NCAAA News
Upcoming event
Kwanzaa at the Museum
In cooperation with the Black Community Information Center, the museum is pleased to host the last day of this season’s Kwanzaa on January 1 (New Year’s Day) at 4:00. Celebrants are invited to bring food and beverage to share with others in honoring the principle of Imani or Faith. Participants may also perform or otherwise contribute to the cultural content of the event.
Kwanzaa was established in l966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga as a celebration of family, community and culture. It is broadly inspired by African traditions of harvest festivals, and intends to promote the values of Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-determination), Ujima (Collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith). Together, these tenets are called Ngusa Saba or The Seven Principles. All of the terms are in Swahili, a widely spoken African language.
Current Events
Holiday Concert at the museum
The Boston City-Wide String Orchestra presented its Holiday Concert at the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists on Sunday, December 18th. The Orchestra provides orchestral experience for young string players and assists them in developing performance skills and learning how to work with conductors and coaches.
A year ago, it received a citation from Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston as well as from the Mayor of Worcester.
Ma. Betty Hillmon is Executive Director of the Orchestra and works closely with its conductor/coaches Sharon Hamel, Perry Johnson and Sonya White-Hope.
Ms Hillmon has a long association with the National Center of Afro-American Artists having previously been Director of Music Instruction for the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts as well as Education Director for its continuing production of Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity.
A Long Walk Home
Sayif M. Sanyika arrived at the museum October 22nd as he concluded his walk for Heal Self: Heal America, a project of reconciliation, forgiveness and faith. A native of Roxbury, Sayif walked to Boston from Charlotte, North Carolina. He especially wanted to stop first at the museum because of the critical influence of National Center founder Elma Lewis in his life. While an inmate in Norfolk Correctional Institution at the turn of the 1970s, Sayif was a creative writing student in a program offered by the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts. He was one of the writers from that program featured in Who Took the Weight, a book of poets and essays published by Little Brown Publishers and the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in 1971.
Photo : Sayif with Edmund Barry Gaither, Museum Director.
Still counted in!
Winifred Irish Hall, oldest artist in Children=Hope, standing nearby to two of her sepia prints from bygone days in Roxbury.
I think it is very like an ear.
Pre-school visitors to the museum play a game inspired by John Godfrey Saxe’s (1816-1887) poem The Blind Men and the Elephant, in which they closed their eyes and felt along Eternal Presence naming its parts. Gail Bos—seen to the left—organized and served their visit. Saxe’s poem is based on an East Indian tale. Eternal Presence, 1987, was commissioned by the National Center of Afro-American Artists for its grounds, and sculpted by Roxbury-born John Wilson (l922-present).
Stone on stone. . .
The ancient puddingstone wall surrounding the Abbotsford Mansion that houses the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists suffered two ugly breaches that are now getting repaired. On the Crawford Street side, a car smashed into the wall but still managed to drive away. On the Walnut Avenue side seen above, a hundred year-old Oak tree blew down destroying a major portion of the wall. Through the Partners with Non-Profits Program of the City of Boston, a grant was secured to make the necessary repairs. Work began in May and is expected to be completed my mid-summer