BESPOKE KIDS: BLACK COMIC BOOK FESTIVAL 2023

Friday-Saturday, April 14th-15th, 10:00AM-8:00PM,  The 11th Annual Black Comic Book Festival at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,  Lenox Avenue and 135th Street, for ages 13 to 18 years. The Schomburg Center’s Annual Black Comic Book Festival celebrates the rich tradition of Black comix featuring panel discussions, film screenings, a cosplay show, and exhibit tables with premiere independent Black comic creators from across the United States.  The 11th Anniversary pop-up will now fully be virtual this month with an exhibit afterwards.  More details and the full schedule can be found on the Schomburg site: LINK

HarlemBespoke.com 2023

BESPOKE KIDS: BLACK COMIC BOOK FESTIVAL 2023

Friday-Saturday, April 14th-15th, 10:00AM-8:00PM,  The 11th Annual Black Comic Book Festival at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,  Lenox Avenue and 135th Street, for ages 13 to 18 years. The Schomburg Center’s Annual Black Comic Book Festival celebrates the rich tradition of Black comix featuring panel discussions, film screenings, a cosplay show, and exhibit tables with premiere independent Black comic creators from across the United States.  The 11th Anniversary pop-up will now fully be virtual this month with an exhibit afterwards.  More details and the full schedule can be found on the Schomburg site: LINK

HarlemBespoke.com 2023

LISTEN: HARLEM CHAMBER PLAYERS AT THE SCHOMBURG

Harlem Bespoke: 15th Annual Black History Month Concert at the Schomburg Center featuring avant-garde jazz pianist-composer Aruán Ortiz.

REMEMBER: ARTURO ALFONSO SCHOMBURG

Harlem Bespoke: For the notable birthday this week on January 24th, we are revisiting our past post from 2017 highlighting the accomplishments of Arturo Shomburg who was a Puerto Rican immigrant that changed the way history was told in the 20th Century and onwards. 

SEE: THE SCHOMBURG OPEN OPEN HOUSE 2022

Harlem Bespoke: The Schomburg Center’s annual Open House is an invitation to the general public to come inside the Center and learn about our approach to research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences.

THE SCHOMBURG CENTER LITERARY FESTIVAL 2022

Harlem Bespoke: The Schomburg Center Literary Festival: Reading the African Diaspora celebrates authors of African descent and champions literacy and books across genres to amplify Black history and culture. Festival programming features some of the most talented writers and influential figures in culture today. The festival is built on the foundation created by Arturo Schomburg–encouraging freedom of thought, the relentless pursuit of Black history, and the engagement of our imagination towards our collective freedom.

STATUE OF LORRAINE HANSBERRY AT THE SCHOMBURG

Harlem Bespoke:  The Schomburg Center on Lenox at the corner of 135th Street just unveiled the life size statue of playwright Lorraine Hansberry at the front plaza entrance.  A Raisin in the Sun is notably the black LGBT icon's best known work and the title of the play is derived from a poem by Langston Hughes.

THE SCHOMBURG CENTER LITERARY FESTIVAL 2022

Saturday, June 18th, 10:30AM-6:00PM, The Schomburg Center Literary Festival 2022, at the Schomburg, 515 Lenox at the corner of 135th Street. The Schomburg Center Literary Festival: Reading the African Diaspora celebrates authors of African descent and champions literacy and books across genres to amplify Black history and culture. Festival programming features some of the most talented writers and influential figures in culture today. The festival is built on the foundation created by Arturo Schomburg–encouraging freedom of thought, the relentless pursuit of Black history, and the engagement of our imagination towards our collective freedom.

LAST CHANCE: SUBVERSION & THE ART OF SLAVERY

Closing Saturday, January 22nd, 2022,  Subversion & The Art of Slavery at the Schomburg, 515 Lenox at the corner of 135th Street.  Art denotes strategy, ingenuity, and imagination. While slaveholders and vigilantes threatened and attempted to control Black bodily autonomy in various ways across the Atlantic world, enslaved people and their allies artfully countered this malevolence via everyday and more formally coordinated kinds of resistance. With a principal focus on American and British efforts, this exhibition highlights how slavery abolitionists used a diversity of art, including rebellion, speeches and pamphlets, novels, slave narratives, newspapers, poetry, music, and the visual arts, to agitate for enslaved peoples’ right to liberty and equality.  More details on public weekend hours on the official Schomburg site: LINK

HarlemBespoke.com 2022

LAST CHANCE: TRAVELING WHILE BLACK EXHIBIT 2021

Harlem Bespoke: Last chance to see the current exhibit at the Schomburge which will run only until December 11th.  NYC Libraries have reopened and the Traveling While Black exhibit can now be viewed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in person with no reservations required for walk in viewings on Monday-Saturday.  Moving from the Great Migration of African Americans north and west at the start of the twentieth century to the restrictions and resistances of travel in the Jim Crow South and the Jane Crow North, Traveling While Black examines a history of travel, from those who found themselves exiles within their own country down to the pilgrims and pleasure seekers of our time.   More at the official Schomburg site: LINK

HarlemBespoke.com 2021

SEE: TRAVELING WHILE BLACK AT THE SCHOMBURG

Harlem Bespoke:  The Schomburg on Lenox Avenue at the corner of 135th Street is really the predecessor to the National Museum of African American History and Culture but does not get as much exposure these days.  This branch of the New York Public Library always has great exhibits with artifacts or images that can not be found online anywhere and is definitely worth the visit.  

LAST CHANCE: HARLEM FASHION MUSEUM EXHIBIT

UPDATE: September 9th-30th,  10:30AM-5:30PM, Showing Out: Fashion in Harlem, at the Schomburg,  Lenox Avenue at 135th Street. Showing Out: Fashion in Harlem is a pop-up exhibition in celebration of the 55th anniversary of the legacy of the Harlem Institute of Fashion.  Harlem's Black Fashion Museum and Harlem Fashion Institute was started up within a couple of brownstone on West 126th Street just east of 7th Avenue by Lois K. Alexander-Lane from 1966 until 1994. The live event this month sold out but the pop-up exhibit will be open to the public and now has been extended until the end of the month: LINK

HarlemBespoke.com 2021

REMEMBER: ARTURO ALFONSO SCHOMBURG

Harlem Bespoke: For Hispanic Heritage Month we are revisiting our past post from 2017 highlighting the accomplishments of Arturo Shomburg who was a Puerto Rican immigrant that changed the way history was told in the 20th Century and onwards. 

VIRTUAL EXHIBIT: TRAVELING WHILE BLACK

Harlem Bespoke: Although city libraries are still not open to the public, the Traveling While Black exhibit can now be viewed online at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.  Moving from the Great Migration of African Americans north and west at the start of the twentieth century to the restrictions and resistances of travel in the Jim Crow South and the Jane Crow North, Traveling While Black examines a history of travel, from those who found themselves exiles within their own country down to the pilgrims and pleasure seekers of our time.   More on the full exhibit from earlier this year at the official Schomburg site: LINK

HarlemBespoke.com 2021