The Lower Bottom Playaz

I art as a form of resistance, to make the invisible visible, to insist on a better world, to inspire prayer with moving hands to make it so. -WordSlanger "A so...ciety must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven." Baldwin See more

Wilson taught me that we have a duty to life-that duty is encompassed in the instruction-"So Live". Baldwin explains why; his thought informs my passion for tra...gi-comedy as I feel it's the form that most closely captures reality. https://images.app.goo.gl/m3jyzWqacdzpx8pH9 Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

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Us. From Oakland to the world. Alice Street in Canada on 11/20.

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PROJECT TITLE: JANGA’S HOUSE Cultural Practitioner: Ayodele Nzinga Fiscal Sponsor: Lower Bottom Playaz... Project Description: If your story is always told from the outside how can it be your story?Janga’s House will delve into this question along with communal memories of place and narratives of thriving in the post-gentrification sundown town of Oakland. Writer and theater artist Ayodele Nzinga, playwright Cat Brooks, and a cohort of Black women film and stage writers will research and develop a theater piece that explores Black voices unmodulated by the gaze of white supremacy. Through community interviews, participatory research, and healing practices, the project centers Black Aesthetics as central to Oakland’s past, present, and future.

Parents, AAMLO is pleased to recommend the following selections for Story Hour during October 2020. Here are synopses of two stories along with lesson plans tha...t will engage your children. Eloise Greenfield presents the biography of Mary McLeod Bethune, a renowned teacher who in confronted the lack of educational opportunities for blacks during the decades following the Civil War. She started a school that would become Bethune-Cookman University. She addressed the lack medical care for blacks by founding a hospital. A tireless and dedicated Bethune sought solutions to pressing social issues of the day. Download lesson plan for Mary McLeod Bethune / by Eloise Greenfield ; illustrated by Jerry Pinkney https://drive.google.com//1D-LXK_CG3ZJZsirou7tCAXwc3I/view Ilyasah Shabazz tells the story of her father and his parents in Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X. As a boy Malcolm loved butterflies and fishing. But his character was molded by his father, Earl, whose words had the power to move people, and his mother, Louise, who embraced international freedom and equality as a members of the movement led by Marcus Garvey. But his life was also impacted by the brutality of the Ku Klux Klan. Download lesson plan for Malcolm Little : the boy who grew up to become Malcolm X / Ilyasah Shabazz ; illustrated by AG Ford https://drive.google.com//1SQm8OTQstNmt6a1MmzSoDRakJ2/view

Went to clean up around the Beloved: an Insistence altar this afternoon with Queen Rashida! #thankyou Some plants left but alllllll of the resources that we... embedded for the BELOVED were taken...and all the hand sanitizers and masks! And all of the beautiful gifts that community left were also taken! Yasss! This is good! May they be blessed and feel a bit of love nourishment. Ase. Amen. And so it is. #no2childsextrafficking #OAKLAND See more

The Ancestors have spoke, Crown Sango! This is not a spell but a story of Destiny, a story of Transformation, a story of A King. Now available on www.reelhouse.org/393films

Paid youth enrichment opportunity. http://www.baypeace.org/youth-arts-internship.html

Paid youth enrichment opportunity.

We are the wind we travel in. LBP celebrates 21 years of theater making and looks at a bright and creative future. Got Art?

BAMBDFEST 2020 Let's get it! www.bambdfest.com