Black Nouveau

(flourishing music) (bold upbeat music) - Hello, everybody, and welcome to "Black Nouveau."

I'm Earl Arms, and this is our February edition.

Of course, February is African American History Month.

And while "Black Nouveau" celebrates Black history and culture all year long, there are some special events happening this month you just may wanna consider.

We'll talk with Marquise Mays from Milwaukee Film's Black Lens about their special films and events still happening this month.

We ask journalist Mikel Holt about ways families can preserve their family history.

And we got a bit more than that.

And we'll look back at the fifth annual Tuxedo Walk that was held last month.

But first, we begin with the profile of artist Rosy Petri, who was named a Mildred Harpole Artist of the Year in 2020.

Her art incorporates various mediums, including fabric portraiture, quilt making, photography and mixed media.

(sewing machine whirs) (light airy music) - [Alexandria] For artist Rosy Petri, home is where her art is.

- Oh, I messed it up.

Sometimes I still mess up.

It's still hard.

I am 36 years old.

I have moved 37 times in my life.

So home as a concept was nebulous.

And I thought that anything that I made with my own two hands was a thing that was home.

And in a real sense of the word, home should be paradise.

- [Alexandria] It's in the comfort of this Harambe home that doubles as her study that she's been able to build a creative oasis with a fitting name.

- [Rosy] So Paradise Home is what it became.

I've always made art.

I love making it.

I love putting things together in surprising ways.

I didn't really realize art was a job, so I did it as a hobby, mostly at home.

My art is for Black people.

It just is.

I think when I started, I think that that was my objective, was to just create iconography of Black people just living, living, being joyful, making history, breaking records, whatever that thing is, it's just like I think it's sacred to show Black people thriving and living.

So that's who it's for.

So basically everything that I was making, from the first one to bell hooks, to everything at the Pfister, was made on a secondhand machine.

And this was me wanting to be able to work bigger.

So primarily, I work in fabric.

I do use print making.

I use digital media.

I also have started painting recently.

I love ink.

I love materials.

I will use whatever I can get my hands on.

All right, I'm gonna do my little manual.

Okay?

I made my first quilt in high school.

I had seen my grandmother quilt.

My mom's mom, she was from here.

And then my grandmother from Mississippi had these old Southern quilts, those big heavy patchworks with the red ties.

Something about using fabric feels, it feels real human.

It's something that we all have access to that we touch every day.

It was really accessible, I think.

So it wasn't intimidating, and I just jumped right in.

And that love for fabric grew when I moved to Detroit and I was working in the dress shop.

I had never seen African fabric.

And I worked there for a year, and I just learned so much about it, and it just, it hit all the boxes, color, rhythm, pattern.

It's so exciting.

(soft jazz music) My art is loud.

It's loud like, it's loud like a Nigerian auntie.

You know what I mean?

It's something that stops people in their tracks.

And I don't know that that means I'm the best artist or whatever, but I think it surprises people and it delights them with how, how noisy it is.

- [Alexandria] And that artistic voice is making noise around the city.

In 2019, she became the first Black woman to be named the Pfister's artist in residence.

In the following year in 2020, she was named a Mildred Harpole Artist of the Year by the city of Milwaukee.

(marchers chanting) But her newfound notoriety, paired with the 2020 pandemic and racial uprisings led her to a career turning point.

- [Rosy] It just tore me up.

It tore me up.

It tore me up on so many levels, and I think it changed what the message was.

I had taken on a lot of commissions because I needed to pay for my sewing machine.

But I just felt like I was losing the direction of my voice.

And I felt like, I felt obligated to say yes to things that I didn't think I was the best choice for.

So after a lot of pushing and a lot of focusing in on that, the oral history project, it was like I think I know what I wanna do.

And I don't know that what I wanna do is gonna be for everybody, but I wanna say yes enthusiastically to the things that I want to do.

This is the project I was telling y'all about.

These are the illustrations.

These are black and white.

I work with a photographer, and then I take them and digitally draw them.

And then I make a big print and use that as a pattern.

So I shifted from doing portraiture of celebrities and icons, to a project specifically about Black women and their work during the uprisings, in terms of the community organizing and the social work that they were doing on their own.

- [Alexandria] And that shift includes reminding herself that as a Black creative, your autonomy can sometimes mean everything.

- Now I can work as big as I have patience for.

It's not a limitation by the size of my table.

Now it's how long do you wanna work on one piece.

I want to do the best work I can by making work that feels real and important to me.

So that's been the shift.

- [Alexandria] Leaving herself enough room to dream big in her Paradise Home.

(bold upbeat music) (phone rings) - [Al] Yeah, Mike.

Chris did a walkthrough with the police.

- [Mike] So is the concern a shooter?

- [Al] We get threats all the time.

I'm not gonna not do the rally.

- [Journalist] Mind giving your name?

- Revered Al Sharpton, chairman of National Youth Movement.

(marchers shouting) We just buried a boy.

And the only thing he did wrong was he was born on the wrong side of the tracks.

In New York City in the '80s, what we wanted to say, people did not want to hear.

- Go home, niggers!

- Go home!

- White street!

- [Al] So you had to be loud because you were not invited to address the public.

- So if they can't ride us fair, they don't need to ride!

- [Interviewee] This is the beginning of a Civil Rights Movement in New York.

- [Bystander] It's all the media's fault.

These things should be kept quiet.

Al Sharpton shut up and go home.

- [Al] They will say that we are exasperating racial tensions.

But the people know the truth.

(soft dramatic music) George Floyd's story has been the story of Black folks.

(audience cheers) There's a truth - [Al] We're talk about calling for a big march.

We gonna put 200, 300,000 people in Washington.

- [Journalist 2] If the question comes from the media about looting, we wanted to cast to you to set the tone.

Couldn't breathe - [Al] I understand the anger.

I've been fighting these issues for decades.

Any time you start shaking the root of this system, then you gonna have a discredit campaign.

No justice?

- [Audience] No peace!

- No justice?

- [Audience] No peace!

- [Al] Senator Schumer, we have not had the legislative response to the litany of cases of policing all the way from Rodney King to now.

2020, we must deal with police brutality.

We got to turn this nation upside down.

All of our lives you had to fight to make sure that you controlled the story.

I want the folks at CBS to know if you can't tell the story right, don't tell it at all.

You gotta be able to raise the theater level to where you don't lose control, but it is dramatic enough that you can't be ignored either.

Oh Loud mouth - What you just saw there was part of the trailer for "Loudmouth," a documentary about the Reverend Al Sharpton.

It's one of the films Black Lens is showing this month, along with a number of activities celebrating Black history and culture.

Marquise Mays, Black Lens programmer, is here to tell us about the films and some of the major events.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

- Absolutely.

No, appreciate you coming here.

So "Loudmouth" for sure is one film that caught my attention when looking at the lineup.

So talk about that and what makes this film so unique.

- Yeah, I think the name alone just catches people's attention.

They're just like, "We know Al Sharpton be loud."

So it's really an exciting film.

I think it's really an amazing film to watch.

He's sitting back, looking at his history, looking at his legacy, and really trying to have in depth conversations about the most monumental moments in his life that has shifted and really impacted his politics.

So it's a really historical, reflective film from one of, someone that we all revere and love.

So super excited to bring it to the city.

- [Earl] One of many films, including For the Soul, a narrated food tasting and conversation.

So I guess if you're hungry, this is for you, right?

- [Marquise] You gonna come out and eat, yeah.

So one thing we love to do with Black Lens is not only go to the theater and be in a cinema, we really do love to do more impactful and more interactive engagement.

So one of the events we're having, For the Soul, is interactive soul food conversation in bites.

You're eating, you're talking, you're having conversations about soul food.

And not just the historical soul food that we're used to, but more vegan and more healthy options as well.

So it's gonna be a nice time.

Please come hungry (laughs) and get your tickets.

(laughs) - All right, and then we have another film that we're gonna actually show a clip of.

So "Fire Music" is the next film.

- Yeah.

(odd electronic music) - [Narrator 1] Just imagine what it'd be like to be in New York in 1959 in the wake of the death of Charlie Parker, who's still alive then in everybody's head.

Now all of that's really wonderful.

But what about this?

- [Narrator 2] Almost every week for a couple of years, there was somebody new in town.

- [Narrator 3] Ornette Coleman.

- [Narrator 4] Cecil Taylor.

- [Narrator 5] Albert Ayler.

- [Narrator 6] John Coltrane.

- [Narrator 7] Sun Ra.

- We were all friends, all went to parties together.

- [Narrator 8] There was a great spiritual underground.

People knew what was happening then.

- [Narrator 9] And it took a while before the movement in a sense gave them a legitimacy that they didn't have individually.

- [Narrator 10] The point is you have to understand this music, in terms of the traditional jazz that you've heard before.

- [Narrator 9] For the avant-guard, it was liberating.

It just changed everything.

(upbeat jazz music) - [Narrator 8] There was immediacy in the air, man.

It was like a short fuse and a long explosion.

(chaotic piano music) - [Narrator 9] The thing that has made jazz such an enthralling experience for over 100 years worldwide is that it has never sat still.

- You have any questions, ask me.

- [Interviewer] Questions?

- Yeah.

I got plenty of answers, man.

Come on.

- For my jazz lovers, right, "Fire Music."

- [Marquise] Yes, "Fire Music."

I'm super excited to bring this one to this city as well, because I think Milwaukee has a really beautiful history with jazz and I think it's super important that we really take time to think about the free jazz movement of the 1960s and '70s and really pay honor and revere to the musicians that has really allowed for more intuitive music to flow throughout our bodies.

So "Fire Music" is literally gonna be fire.

So come through and watch it.

It's gonna be blaring.

The sound is blaring, the images are blaring.

But it's never before seen footage, archival footage, but also interviews about a specific music genre that really is still the base for the music we hear today in a lot of Black soul music.

- [Earl] All right, so keep that rhythm going because the last thing I wanna talk about, Groove Theory, that's the event, and we got a special band that's gonna be a part of that.

So talk about Growing Nation and this event.

- Yeah, for sure.

So Groove Theory is a series that we do within the Black Lens Program and Milwaukee Film where we seek to highlight different Milwaukee artists who have really made a difference and shifted the landscape for music in the city.

So we're super exciting to bring Growing Nation, which is an RNB, hiphop and soul group ensemble based in the city of Milwaukee.

This is gonna be their 10-year...

They haven't performed together in 10 years, so this is gonna be quite the reunion.

So please get your tickets.

I know people are super excited to celebrate this amazing ensemble.

- [Earl] All right, we got a little bit of time.

Anything else you wanna share about the Black Lens Festival?

Anything that folks should know?

- Yeah, so come to the movies, right?

I think it's super important to come out to the movies and support these Black films and these Black filmmakers who are showing.

We have an eclectic group of music videos and conceptual short films and longer form short, longer films that are super experimental as well.

So come and engage with the films, but also come out for the events that we have, from happy hours and mixers, to a whole panel on Afrofuturism.

We have a lot in store for Black History Month, so come through.

- [Earl] Not just during Black History Month, all year long.

- [Marquise] All year long we are working.

But yeah, for sure.

- [Earl] Appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- [Earl] Thank you so much for joining.

- Thank you for having me.

(bold upbeat music) - Marketing University professor Cedric Burrows said, "The stories of Black people are constantly being changed by the dominant culture to fit a certain narrative."

With February being Black History Month, we thought it would be interesting to talk about how African Americans can preserve their rich history.

Joining us to talk about the importance of sharing our stories is long-time "Milwaukee Community Journal" columnist, Mikel Holt.

Mikel, welcome back to "Black Nouveau."

It's been a while.

- Oh, thanks for having me finally.

(chuckles) - Why does the dominant culture continue to alter Black stories?

- It's about control.

We have a new governor of, what is it, Alabama, Huckabee, whatever.

And her first executive order was to criminalize what you call Critical Race Theory.

In essence, make it illegal to talk about the truth, our true history.

We've been in this ongoing battle for decades, for centuries really over the conflict between history, truth, and his story, is what we've been told to believe.

But I just finished writing up my column for the week, and it's about Dr. William Rogers who passed recently.

And those who know him know he was a professor in the department of Africology.

He was a noted historian.

His life's mission was to provide the other side of the story to empower us.

You can be controlled as long as you don't have a cultural historical platform to stand upon.

They know that.

So it is to their advantage.

And when I say they, I'm not just talking about white supremacists.

I'm actually talking about the liberal missionaries who profit from our misery.

It is to their advantage to keep us ignorant, to keep us believing that our history began when we arrived on these shores.

One of the lies that's perpetrated, for example, we now have a holiday around us arriving here in 1619.

The first African slaves arrived in America in 1526 in the Carolina area by the Spanish.

Why isn't that truth being proven, provided to students?

Maybe the reason is because when the Native Americans figured out that they were being victimized and exploited, they actually killed all those original Spanish settlers, except for the Africans, who they allowed to merge with them.

That's a totally different slant on history than what we've been told.

- So I learned my history mostly from listening to my parents and grandparents share their stories.

What would be the best way for us to keep our stories alive and keep them from getting lost in translation?

- Read, not what you're told to read or what you're given, but read anything that's available.

I've been doing my column for 40 years, and I always put a historical note in there.

There are so many new sources.

The internet has provided us with the keys to our freedom if we take advantage of it.

But there is a direct correlation between our lack of knowledge and this conspiracy in essence.

The fact that Milwaukee has the worst reading rates for Black students in 4th and 8th grade in United States of America speaks volumes.

I'd go so far as to suggest that there is a conspiracy afoot to keep us ignorant and make us even fearful of the printed word.

It has destroyed the whole public school system.

We have lost two generations.

And the fact that the system refuses to change it to follow, say, even in the footsteps of Mississippi, which went from last place to the middle of the pack by integrating a cohesive, comprehensive reading program directly aimed at those who were not efficient in reading, we don't follow that model speaks volume.

- So let me ask you this.

As a member of the media, how do we make sure that our, the stories of African Americans continue to be told accurately and are reflective of us?

- It is important, it's crucial that we begin to put the Black media, the Black press on the pedestal.

I listen to radio programs on Black radio today, and they're reading the "Journal Sentinel".

And I'm not saying that that's a bad vehicle, but what I'm saying is they are not providing the truth or they're not providing our side of the story.

Went in a radio station to do a day-long program on the Emancipation Proclamation, and the sub-title was "The Day the Great Emancipator Freed the Slaves."

That was not what happened.

He only freed some of the slaves.

Tell the whole story.

You only find the whole story in the Black media.

But unfortunately, we're dying out.

We're dying out in part because they're not teaching our children to read.

- Yeah, I guess the key to this is reading is important.

Hey, Mikel, thanks for joining us.

This is a great conversation.

We will continue this talk.

Thank you.

- Have a good one.

(teen groans) - Did I get you?

- No, I'm kidding.

- Did I get you good?

- No.

- You ain't bleeding, I didn't get you good.

(soft uplifting music) - [Uzezi] Perception is key.

That was the message behind the 500 Black Tuxedo event held on January 14th.

It's about changing and taking back your community.

But first up to doing that is liking what you see in the mirror.

The day started at North Division High School.

The young men received haircuts, got dressed, and heard from some of the many mentors who attended that day.

This was the fifth Tuxedo Walk held by Andre Lee Ellis.

This one's sponsored by the Community Agricultural Growing Experiences, CAGE.

This was a day for more than just looking sharp.

It was a call to change the way the world sees young Black men.

- I cried the whole program, from the time the program started, to the end.

Even when I was talking and making a few humorous remarks, I was crying tears of joy because they couldn't say that 250 little Black boys in the street in a fast car robbing anybody and doing anything negative.

They were with men, and men were helping teaching them and share with them ways of being better, how to take their life to another level.

- [Ajamou] When a Black man can see himself as his higher self, when he can see himself cleaned up and dignified, it definitely makes him want for his brother what he wants for himself.

When I see them young cats taking those pictures in suits, it's because they wanna capture that moment because of how they feel.

For these young brothers who've never seen other Black men in this type of mannerism, it does something to their psyche.

It does something to them emotionally, it does something to them mentally.

- [Uzezi] The long day ended with a dinner and awards at the Italian Community Center.

The day was long, the overall message was not lost on the young men.

- [Montreal] Today was a really special day for me because there was a million places I could've been, and I chose to show that I'm not the stereotype.

And it meant a lot to me to see that there are a lot of other people just like me that choose to do the same thing.

- [Kendall] Being a man means being like, dressing well, caring for our community, and treating each other with kindness.

- [Uzezi] When you wear a suit, does it make it easier for you to do all that?

- [Kendall] Yeah, it makes me feel more happier and more kinder.

When I wear a suit, it makes me feel more boost up for my energies.

- [Uzezi] The tuxedos were sponsored by the men from the community who also served as mentors for the young men in attendance.

- [Andre] Once I had 100 young men in the garden, and I asked the question, how many of you don't know your dad?

And 90 of them raised their hand.

How many of you know your dad, but still don't have a relationship with him?

Five more raised their hand.

Out of 100 little Black boys who got to that garden by 8:00 and were eager to work for four hours to make $20, only five of them knew their dad and possibly didn't.

That's when I told them, I don't have to be your birth dad.

I can be your earth dad.

And from there on, I became pops.

And so the reason and purpose of this is to let them know, before you get angry, seek out somebody else wise and wisdom and somebody that can bring you down a little bit back from that before you make the mistake that could ruin the rest of your life.

- Those young men, who live in the neighborhoods that I grew up in, the most challenged neighborhoods across the city of Milwaukee, they have the opportunity to get mentored by some of the most esteemed Black men in this community.

I'm talking about doctors and lawyers and politicians, from the county executive, to myself, to entrepreneurs, folks across the spectrum.

What's happening here is a recipe for their future success.

They may not even know that right now, but that's exactly what's happening.

And men in Milwaukee, Black men in Milwaukee, they're pouring that into those kids right now.

- Taller in the back, smaller in the front!

- [Uzezi] Despite the frigid weather, it was important to the group that they capture the memory of this year's event by having a picture taking outside the Milwaukee County Court House.

- [Ajamou] There is a significance of a man of color going down to that environment in a suit and not the orange suit.

And so when Andre Lee Ellis put that call out, that was the understood assignment.

We going down here to take this picture to represent each of these souls out here being outside of the building, and not inside of the building.

Because when we down there, it's for child support.

But today I saw men loving on their sons today, right?

When we down there, it's because we in handcuffs.

Today I saw brothers in tuxedo and jewelry on.

- The mental impression that's left on our young people today will continue to burn and leave a place in their frontal lobe they will never forget because they see something that they can actually achieve while being amongst men that have already laid the bricks to get where they need to be.

- I remember the first time that he held.

It was just 100 of us out here.

And to see that we are continuously growing is something that's near and dear to my heart because I grew up in these streets.

And it is because of my experiences I govern the way that I do.

But I'm also in this position to give back to the same community that saved my life.

So I want you young people to know that I am here with you just like every other man that is standing next to you right now.

So let's continue to lean on one another.

Let's continue to learn from one another.

But more importantly, let's continue to have faith in one another.

(audience applauds) - Before we close tonight, I'd like to remind you of two PBS specials this month, Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman in "The Magic of Spirituals," and "Black Broadway: A Proud History."

And of course, "Fight the Power," the rise of hip hop continues.

Remember to check us out on social media for these and other programs and activities you do not wanna miss.

For "Black Nouveau," I'm Earl Arms.

Have a happy Black History Month.

(low upbeat music)