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Richard Wright and the Chicago Black Renaissance (Sept 4)
September 4 is Richard Wright’s birthday! Join Inlandia and Blacklandia at Riverside Main Library for a First Thursdays Artswalk celebration of Wright, author of Native Son and a key creative in the Chicago Black Renaissance of the 1930s and 1940s. Visit the lives and works of other renaissance writers, artists, and musicians through readings, film clips, interactive prompts, and a Q&A. The program will feature Romaine Washington, Ginger Galloway, and Richard Allen May III.
Riverside Main Library Community Room is located at 3900 Mission Inn Ave, in Riverside. 6:00-7:30 PM. Refreshments will be served. FREE. All are welcome.
The Chicago Black Renaissance was a time of artistic, literary, and musical creativity in Chicago’s African American community, especially the South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville. The era was heavily influenced by the Great Migration and it fostered racial pride and activism. Key figures such as Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, and Gordon Parks emerged during the Chicago Black Renaissance.
Romaine Washington, M. Ed., is a twice Pushcart-nominated poet. She is the editor of These Black Bodies Are… A Blacklandia Anthology and returning guest editor for Cholla Needles. She has authored two books Purgatory Has an Address and Sirens in Her Belly. Ms. Washington is a graduate fellow of The Watering Hole, South Carolina, and the Inland Area Writing Project at the University of California, Riverside. For over twenty years, she taught language arts and now enjoys facilitating workshops. The proud mother of two sons, Romaine Washington, is a native Californian residing in the Inland Empire.
Ginger M. Galloway is an educator, writer and artist. She earned her BA in Human Development from Azusa Pacific University and has published several books of poetry, two novellas, and picture storybooks. Ginger is co-founder of Wild Seed Poetry and Arts Collective and is on the steering committee for Blacklandia. Ginger is currently working on a new children’s book. She lives in the Inland Empire with her husband and children.
Originally from Chicago, Richard Allen May III is an educator, artist, writer, and scholar based in Southern California’s Inland Empire. His exhibition reviews were published in the Los Angeles-based arts magazine, Artillery, for over eight years. He teaches Writing courses at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena and Art Writing at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). He is also an instructor of African Arts Heritage at California State University, San Bernardino, and a lecturer for the Department of African American Studies at CSUF.
May served as an editor and wrote the foreword to the book, AFRICOBRA: Experimental Art Toward a School of Thought (2020, Duke University Press) authored by founding member Wadsworth A. Jarrell. May teaches Art History for Bowie State University, an HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) in Maryland. May’s most recent solo art exhibition was at UCR Arts. At Chaffey College, May serves as Faculty Coordinator for the A2Mend Program. The African American Male Education Network and Development (A²MEND) provides support, guidance, curriculum, professional development, and networking opportunities for students.
This activity is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov.
