The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

May 27, 2021 by Mariamma Kambon

Discussion Points for Bookclubs and Study Groups: At over 500 pages, this latest addition to the assortment of Malcolm X biographies offers the reader an opportunity to review the life of an American icon – the Black shining prince of the Civil Rights Movement – in richly detailed context. 

Categories: Activism, Books • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, black shining prince, Bookclub, caribbean, christianity, Civil rights, cult, Discussion Points, Earl Little, el hajj malik el shabazz, history, human rights, icon, islam, Les Payne, Louise Little, luzdetusonrisa, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Mariamma Kambon, martyr, Nation of Islam, racism, religion, shirley dubois, Study Group, Tamara Payne, the ballot or the bullet, The Dead Are Arising, the life of Malcom X, UNIA, united states

Notes for Alton Sterling

July 11, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

Intro A video of the cold, violent execution of a prone Black man by white police officers opened my very first day in Louisiana. In transit I may have imagined the famed streets of New Orleans – the fertile land that has nourished Jazz and Rhythm-and-Blues; superb cuisine that just might be reminiscent of my own well-seasoned Caribbean fare; and a renowned debauchery that marks the place as vibrant and outrageous. Alton Sterling’s murder at the hands of NOPD served […]

Categories: Activism, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge, community, execution, family, freedom, grief, Jo Hines, John C. Mutter, justice, Louisiana, Mariamma Kambon, Michael Eric Dyson, mural, murder, photography, Police brutality, protest, race-based oppression, racism, resistance, Trinidad and Tobago, Triple S Convenience Store

Black and Pretty: Honoring Muhammad Ali

June 29, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

“He is the property of all people but while he is the property of all people, let us never forget that he is the product of Black people in their struggle to be free.” – Dr. Kevin Cosby, 2016   “Clay is the finest Negro athlete I have ever known, the man who will mean more to his people than any other athlete before him.” – Malcolm X, 1964   It has been stated time and time again that Muhammad […]

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, Ali Bomaye, Blackness, boxing, Carol St. John, Champion, Civil rights, freedom, Gerald Early, hero, James E. Lewis Jr., Kentucky, legend, Lenox Lewis, Louisville, Malcolm X, Mariamma Kambon, Muhammad Ali, NUCUP, photography, Reverend Kevin Cosby, The Champ, The Greatest, The Greatest of All Time, Toni Morrison, Trinidad and Tobago, Will Smith

THERE (Yankee) – A curatorial project

May 24, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

To stand in front of one of the photographs made by emerging photographer, Sasha Phyars-Burgess, is to stand at the point where documentary and art collide. In line with the wave of photographers creating imagery from positions of marginality, Phyars-Burgess has made use of the technology of photography as a tool for self-reflexivity and self-redefinition. She has examined aspects of contemporary Trinidadian life from the vantage point of a first-generation American grounded in the culture of this distant, yet familiar […]

Categories: Exhibition, Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, back and white, Bard College, brooklyn, caribbean, Caribbean Diaspora, Cornell MFA, cornell university, documentary, En Foco, Exhibition, family, fine art, Harlem, ICP, identity, immigrant, International Center of Photography, Mariamma Kambon, migration, Mink Building, New York, Pennsylvania, photographer, photography, photojournalism, Sasha Phyars-Burgess, SoHarlem, transnational West Indian family, Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidadian, west indian, yankee

Cashing in on Fine Art Photography

April 1, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

I was fortunate to have a coffee with the distinguished, New York based photographer, Howard Cash. We met at the MIST Café in Harlem, and sat beneath the words of South African freedom fighter, Steve Biko: “It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die” It was a fitting backdrop for the conversation that would ensue since Howard Cash is a person who has devoted his life and talents […]

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, art appreciation, Black life, cafe, fine art, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, Howard Cash, interview, Langston Hughes, Mariamma Kambon, MIST Harlem, New York, photography, Steve Biko, Trinidad and Tobago

David Hammons/ Obeah Man

March 23, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

The art of David Hammons usually beckons to me from wherever it is perched within a group show. How can someone who uses such a myriad of methods and media have a voice so distinct amid the ambitious cacophony of contemporary art? It is the obeah in the thing – the spirit of the miraculous and the rebellious. It is the profundity revealed in the quotidian that allows his voice to rise above the rest. Obeah is black magic some […]

Categories: Exhibition, Uncategorized • Tags: african amerian, African American, african art, artist, bird, black magic, boukman, champ, David Hammons, dreadlocks, Exhibition, fine art, five decades, fur coat, Harlem, human hair, installation, Kongo, mal yeux, malcolm x blvd, maljo, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, mau mau, mnuchin gallery, New York, nkisi, Obeah, obeah man, okomfo anokye, orange is the new black, photography, power figure, rebellion, resistance, slavery, snowball, standing room only, tribal art, Trinidad and Tobago, visual arts

Ashes and Embers, a film by Haile Gerima

March 11, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

For my uncle who was sent to Vietnam a whole man but returned to his family incomplete  “It is for life. PTSD is for life,” she told me. “That person will never, ever get better.” The faces around the dimly lit table grew serious momentarily as this reality sank in. It was only a warning about a date with a man from the navy who might have been to a recent war. The pause was fleeting before the faces all […]

Categories: Film, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, American Fruit African Roots, Angela Davis, Ashes and Embers, Black Power, David Rudder, Elizabeth Catlett, Film, Films at the Schomburg, Haile Gerima, Harlem, lynching, Madman's Rant, Malcolm X, Mariamma Kambon, movie, New York, Patrice Lumumba, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, soldier, The Schomburg Center, The Sharecropper, Veteran, Vietnam, Vietnam vet, war