Black on Screen: Pan-Africanism in Practice

“Pan-Africanism in Practice” is the first program in Stand up, Fight Back! the third season of Black on Screen, guest-curated by Maysles Documentary Center Executive Director, Kazembe Balagun.

In celebration of Black History Month, this season chronicles histories of Black-American and Afro-diasporic coalition building and resistance movements on screen, narrated by intersectional voices. In this political moment wherein, Black histories continue to be sanitized and often, silently erased from the canon, the moving-image works presented throughout this season also uplift Black pedagogies — from pan-africanist to Black-lesbian scholarship — critical Black thought foregrounds these films.

For this first program, Balagun screens John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk (1996) directed by the Harlem-born documentary filmmaker, St. Clair C. Bourne. St. Claire C. Bourne’s filmography, celebrated in a 1988 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, centers a range of subjects and social issues pertaining to Black-American life. In John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk, the filmmaker documents the Pan-Africanist leader John Henrik Clarke, whose critical scholarship informed the development of the field of Africana Studies. The program will take place in the Schomburg Center's American Negro Theatre (ANT).

John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk , 1996 directed by St. Clair C. Bourne.

Runtime: 90 min

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture, captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture continues celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

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Host or Publisher Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture