder of Noname’s Book Club.
Boots Riley is a rapper and filmmaker from Oakland.
Join Noname's Book Club here: https://www.nonamebooks.com/
Get a copy of Boots Riley's Book here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/489-boots-riley
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/_i12zRBXObI
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 1, 2021
Covid 19, Bolsonaro, and Resistance in Brazil (6-16-20)
Join us for a special video conference with front line leaders in the fight for social justice in Brazil.
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30,000 Brazilians have died from Covid-19 according to official figures, soon to be second highest number in the world behind the United States. The real number is twice that and more than 1,000 are dying each day. Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro flouts social distancing, has fired two health ministers, and is toying with a coup all as unemployment skyrockets.
Meanwhile, a coalition of more than 500 left-wing political parties, unions, and social movements are pushing for impeachment and, after two months of lockdown, street protests against Bolsonaro’s neo-fascist movement are on the rise at least partially inspired by the uprising in Minneapolis and in towns and cities across the United States.
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Presenters:
Preta Ferreira is a coordinator of the Homeless Movement of Downtown São Paulo (MSTC) and was one of the main organizers of the campaign to free Workers Party leader Lula from prison.
Sonia Guajajara is the executive coordinator of the Association of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil and was the Party for Socialism and Freedom’s vice-presidential candidate in 2018.
Moderated by Sabrina Fernandes from the editorial board of Jacobin Brasil.
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Sponsored by Haymarket Books, Jacobin Brasil, Left Movement for Socialism, Insurgência, Resistência, Ruptura, Punto Rojo, Spectre, New Politics, No Borders News, and Rampant.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/YhaAYAQ0KU4
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 1, 2021
#SayHerName Charleena Lyles: Police Murder and the Uprising for Black Lives (6-16-20)
Join Katrina Johnson, Michael Bennett, Nikkita Oliver and Jesse Hagopian to talk about justice for Charleena Lyles and Black Lives Matter.
Katrina Johnson, Charleena Lyles' cousin, will join Michael Bennett, Nikkita Oliver and Jesse Hagopian to talk about the struggle for justice for Charleena and the new uprising for Black Lives.
The mass uprising in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd around the world has created bold new possibilities for the Black Lives Matter Movement. Bold incentives are being taken around the country to defund, disarm, and dismantle policing.
As the African American Policy institute raised by launching #SayHerName, much of the focus of police violence has been given to the killing of Black men, and Black women and transgendered people have not received the same attention. The recent murder of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American emergency medical technician, who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department by police is one case that deserves more attention. Another is Charleena Lyles.
On June 18, 2017, two Seattle police officers entered the apartment of Charleena Lyles. The police had been called by Charleena because she feared someone was breaking into her home. Within minuets of entering the apartment, the officers shot her down in a hail of seven bullets, with at least three of them in the back. The officers alleged they had to use lethal force because Charleena had a paring knife. One of the officers was supposed to have a taser, but had not properly charged it, so he did not bring it with him–a violation of department policy. Charleena was pregnant and was killed in front of three of her four kids, who had to be carried over her body to leave the apartment.
Join a conversation about next steps in winning justice for Charleena and her family and how her story connects to the new movement for Black Lives in the streets today.
Katrina Johnson works for the Public Defenders Association as a Project Manager diverting people out of the criminal legal system into community based resources—instead of jail and prosecution. Katrina became a social justice activist/advocate and spokesperson for her family in June of 2017, after her first cousin Charleena Lyles was killed in her home in North Seattle after police officers responded to the location to investigate a theft Charleena had reported. Katrina works with other families who have lost loved ones to the use of lethal force in Washington State and around the county.
Michael Bennett is a three-time Pro Bowler, Pro Bowl MVP, Super Bowl Champion, and two-time NFC Champion. He has gained international recognition for his public support for the Black Lives Matter Movement, women’s rights, and other social justice causes. In 2017, he was named one of the 100 Most Influential African Americans by The Root, was the Seattle Seahawks nominee for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year award, and was honored along with his brother Martellus with a BET Shine a Light award for exceptional service. He is the author of Things That Make White People Uncomfortable.
Nikkita Oliver is a Seattle-based creative, community organizer, abolitionist, educator, and attorney. Nikkita is the co-executive director of Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration and a healing engaged youth-led community-based program.
Jesse Hagopian is an award-winning educator and a leading voice on issues of educational equity and social justice unionism. He is an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine and is the co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives, and editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/vAM_XkdCXJY
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 1, 2021
Appalachia and the Health of the Nation with Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson and more(6-17-20)
Join Barbara Ellen Smith, Lesley-Marie Buer, and Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson as they discus single health issues such as black lung, overdose deaths, HIV and hepatitis C, COVID-19, in Appalachia and what they reveal about the cracks in America's health and health care systems in general.
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Most responses to these single issues have done little to change the overall systems, but there are initiatives and groups that offer glimpses of what change could look like. They will explore topics such as mutual aid, researcher/clinician/community member coalitions, harm reduction, street medics and how they can be applied in Appalachia and beyond.
Lesly-Marie Buer is an activist and public health practitioner at Positively Living/Choice Health Network in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her work on substance use and harm reduction has appeared insuch publications as Boston Review, the Journal of Appalachian Studies, and North American Dialogue.
Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson is a 33 year old, Affrilachian (Black Appalachian), working class woman, born and raised in Southeast Tennessee. She is the Co-Executive Director of the Highlander Research & Education Center in New Market, TN. She has served as president of the Black Affairs Association at East Tennessee State University and the Rho Upsilon Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She is a long-time activist working around issues of mountaintop removal mining, and environmental racism in central and southern Appalachia, and has served on the National Council of the Student Environmental Action Coalition. She is an active participant in the Movement for Black Lives and is on the governance council of the Southern Movement Assembly.
Barbara Ellen Smith has participated in and written about movements for social justice in Appalachia and the U.S. South for more than forty years. She is professor emerita at Virginia Tech
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To order a copy of Rx Appalachia: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1496-rx-appalachia
To pre-order a copy of Digging Our Own Graves: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9781642592757
For more info on the Highlander Research & Education Center: https://www.highlandercenter.org/
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/Gi2rOa2Wvo0
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks