Art

Black History MonthArt exhibitions at TSU Libraries

NASHVILLE PRIDE — This month, the libraries on both campuses of Tennessee State University will continue separate exhibitions with Black History Month themes.

Published

6 years ago

February 5, 2019

Oakland Post

By Cass Teague

This month, the libraries on both campuses of Tennessee State University will continue separate exhibitions with Black History Month themes. The art is available for view at no cost during regular library hours.

A LEGACY REMEMBERED – The Thompson-Wilson Collection at TSU Main Campus Library

Back in 1978 Dorothy T. Wilson, a 1942 Tennessee State University graduate, was retiring from teaching as a Health and Physical Education Teacher Specialist. She had worked for more than 30 years teaching Junior High and Senior High, and needed a hobby She found that collecting art became her passion. Her son Lamar was curating art shows in the Washington, D.C. area, and she decided to get in on the action.

“Lamar when you buy one, get two,” she would say, and she would buy the second one. That’s how she developed her Romare Bearden Collection. Dorothy also supported local artists Joe Holston and John Nelson in Washington, D.C.

Over the last forty years the Wilsons have shared these collections in more than a dozen major public and university collections and museums, including the Parthenon Galleries in Nashville, the Spellman College Museum, Fisk University, and Long Island University.

More than collecting, Dorothy has always enjoyed talking to new collectors and artists about her adventures and art with her son Lamar, her co-curator. In her home, she has some 400 holdings of fine art posters, prints and memorabilia. Now in her late nineties, Dorothy doesn’t collect much anymore. Mrs. Wilson now primarily enjoys admiring her treasures and reliving her experiences with family and friends. An opening reception and gallery talk is scheduled for February 15, from 12 Noon until 2 pm.

In His Presence… (What Would Bring A King to Town?) by Thaxton Waters at TSU Downtown Library

The title of this body of work stems from the many visits Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spent in Nashville, TN (1960, ’62, ’64, and ‘67), ranging from speaking against the Kennedy Administration and bettering city race relations at Vanderbilt Symposiums, to gaining inspiration for his next strategic steps from local demonstrators. King, upon hearing and reading national news about the terrorism happening to Nashville’s Black residents, made multiple appearances here, while establishing strong local connections.

[/media-credit] Thaxton Waters

After touring, teaching, and talking, he witnessed that our city was ‘ground-zero’ for silent organized marches, skilled non-violent training of the students, and a plethora of intellectual activism. Famously, while giving a speech at Fisk University, he said “I came to Nashville not to bring inspiration, but to gain inspiration from the great movement that has taken place in this community.”

About the pieces in his exhibition, Waters says, “The color palette chosen and prices set are prophetic in nature revolving around Biblical themes of sacrifice, purification, and redemption. I was once told ‘It is no shame in being the slave, the shame is in the slave master.’ With that quote in mind the gold paint highlights yet masks the heroic figures as they were being tried in the fire, while leaving the perpetrators of the injustices in full view.”

This article originally appeared in the Nashville Pride.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

MN Black History Salute: The Legacy Of Blacks In Baseball

Don't Miss

Colin Kaepernick mural destroyed in Atlanta days before Super Bowl

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Activism

Griot Theater Company Presents August Wilson’s Work at Annual Oratorical Featuring Black Authors

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Published

2 months ago

February 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Late playwright August Wilson. Wikipedia photo.

By Godfrey Lee

Griot Theater Company will present their Fifth Annual Oratorical with August Wilson’s “Half a Century,” at the Belrose on 1415 Fifth Ave., in San Rafael near the San Rafael Public Library.

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20^th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Previous performance highlighting essential Black American authors included Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry with Langston Hughes.

The play will be performed at 3:00. p.m. on Feb. 20, 21, 22, 27, and 28 at 7:00 p.m., and on Feb. 23 at 3:00 p.m.

For more information, go to griottheatercompany.squarespace.com/productions-v2

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

MLK Day of Service Volunteers Make Blankets and Art for Locals in Need

“Everyone has an opportunity to participate,” said Glenda Roberts, kinship support care program manager at CCYSB. “Our nonprofit organization and participants recognize how important it is to give back to the community and this is serving. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, ‘Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.’”

Published

3 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of the nonprofit.

By Kathy Chouteau
The Richmond Standard

The Contra Costa Youth Service Bureau (CCYSB) and Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church (BMBC) are collaborating with a team of volunteers for a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 20 that will wrap the community’s most vulnerable people in warm blankets and provide them with an uplifting gift of art.

Volunteers will kick off their activities at BMBC at 11 a.m., making blankets for the unhoused people served by the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP) and art for those in convalescence in Richmond.

Others will get to work preparing a lunch of chili, salad, a veggie tray, and water for participants, offered courtesy of CCYSB, while supplies last.

“People of all ages are welcome to participate in the MLK Day of Service,” said Roberts. Volunteers can RSVP via phone to Glenda Roberts at 510-215-4670, ext. 125.

CCYSB Boardmember Jackie Marston and her friends donated the materials and supplies to make the blankets and art projects. The nonprofit is also providing the day’s complimentary lunch, as well as employees to volunteer, under the direction of CCYSB Executive Director Marena Brown.

BMBC, led by Rev. Dr. Carole McKindley-Alvarez, is providing the facility for the event and volunteers from the church, which is located at 684 Juliga Woods St. in Richmond.

Located in Richmond, CCYSB is a nonprofit youth advocacy organization that serves eligible children, youth, and low-income families with a variety of wraparound services so they can thrive. Programs include academic achievement, youth mentorship, truancy prevention and direct response.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Art

Vandalism at Richmond Ferry Terminal Saddens Residents

Residents have been lamenting the destruction online. Ellen Seskin posted photos of the vandalism to the Facebook group, Everybody’s Richmond, on Jan. 12, saying she encountered it while out on a walk. “It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

Published

3 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Graffiti mars the walkway at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Photo by Kathy Chouteau, The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” stated the post on NextDoor.

The post referenced images of graffiti at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Not just on the terminal, but also on public artwork, on trail signs, on public benches and the boardwalk.

On Wednesday, the Standard stopped by to see it for ourselves. The good news was that it appears the graffiti on the terminal and on the artwork, called Changing Tide, have been cleaned for the most part. But graffiti remained abundant in the area around the relatively new ferry terminal, which opened to the public just six years ago.

Graffiti artists tagged benches and the boardwalk. Cars that had done doughnuts in the street marked the cul-de-sac just outside the historic Craneway Pavilion.

A ferry worker told us the graffiti had been there since before he started working for the ferry service about a week ago.

A member of the Army Corps of Engineers who did not want to be named in this report called the scene “sad,” as “they’d done such a nice job fixing it up.”

“It’s sad that all this money has been spent and hoodlums just don’t care and are destroying stuff,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how soon the graffiti would be removed. The Standard reported the graffiti to the city’s graffiti abatement hotline. We were prompted to leave a message reporting the address and location of the graffiti.

“It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

In the comment section responding to Seskin’s post, local attorney Daniel Butt questioned why there aren’t cameras in the area.

On Nextdoor, one resident suggested searching to see if the tags match any accounts on Instagram, hoping to identify the perpetrator.

On its website, the City of Richmond says residents should graffiti immediately call Public Works graffiti removal and/or Code Enforcement at 510-965-4905.

Kathy Chouteau contributed to this report.