Best Events To Celebrate Black History Month In NYC
February is Black History Month. Several events will be taking place throughout the city that honor black history and culture, from lectures to film festivals to concerts. Here are our four recommendations for the best ways to celebrate. By Jessica Allen.
"The Migration" features works by 22 artists that interpret the so-called Great Migration, when roughly 6 million African Americans left the segregated south for cities in the northern and western United States. The exhibition takes place inside Central Park's very own art gallery, located in the Arsenal (originally built as a munitions supply depot for New York State's National Guard in the mid-1800s), itself worth a visit, and it's sponsored by NYC Park's Ebony Society. January 29 through February 25, free.
Among other activities, every Sunday in February, the Brooklyn Historical Society will screen Brooklyn Boheme, a critically acclaimed documentary about the African-American artistic community in Clinton Hill and Fort Greene during the 1980s and 1990s, a community that included Rosie Perez, Chris Rock, Branford Marsalis, Spike Lee, and Talib Kweli. Written and narrated by Nelson George, the movie "celebrates 'Brooklyn's equivalent of the Harlem Renaissance.'" Sundays in February, 3 pm, free with museum admission.
Once a year, the Apollo swings wide its doors and welcomes the community for a fun-filled afternoon. Scheduled activities include storytellers from the Storytelling Society of New York recounting some of the theater's most legendary moments, performances by past winners of the famed Amateur Night, a panel discussion "exploring how contemporary conscious culture reflects the community," and, perhaps most exciting, the opportunity to get up on the legendary stage. Saturday, February 21, 12 to 5 pm, free.
Legendary hip-hop artist Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels joins author Jamal Joseph, jazz trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis, New Orleans' Uptown Music Theatre, and the Impact Repertory Theatre of Harlem at the American Museum of Natural History's celebration of Black History Month. Titled "From the African Village to the Urban Village," the performance promises to be exciting, innovative, and thought-provoking. Saturday, February 28, 3 to 5 pm, free with museum admission.
