Originally [and it may still be] a-work-in-progress... Yet, I have decided to move beyond the comfort of my computer and four little walls of an apartment, and share a labor of love that has taken me twenty-five years to bring out of the closet so too speak. So pull out those old LP's or CD's of a lil Coltrane, Carol Sloane, Shirley Horn, Miles Davis and of course Lady Day. And for all of you new kids on the block, Jill Scott, Remy Shand and Ledisi Young, too! So light some aroma-therapy candles, burn some incense and then allow me to transport you back to a time of growth for some and a revelation for others, for I am the product of: the Civil Rights era/the BEATLES/the SUPREMES/ both the Korean/& VIETNAM wars/the1963 march on Washington...

A Note from the Poet/Playwright: (BLACK) an adj. of the darkest color; without light; dark, evil, somber, dishonorable. Wow! I wanted to challenge these objectionable definitions, and show that out of DARKNESS comes: LIGHT, LOVE, GROWTH, BEAUTY and HEALING, too. (POEM) an imaginative composition in rhythmic or free verse lines is the genre of this choreopoem, that tells a TALL TALE, with a HINT of some TRUTH & REALNESS. (OLOGY) is an indication, or root word, a noun that defines various kinds of speech, writings, or a collection of writings, (e.g., eulogy or trilogy). In words of this type, the “-ology,” element is derived from the Greek noun – logos: speech, debate, narrative, account, and story, etc., etc.,). The suffix has the sense of a certain kind of speaking, writing, and/or storytelling. (MONOLOGUE) a dramatic composition with only one speaker; a long speech by one person. But BLACKPOEMOLOGUE includes eleven speakers. I am taking a few artistic licenses/liberties with this choreopoem.

Born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, Nina Simone (1933-2003) began her musical life playing classical piano. A child prodigy, she wanted a career on the concert stage, but when the Curtis Institute of Music rejected her, the devastating disappointment compelled her to change direction. She turned to popular music and jazz but never abandoned her classical roots or her intense ambition. By the age of twenty six, Simone had sung at New York City's venerable Town Hall and was on her way. Tapping into newly unearthed material on Simone's family and career, Nadine Cohodas paints a luminous portrait of the singer, highlighting her tumultuous life, her innovative compositions, and the prodigious talent that matched her ambition. With precision and empathy, Cohodas weaves the story of Simone's contentious relationship with audiences and critics, her outspoken support for civil rights, her two marriages and her daughter, and, later, the sense of alienation that drove her to live abroad from 1993 until her death. Alongside these threads runs a more troubling one: Simone's increasing outbursts of rage and pain that signaled mental illness and a lifelong struggle to overcome a deep sense of personal injustice.

A new edition of a classic work revealing the little-known history of African Americans in New York City before Emancipation. The popular understanding of the history of slavery in America almost entirely ignores the institution’s extensive reach in the North. But the cities of the North were built by—and became the home of—tens of thousands of enslaved African Americans, many of whom would continue to live there as free people after Emancipation. In the Shadow of Slavery reveals the history of African Americans in the nation’s largest metropolis, New York City. Leslie M. Harris draws on travel accounts, autobiographies, newspapers, literature, and organizational records to extend prior studies of racial discrimination. She traces the undeniable impact of African Americans on class distinctions, politics, and community formation by offering vivid portraits of the lives and aspirations of countless black New Yorkers. This new edition includes an afterword by the author addressing subsequent research and the ongoing arguments over how slavery and its legacy should be taught, memorialized, and acknowledged by governments.

While there is a general acknowledgement within the church itself that the Church was initially slow to respond to the magnitude of the problem of HIV and AIDS, during the recent past, as the effects of HIV and AIDS within the congregations and communities of the church have become progressively more evident, the Catholic Church has emerged as an increasingly central role-player in a range of initiatives to combat the pandemic. This publication describes the work of the 'Choose to Care' initiative and the way it has been successfully scaled-up through the diocesan and parish network so that programmes are formed by local needs but work with common guidelines and can draw on central support.

"Shango de Ima is a series of legends or histories edited, abridged, and linked together to illustrate one aspect of the orisha Shango. The material on which the play is based is part of an oral tradition that has its roots in Nigeria, and it appears here for the first time in written form ... Shango typifies man and his struggle to gain mastery of himself. Most practitioners of the Yoruba religion consider him the most important orisha to urban living ... He must, as in the beginning of the play, search for his true father and struggle, as must all mankind, to seek out and comprehend his own origins”--From introduction by Edward James, pages 43-44.

THE STORY: In an effort to get medical help for Alabama tenant farmers, their nurse, Miss Evers, convinces them to join a government study to treat venereal disease. When the money runs out, Nurse Evers is faced with a difficult decision: to tell t