Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and the Legacy of Jim Crow: The Long History of the Artist’s Concerns

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, hosts a panel discussion on the continuing legacy of Jim Crow, and how that legacy shapes current issues of race, justice, and public policy in America. With Sherrilyn Ifill, President, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Cornell Brooks, President, NAACP.

Presented by The Friends of Education, The Museum of Modern Art.

Watch a live recording of this event:

Migration Rhapsody: An Aleatoric Exploration of the Journey North through Music, Poetry, and Personal Narrative

Terrance McKnight, a host on New York City classical music station WQXR, curates an evening of music and performance at MoMA, with artists including Jim Davis, Karen Chilton, Bill T. Jones, Alicia Hall Moran, Jason Moran, Damien Sneed, and Bob Stewart.

Presented in collaboration with WQXR.

Watch a live recording of this event:

Sunday Sessions: Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts: YOU BETTA WERK

YOU BETTA WERK celebrates two seminal liberation movements that emerged out of Harlem: the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a trailblazing African-American-led labor union founded in 1925, and the influential House and Ballroom scene immortalized by the 1991 documentary Paris is Burning. Participants include scholars Davarian Baldwin and Uri McMillan and Alicia Garza, special projects director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter.

YOU BETTA WERK is organized by historian Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts.

Tickets ($15; $10 members and corporate members; $5 students, seniors, and staff of other museums) can be purchased online at MoMAPS1.org. For more information, please visit: http://momaps1.org/calendar/view/561

The Migration Series Poetry Suite

In conjunction with One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North, MoMA has commissioned ten celebrated poets, selected by Elizabeth Alexander, to write poems inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series, which are included in the exhibition catalogue and website. This event, moderated by Alexander, presents debut readings of these poems by Rita Dove, Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes, Tyehimba Jess, Yusef Komunyakaa, Patricia Spears Jones, Natasha Trethewey, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Crystal Williams, and Kevin Young.

Organized by MoMA’s Department of Education.

Tickets are available for purchase on MoMA.org. Tickets ($15; $10 members and corporate members; $5 students, seniors, and staff of other museums) can be purchased online or at the information desk, the Film desk after 4:00 p.m., or at the Education and Research Building reception desk on the day of the program.

A Road Three Hundred Years Long: Cinema and the Great Migration

The Department of Film’s companion series to One-Way Ticket features the world premiere of a new MoMA commission: Thom Andersen’s Juke: Passages from the Films of Spencer Williams (2015). In Juke, Andersen reconsiders the work of Williams, the pioneering African American writer-director whose central dramatic theme in such films as The Blood of Jesus (1941) and Go Down, Death! (1944) was the battle between the sacred and the profane, the church and the juke joint.

Accompanying the premiere of Juke is a film exhibition that pairs discussions by guest presenters, including Hilton Als, Thom Andersen, Lynne Sachs, and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, with screenings of both historical and contemporary works. The selection includes fiction films by independent African American writer-directors such as Eloyce and James Gist, Oscar Micheaux, and Spencer Williams; and nonfiction films evoking African American life during the 1920s–1940s, including newsreels, amateur films, ethnographic studies, home movies, and New Deal social documentaries by William D. Alexander, Zora Neale Hurston, Pare Lorentz, Edgar Ulmer, and others.

The legacy of the Migration is reflected in more contemporary films like Charles Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger (1990), Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1992), and Kevin Jerome Everson’s Company Line (2009).

Organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art; and Thomas Beard, independent curator; with Candace Ming, research assistant.

For more information, please visit: MoMA.org

Steffani Jemison: Promise Machine

Brooklyn-based artist Steffani Jemison presents her new multipart commission Promise Machine. Inspired by the Utopia Neighborhood Club, a Harlem-based women’s social service organization that directly supported Jacob Lawrence, Promise Machine comprises a reading group and performance inspired by the notion of utopia. In advance of her June performances, Jemison will bring together members of Harlem-based community organizations as well as artists, writers, activists, and others for a Utopia Club reading group at MoMA, where they will discuss black American experimental communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. The new musical performances in the Museum galleries will be inspired by conversations with Harlem-based community organizations, and will address specific works on view in MoMA’s collection, including selections from Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series. The performances feature an original libretto by the artist and a score arranged by composer, singer, and violinist Marques Toliver. Beginning in the 5th Floor Painting and Sculpture Permanent Collection galleries, the performers will move in a processional down through the 4th floor galleries and into the Jacob Lawrence exhibition itself.

Organized by Stuart Comer, Chief Curator, and Thomas J. Lax, Associate Curator, with Martha Joseph, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art, The Museum of Modern Art.

For more information, please visit: MoMA.org

MoMA Nights

In July 2015, live musical performances will be presented in collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) and Harlem Stage as part of the Museum’s annual Thursday-night summer series, MoMA Nights. Each musician featured in the series represents a generation of rising stars destined to affect the jazz landscape for years to come, and each has his or her own personal tale of migration. Drawing from genres including hip-hop, R&B, Latin, soul, jazz, gospel, Afropunk, and New Orleans second line, these artists are expanding musical boundaries with a contemporary soul and swing.

July 2: Elena Ayodele Pinderhughes (JALC selection)
July 9: Samora Pinderhughes (Harlem Stage selection)
July 16: Tamar-kali (Harlem Stage selection)
July 23: Jon Batiste (JALC and Harlem co-selection)
July 30: Shenel Johns (JALC selection)

MoMA Nights 2015 is programmed by Jazz at Lincoln Center and Simone Eccleston, Assistant Director of Programming, Harlem Stage. Regular Museum admission applies. In the event of rain, the Sculpture Garden will close, and music will take place in Theater 1. Please note: Sculpture Garden and indoor seating are limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Great Migration Menu

Marcus Samuelsson, chef and owner of Red Rooster in Harlem; Abram Bissell, executive chef of The Modern and ArtFood; and Dan Jackson, executive chef of the MoMA cafés, will collaborate to create menus highlighting the culinary impact of the Great Migration, when varied Southern regional cuisines blended with a New York kitchen culture. Offerings will range from special features in Cafe 2 to cocktails and small bites at the bar of The Modern.

Teacher Programs and Resources

MoMA will host an open program on April 27 for New York City Department of Education (DOE) staff development. Designed for K–12 teachers of any subject, the program will use the Migration Series as a resource.

MoMA will host another open program that will coincide with the NYC DOE Chancellor’s Conference Day for staff development on June 4. Staff from The Phillips Collection will present in this MoMA-organized program. For K–12 teachers of any subject.

School Visits and Partnership Programs

MoMA educators will concentrate on themes like Narrative in Art, Society and Politics, Identity, or Characters for guided School Visit Programs that visit the Migration Series.

One of MoMA’s school partners, Thurgood Marshall Academy (Harlem), has already organized free unguided visits for second- through fifth-grade students to visit One-Way Ticket. Twenty parents of Thurgood Marshall students will come to MoMA and have a discussion in the exhibition on April 30.

Access Programs

A special session related to the Prime Time initiative for Senior Citizens will take place on March 30.

Monthly programs will also take place in the exhibition:

April 7: Art inSight for blind and partially sighted individuals.

May 28: Interpreting MoMA for deaf and hard of hearing individuals.

Meet Me at MoMA for individuals with dementia and their caregivers.

Here and There: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series

Additionally, a weekend family gallery talk for 10- to 14-year-olds, titled Here and There: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series, will focus on the exhibition.

Centennial Celebration of Billie Holiday’s Birth

Harlem Stage marks the centennial of Billie Holiday’s birth with a collection of events celebrating the singer’s career and legacy. Footage of the singer performing “Strange Fruit” will be among the featured works in One-Way Ticket.

On Tuesday, April 28, Harlem Stage will host a conversation, “When the Moon Turns Green: Examining the Myth and Music of Billie Holiday,” with Columbia University scholars Robert O’Meally, Farah Jasmin Griffin, and John Szwed.

April 30–May 1 at 7:30 p.m., they will present “Parallel Lives: Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf.” The concert represents a global celebration of " Lady Day" and the "Little Sparrow," two women born in the same year on different shores, speaking different languages and leading parallel lives. Curated by Nona Hendryx, former vocalist of Labelle, the performance features an international roster of contemporary vocalists and performers, including Joey Arias, Nona Hendryx, Liza Jesse Peterson, Etienne Stadwjck, and Women of the World.

The centennial celebration concludes with José James’s "Yesterday I Had the Blues: The Music of Billie Holiday." Featuring a hand-picked collection of Holiday's favorite standards and originals, critically acclaimed vocalist José James pays homage to her celebrated 1950s small band recordings on May 7 and 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Events will take place at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse. Information and tickets at Harlemstage.org

Harlem Eat Up! Festival

The first annual Harlem Eat Up! Festival, featuring ticketed and free events celebrating Harlem, will be held May 14–17. An exploration of the history of food and culture in Harlem, the festival will explore the intersection of the neighborhood’s culinary, music, and arts scenes. As part of its mission and dedication to Harlem, net proceeds from festival ticket sales will be donated to Harlem Park to Park and Citymeals-on-Wheels, which will provide a positive and direct impact on the Harlem community.

For more information, visit www.harlemeatup.com

Derek Bermel’s Migration Series

The Albany Symphony Orchestra and its conductor, David Alan Miller, will perform Derek Bermel’s Migration Series at the American Music Festival in spring 2015.

Inspired by Lawrence’s Migration Series at MoMA, Bermel created this concerto for jazz band and orchestra, building on the colors and moods of the images in Lawrence’s work. “In this grand American story,” he wrote,” I gravitated toward the larger themes, those of determination, mystery, despair, and hope.” The score was influenced by many of Bermel’s musical heroes, from Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, and Thelonious Monk to Stevie Wonder, John Zohn, Rakim, and Mos Def.

Commissioned by Wynton Marsalis for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and American Composers Orchestra, the work premiered on November 16, 2006, in the Rose Theater, New York. This year, the American Music Festival will join forces with the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra for a new performance of Bermel’s work on May 16 at 7:30 p.m. at The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

Tickets from range from $19 to $59 and can be purchase online at albanysymphony.com.

Shaping Lawrence: Mixing Civic Influence and Cultural Access

Arva R. Rice, president and CEO of the New York Urban League, joins in conversation with Dr. Khalil Muhammad, chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, to discuss the intersection of Jacob Lawrence’s work with civil rights organizations and cultural institutions, to portray and address social inequalities in the 20th and 21st centuries. Rice and Muhammad will explore how these vibrant influences are depicted in Lawrence’s groundbreaking Migration Series and how culture and civil rights continue to intersect to create social change today. The event is free and open to the public.