“Spirit in the Dark” exhibition open at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture opened its latest exhibition, “Spirit in the Dark: Religion in Black Music, Activism, and Popular Culture,” on Nov. 18. Through never-before-seen objects from the museum’s permanent collection, alongside rare photographs and stories featured in Ebony and Jet magazines, the exhibition explores ways in which religion is a part of the cultural fabric of the African American experience. “Spirit in the Dark” will be on view in the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts (CAAMA) gallery until November 2023.

The exhibition includes photographs of several prominent African Americans, such as Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Reverend Ike and Jesse Jackson, examining religion’s impact on their lives and the larger Black community. Photographs featured in the exhibition are taken from the recently acquired Johnson Publishing Company archive, which is jointly owned by the museum and the Getty Research Institute. “Spirit in the Dark” showcases 37 framed photographs from the JPC archive and approximately 25 objects from the museum’s collection.

“The role of the Black press has always been pivotal in amplifying African American social and religious life,” said Eric Lewis Williams, museum curator of religion. “Ebony and Jet captured and granted rare insight into the lives of influential Black figures, often revealing how religion has inspired, undergirded, and animated the work of Black artists, activists and changemakers. Through these photographs, objects and the larger stories they represent, we are able to highlight the tremendous diversity within the Black religious experience and bear witness to the role of religion in the Black struggle for human dignity and social equality.”

The exhibition spotlights the presence of religion in African American popular culture through three sections, providing a visual exploration of religion’s shadow in both the sacred and secular through images and artifacts. Each section examines the juxtaposition of various diverse aspects of religion and its space in African American life:

· Blurred Lines: Holy | Profane: This section explores how African American musicians and vocalists blur and transgress the boundaries between the holy and the profane. Artists often transport the power of Black sacred music—historically performed in places of worship—into secular or profane spheres, often fusing modalities and moving back and forth between genres.

· Bearing Witness: Protest | Praise: The second section looks at Black religious leaders who dually ministered to the spiritual needs of their people and led as activists in seasons of social protest. Bearing witness to wrongs and lighting the pathway to freedom, these individuals embodied both priestly and prophetic functions in their contributions to leadership in the struggle for Black liberation.

· Lived Realities: Suffering | Hope: The final section journeys through the creative social and political endeavors of Black artists and activists. They have deployed their faith, talents, and moral visions to expose the harsh realities of the suffering and trauma of Black people in America. These same individuals offered bold visions of Black flourishing and hope, emboldening the oppressed in their fight for justice and social equality.

Visitors also will be able to listen to the sounds of the exhibition with a curated playlist of music by artists included in “Spirit in the Dark” and experience the exhibition virtually with a special companion digital exhibition on the Searchable Museum website.

About the Johnson Publishing Company archive

In 2019, a consortium of five nonprofit organizations, including the Ford Foundation, the Getty Trust, the MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution, purchased and preserved the JPC archive, which includes more than 4 million prints, negatives, slides, and other photographic formats, as well as 10,000 audiovisual items. The archive is jointly owned by the museum and the Getty Research Institute, which are working together to preserve, catalog and digitize these materials so they can be shared and studied for generations to come.

The archival pigment prints in this exhibition were made in 2022 from the digital files of a legacy collection including 2,800 of the most iconic JPC images, which were digitized between 2007 and 2012 from original prints, slides, negatives, contact sheets, and oversized formats.

About the Center for the Study of African American Religious Life

The museum’s Center for the Study of African American Religious Life organizes public programs and collects religious artifacts that seek to explore religion’s place in African American history and culture and the contemporary roles and needs of faith leaders, faith-based organizations, and African American communities. Through innovative scholarship, the Center expands the ways religion is acknowledged and explored by our nation’s research and cultural institutions. The work of the Center, including the current exhibition, Spirit in the Dark, is generously supported by Lilly Endowment Inc.

About the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts

The Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts is the Museum’s home of visual culture and innovation. Through its changing exhibitions, public programs, and publications, CAAMA showcases the formation of African American history and culture through media arts, including photography, film, video and audio recordings.

About the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Since opening Sept. 24, 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture has welcomed more than 8.5 million in-person visitors and millions more through its digital presence. Occupying a prominent location next to the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the nearly 400,000-square-foot museum is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. For more information about the museum, visit nmaahc.si.edufollow @NMAAHC on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or call Smithsonian information at (202) 633-1000.

Maine Democrats nominate first Black woman as House speaker

Democrats in the Maine House of Representatives nominated the state’s first African American to serve as speaker, selecting a Portland lawmaker whose father was the first Black member of the Maine Legislature.

Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross was nominated Thursday over another Portlander, Ed Crockett, to lead the chamber. Her selection is all but assured since Democrats control the state House.

Talbot Ross said she’s ready to focus on challenges including the rising cost of living, climate change and a lack of access to affordable housing and healthcare. “Should I receive the support of the full Legislature, I will continue to push for progress in our state and use my position of leadership to work to improve the lives of all Mainers,” she said.

Her father, Gerald Talbot, was the founding president of the Portland chapter of the NAACP, and the first Black lawmaker in Maine, elected in 1972. He later served on Maine State Board of Education, and a school in Portland bears his name.

Like her father, Talbot Ross served as president of the Portland NAACP. She was elected in 2016 to the House, where her father served. Her party made her assistant majority leader in the House, becoming the first person of color to serve in leadership in the Maine Legislature.

District Attorney will not prosecute Tracey McCarter, nurse accused of murdering her husband in self defense

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says he will not prosecute Tracey McCarter, an Upper West Side nurse in the murder of her husband.

McCarter was arrested in March of 2020, accused of fatally stabbing her husband with a kitchen knife. She claimed she acted in self defense as she alleged that she was a victim of domestic violemve.

In a letter to state Supreme Court Judge Diane Kiesel, Bragg said a review of the evidence in McCarter’s case gave him reasonable doubt she fatally stabbed her husband, James Murray, on March 2, 2020, with the requisite intent to support a murder conviction.

“[I] cannot in good conscious allow a prosecution to proceed to trial and ask a jury to reach a conclusion that I have not reached myself,” wrote Bragg.

“I make this decision with full awareness of the life that was taken in this tragic incident and the many people who are impacted by Ms. McCarter’s stabbing of Mr. Murray.”

McCarter’s lawyer Sean Hecker said the DA had “righted a grievous injustice.”

“Tracy McCarter is an innocent survivor of domestic violence who has suffered mightily from a criminal justice system that demands change,” he said.

Hakeem Jeffries running to replace Pelosi as top House Democrat

New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, said Friday that he will run to replace House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the party's leader after Republicans took back control of the chamber in last week’s midterm elections.

His announcement in a letter to colleagues came a day after Pelosi said in a powerful floor speech that she is stepping down after a two-decade reign as the top leader of House Democrats.

If Jeffries is successful, it would represent a historic passing of the torch: Pelosi made history as the first female speaker of the House, while Jeffries, the current Democratic Caucus chairman, would become the first Black leader of a congressional caucus and highest-ranking Black lawmaker on Capitol Hill. If Democrats were to retake control of the House — a real possibility with Republicans having such a narrow majority — Jeffries would be in line to be the first Black speaker in the nation's history.

The ascension of the 52-year-old Jeffries to minority leader would also represent generational change. Pelosi and her top two deputies — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. — are all in their 80s and are receiving from within the party for “new blood” in leadership; Hoyer will not seek another leadership post while Clyburn plans to stay on and work with the next generation

[SOURCE: NBC NEWS]

Obama Foundation Expands Programs to Train Emerging Leaders Across the United States

During his remarks at the Democracy Forum in New York City, President Obama announced a new program that will expand the Obama Foundation’s efforts to train young leaders across the United States. The Obama Foundation Leaders United States program is a six-month leadership development program for emerging leaders, 24-45 years old, who are passionate about making a positive impact on their communities. The program will serve 100 leaders across the United States in its first year and support their efforts to create change.

“Since its inception, our Foundation’s mission has been to inspire, empower, and connect the next generation of changemakers,” said President Obama. “We now have a global network of thousands of leaders, not only here in the U.S. but in every corner of the globe – Europe, Africa, the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America. They’re entrepreneurs and elected officials, non-profit leaders and grassroots activists, artists and journalists and educators – all of them tackling some of the most vital issues of our time, from climate change to income inequality, from reducing racial and ethnic conflict to expanding opportunity for women and girls.

“The creativity, determination and passion of these leaders are already making an impact — in lives saved, environments restored, children educated. They’re creating new models for clean energy generation and poverty alleviation. It’s remarkable and inspiring — and a little humbling, since I sure wasn’t making such an impact at their age. And the good news is, we’re just scratching the surface of what this next generation is capable of.