☞ MEET: Jamal Joseph At Mount Morris Speaks!

It all started back in the '80s -- when Jamal Joseph was an inmate at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, KS. There, imprisoned for harboring a fugitive in a fatal armored car robbery, he earned two college degrees, wrote five plays and two volumes of poetry, and founded a theater company that brought together prisoners who'd previously been divided by race, culture and beliefs.

After prison he turned to teaching. And that was just part of it. The IMPACT Repertory Theatre, which he co-founded in 1997, has trained and mentored more than 1,000 youths. In 2008 a song he helped write called "Raise It Up" was nominated for an Oscar, and about 25 IMPACT theater members performed it at the Academy Awards ceremony.

On Thursday, February 4, from 6:30-8:00 PM, MMPCIA welcomes filmmaker and chair of Columbia University's Graduate Film Program, Jamal Joseph as its speaker for Mount Morris Talks! Don't miss this front row chance to meet and talk with Joseph and hear his compelling perspective on using the arts to grow and turn his life around -- while helping young people do the same. Mount Morris Talks! will be at the Harlem Branch Library, Community Room, 3rd floor, 9 West 124 Street, between/Fifth and Mount Morris Park West. The closest subway are the 2,3 trains at 125th Street. Go to the Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association site for more information: LINK. Photo courtesy of Earl Wilson.