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Waberi BRN-FALL-2014.indb 2 9/24/14 1:31 AM Contents | 4 86 My Take Poems quincy troupe meha semwal 36 128 Miles Davis: A New “Madwoman in the Revolution is Sound Attic: The Femail kofi natambu Gothic in 19th Century 6 92 Literature” “Be My Brother Symposium on the lezley saar Forever”: Maya Angelou Recent “Mammy” & the Invention of a Sculpture of 134 Friendship, 1970’s-Style Kara Walker Poem eugene b. redmond 40 paul carter harrison cynthia dewi oka carol diehl The Musical Legacy brenda marie osbey clyde taylor 8 of Amiri Baraka: dennis kardon The Eruption: The Modern Jazz Critic barbara lewis Excerpt from Tahrir as Cultural Historian, Suite, Section 1 Creative Artist, 104 matthew shenoda Social Theorist, and Poems 136 Philosophical Visionary tyehimba jess The “Electronic Stimulus 14 kofi natambu for a Black Revolution”: Fon. A short story, Black Journal and the from Echo Tree: 1960s Public Television The Collected Short jane rhodes, phd Fiction of Henry Dumas henry dumas 106 46 Sterling Brown and the 20 A-Legba Poetics: Reading Browning of My Life Poem Komunyakaa e. ethelbert miller derek walcott aracelis girmay 152 110 Gypsy & the Bully Door 58 Poems nina angela mercer Poems aracelis girmay yusef komunyakaa 112 22 62 Poems St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 Why The Thirty Two- ekere tallie john pinderhughes Year Assault On Some 166 Black Male Writers? Jules Allen’s 30 ishmael reed Photographic Series on Poems Black Marching Bands allison hedge coke gail reid 116 “Be Vewy Vewy Quiet” 174 hermine pinson Caliphate Colonialism 74 — The Taproot of the The Temptation of Space 126 Trouble with Nigeria 32 richard vine Poem part 1 & 2 Thelonious Monk: sterling plumpp chinweizu BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE The Jazz Composer as 80 Visionary Poems 198 3 kofi natambu colleen mcelroy Contributors BRN-FALL-2014.indb 3 9/24/14 1:31 AM Jules Allen’s Photographic Series on By Black Marching GAIL REID Bands Black marching bands are a marching history book of culture, keeping alive our connections to the past, ennobling the struggles and triumphs of everyday life, inspiring us to adapt, succeed and celebrate cultural potency. Every re ned gesture and high step is spiritual magic in a black marching band. e bands are grounded in American military and African tradition. ey are cultural path nders, which seize the public space, dramatically etching the inherited terrain with a transformational force, using archetypal metaphors of home. As an exemplary national institution of mythical dimension, founded and fueled by creative interchange, they link artists with a community vibrantly sensitive to the music and the ceremony. e rhythm and resistance of the bands is an essential American story. Black marching bands provoke us to demand everything they have to give: to mourn the dead, console the distressed, pay respects to our heroes and above all to celebrate victories! 166 BRN-FALL-2014.indb 166 9/24/14 1:33 AM BRN-FALL-2014.indb 167 9/24/14 1:33 AM 167 BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE 168 BRN-FALL-2014.indb 168 9/24/14 1:33 AM eir rhythmic repetitions of form and Today’s soaring travel costs now tone are nely structured articulations severely curtail long-established bands’ of the black tradition, which transform abilities to reach distant community the bands’ creative re and ignite a perfect parades. Diminishing public funding response. e crowd triumphantly has disrupted and even eliminated demands the whole story, the ancient respected school music programs, story as a path to the future. It’s fanfare, which have historically furnished a not a oor show. It’s an elegant, fertile ground for America’s new ritualized, witty village pageant, a musicians. Marching band numbers reminder that culture’s song is something have plummeted from thousands to a we carry with us all the time. e black few hundred in a decade. Continuity of marching band series’ timing is crucial. this indispensable centuries-old musical heritage is gravely threatened. BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE 169 BRN-FALL-2014.indb 169 9/24/14 1:33 AM Across the country, Professor Jules Allen’s images connect with the bands’ ourish and precision as explicit forms which embrace his signature style of photographing on the backbeat. In post-Katrina Second Lines, funeral parades, and regional festivals, Allen documents community and personal reconstruction as a process with a resonant visual aspect. Penetrating old boundaries, black marching bands oer geographic and culturally specic opportunities to erase barriers and celebrate heroism. e bands mark change. ey also drive and clarify it. e music is important, expressing the inexpressible. It surrounds, perturbs, knows no borders. It crosses the tracks, disturbing the old social order. Within whirlwinds of incomprehensible assault and changes in besieged communities, the way to go on living is to recognize the familiar architecture carried within us: the warmth, the cultural anchors, liberating ideals, and the resilience to release old ways. Contemporary parades have a new urgency, openly political themes, direct and powerful messages. ey help us build coherence within the disrupted world. Out of the 170 rupture marches renewal. BRN-FALL-2014.indb 170 9/24/14 1:33 AM BRN-FALL-2014.indb 171 9/24/14 1:33 AM 171 BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE 172 BRN-FALL-2014.indb 172 9/24/14 1:33 AM Jules Allen’s black marching band series pays tribute to the dignity and lasting legacy of black culture. It is a lens focused on the role that artists play in inspiring social change, in remembering and reecting on human struggle and achievement. e photographs challenge our assumptions about what we see in a mutating landscape. is series reveals to us the powerful ways in which black marching bands oer us all a critical opportunity to invest new information and imagine new potential. e bands build community solidarity, identity and yearning as revelation, as investment, and as construction. n BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE 173 BRN-FALL-2014.indb 173 9/24/14 1:33 AM.