Ráday Salon

Autumn 2014 -- Yes, we're really back!

Greetings, Salon friends, old and new!

After several complicated years when we weren't able to keep up our regular Salon schedule -- or even update our blog very much -- the Ráday Salon is finally about to resume our regular activities. We did host a few events in 2013 and 2014, and you'll be able to see information and links about these on this blog (below this post) very soon. 

In the meantime, we want to make sure our friends will be able to get all the most up-to-date information about our current activities.  To get all the updates, we encourage you to "Like" our brand new page on Facebook (for technical reasons, this is different from our earlier page), and to join our mailing list if you want to receive our event invitiations by e-mail.

Stay tuned for our next event, coming soon in October!

Video: "Left of Black" (seas. 2, ep. 26) featuring Michael and Aishah

 

The first segment (approx. 25 mins) of this week's episode of Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal's weekly webcast Left of Black features Michael and his daughter Aishah Shahidah Simmons discussing their work to end violence against women around the world. They also discuss the role that Michael played in Aishah's coming out process, and the importance of parental support at such a pivotal moment. 

The second part of the episode features an interview with Prof. Meta DuEwa Jones discussing the legacy of jazz poetry. 

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If you've come to our blog by following a link from Left of Black, welcome! We encourage you to browse the blog to learn more about the events and activities of Ráday Salon and its founders, Michael Simmons and Linda Carranza.

Follow Ráday Salon on Facebook for more updates and commentary.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons can also be found on Twitter (@AfroLez) and on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/AfroLezCulturalWorker).

Michael and Aishah discuss violence against women on "Left of Black"

During our recent visit to North Carolina for Aishah Shahidah Simmons' Founder's Lecture at the Duke University Women's Center, Michael and Aishah were also interviewed by Prof. Mark Anthony Neal for his weekly webcast, Left of Black, airing Monday, April 2nd. 

We'll post the link to the video when it's available. Until then, here's a still photo from the moments right before the taping began:

Michael, Aishah, and Prof. Mark Anthony Neal preparing to tape an episode of Left of Black.

 

Snow Hill Institute -- Snow Hill, Alabama

As our lengthy sojourn in the United States extends into 2012, we continue to want to share our experiences here with our Salon friends around the world.  Our latest adventure has been a week-long road trip through the American South, including visits with family and friends as well as a day at Duke University, where we attended two events featuring Aishah Shahidah Simmons, who had been invited by the Duke University Women's Center to give a lunch-time talk as well as this year's Founder's Lecture.  Aishah's powerful, moving lecture forcefully challenged the many intersections of race, gender, and sexuality with politics and power in the US, and we very much hope that we will be able to share audio of the talk with you soon.

The most recent highlight of our trip was a visit to the Snow Hill Institute in Snow Hill, Alabama.  The Snow Hill Institute was established by William J. Edwards in 1893 to educate young African Americans in the rural Snow Hill area, most of whom came from poor tenant-farming families and, without the Snow Hill Institute, would have little opportunity for schooling.  Donald P. Stone, grandson of the Institute's founder, is a life-long friend of Michael's and was a fellow activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the civil rights movement.  During our visit, Stone shared much about the history of the Institute, the mission and vision of those who established and supported it, as well as the history and work of his family members and the community that grew up around the Institute.

 

Donald P. Stone (left) discussing the history of the Snow Hill Institute with Michael Simmons.  The Institute's main building can be seen in the background.

There is a great deal of restoration and documentary work to be done to preserve the history of the Institute, which closed in 1973.  Some of the history is captured in two books published by Donald Stone. The first is his own, Fallen Prince: William James Edwards, Black Education, and the Guest for Afro-American Nationality, and the second is a replica edition of a volume authored by founder William J. Edwards, Twenty-five years in the Black Belt. We expect to write more about Snow Hill and post more of the many photos we took during our visit in the coming days.

Michael on "Social Movements, Past and Present"

Here's a couple photos from an event at Wooden Shoe Books in Philly, where Michael joined James Tracy, Andrea Walls, Dan Berger and Suzy Subways on a panel discussion on Social Movements, Past and Present.   

The discussion was informal and loosely structured, and generated a good conversation on effective organizing that is sensitive to community needs.

Slutwalk Philadelphia

On August 6, Michael and Linda joined Aishah Shahidah Simmons at the Philadelphia Slutwalk march and rally.  "Slutwalk" is the name taken by a movement that began in Toronto, Canada, in April 2011, sparked by comments made by a Toronto constable in a crime prevention class that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."  In response, a group of women organized the protest to challenge the notion that women's dress or behavior is the "cause" of sexual assault -- a victim-blaming mentality which the constable's comments demonstrate stubbornly persists today. 

While many women who participated have struggled with the notion of marching under a banner that elevates a weighted word like "slut", the Slutwalk phenomenon gained supporters around the world, with walks occuring in cities from Kuala Lumpur, Rio, Mexico City, London, and Delhi. 

In advance of the Philadelphia Slutwalk, Aishah participated in a discussion on the National Public Radio show Radio Times, which can be heard online:  'Slut Walk': Feminists Fight Back Against Rape. 

Aishah gave a rousing speech at the rally after the march, which can be read in its entirety on Aishah's Tumblr page: No One Is Free While Others Are Oppressed ~ August 6, 2011 SlutWalk Philadelphia Speech.

Follow Aishah Shahidah Simmons

• on Twitter: @AfroLez
• on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AfroLezCulturalWorker

 

 

 

SNCC book publication and symposium -- Little Rock, Arkansas

From July 9 to 11, 2011, Michael and Linda were in Little Rock, Arkansas to attend a symposium focusing on the civil rights activism of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Arkansas.   The symposium was the official launching event for a new book on SNCC activism in Arkansas, Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas. The book includes a chapter authored by Michael about his experiences in Arkansas, which is where he began his work with SNCC.

Michael addresses the symposium on SNCC in Arkansas

The C-SPAN network filmed most of the symposium, so to see Michael's speech, see the video of the second panel discussion. (The link to the video should take you directly to Michael's segment. If you are viewing the full video of the panel, Michael's segment begins at about 2:35 minutes into the recording, and lasts about 12 minutes.)

In additon to the symposium, we attended a wonderful public commemoration event of the first Freedom Riders bus to arrive in Little Rock, Arkansas, 50 years earlier, to the day, on July 10, 1961.  There is excellent coverage of both the symposium and the anniversary events on a website dedicated to the events at http://www.lrfreedomriders.org/.

About our extended hiatus...

Over the years, our Salon friends have gotten accustomed to our unusual schedule: We'd have several months of regular activity, with brief pauses here and there as went off to work in other countries, traveled to visit family in the States, or simply adjusted to the rhythms of Budapest in summer. These last 12+ months, however, have been quite out of the ordinary.

As many of our friends know by now, family health crises brought both Michael and Linda back to the United States in 2010, without any sense of how long our absence from Budapest might be. While our lives seem to gradually be settling down, the Salon has remained in the background so far. 

We thank all of you for your patience with us, and ask for just a bit more patience while we sort out what the next phase of the Salon will be.  In the meantime, we invite you to browse our website, where you can find information on all our previous programs, including related links, photos, and, in some cases, audio of Salon programs.  

As always, many thanks for your visit, and check back in the future for more from the Ráday Salon!

Celebrating MLK day with Eyes on the Prize

To commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, the "Documentaries and Discussion" series at the Greene Street Friends Meeting in Philadelphia invited Michael to host a screening and discussion of an episode of Eyes on the Prize.  This documentary, the seminal account of the civil rights movement filled with contemporary archival footage and in-depth interviews with numerous activists and participants in the movement, has been a Ráday Salon staple since our inaugural event -- see our Eyes on the Prize category for all our previous posts on the documentary, which include links to more information about the series.

Much of the discussion following the film focused on the work that still needs to be done to fight discrimination in the United States, and on the challenge of continuing to motivate young people to social and political activism today.  For an excellent overview of the event, see the article published by local writer and photographer Jenny Swigoda, Eyes still on the prize in Germantown, on Newsworks.org, a new source of Philadelphia area news produced by the public broadcaster WHYY.

Panel Discussion: Activism in Philadelphia in the 1970s

A long time ago, when the Ráday Salon was just getting started, we had a visit from Dan Berger, friend, activist, and author of Letters from Young Activists. This month, Michael joined Dan in a panel discussion at the Moonstone Arts Center (also formerly known as the Philadelphia institution, Robin's Bookstore) connected with the release of Dan's latest book, The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism.

The panelists discussed the history of activism in Philadelphia, with a particular focus on the 1970s.