FILM SCREENING: I Remember Harlem: Parts I and II

As the opening event to its Harlem Semester Initiative, Barnard’s Africana Studies department will screen filmmaker and Harlem legend Bill Miles’ celebrated film “I Remember Harlem, Parts I and II” with producer Junaita Howard on Friday, January 29th at 6pm. A Harlem resident his entire life, Miles grew up on 126th Street, behind the Apollo Theater and spent a lifetime documenting African-American history and culture; “I Remember Harlem” was a singular achievement, documenting Harlem history from its beginnings as a Dutch settlement, to its status as “the Negro Mecca” in the 1920s to its later status an an icon of “urban renewal” efforts in the 1980s. The film screened in its entirety, over four nights, on PBS in 1981.

The screening will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with the film’s producer, Juanita Howard.

The Harlem Semester, a public humanities initiative, immerses students in the neighborhood’s deep cultural, social, and political history, through partnerships with the Apollo Theater, the Harlem Stage, the National Black Theatre, the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture. Using Barnard as a home base for six classes in the spring semester of 2016, the Harlem Semester integrates classroom learning with hands-on experiences like master classes and archival research, and allows faculty to co-teach courses with curators, archivists, administrators and artists at partner institutions.

For more information, contact the Department of Africana Studies at africana@barnard.edu and follow @BCRWtweets and #HarlemSemester on Twitter.