We are excited to welcome you to the inaugural edition of Liberated, a publication by the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at CSUN. The month of February is significant to us because it is dedicated to the acknowledgement of stalwart contributors to Black history. Therefore, we found it most fitting to launch Liberated, as part of our Black History Month celebrations.
Our goal for this monthly publication, is to keep you informed about significant developments in our archive. We want to make sure that you are updated about upcoming events, special features and relevant news stories.
As you are aware, our collection houses more than one million images from Los Angeles-based photographers. If this is news to you – well, that is why we have created this medium- to keep you informed. We are also excited to share with you, images from our Border Studies Collection and oral histories from some of the most influential leaders in history.
We know you will enjoy our publication, so please also share it with your colleagues so they too may experience being Liberated!
Black History Month Event:
Jamaica y Tamarindo: Afro-Tradition in the Heart of Mexico
On February 5, we screened the documentary film, Jamaica y Tamarindo: Afro-Tradition in the Heart of Mexico and hosted a panel discussion on Afro-Mexicans. The short film by the Blaxican filmmaker Ebony Bailey highlights Afro-Mexicans from Costa Chica, a region along the south coast in Guerrero, Mexico. Almost 200 people registered for the virtual event, titled Afro-Tradition, Environmental Racism, and Black Place-Making in Mexico. The screening was followed by a Q&A with Bailey and a panel discussion. Among the panelists were, historian Jayson Maurice Porter (“Environmental Racism, Gender, and Black Place-Making in Mexico's Costa Chica) and anthropologist Meztli Yoalli Rodríguez. The recorded panel discussion is available on the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center’s YouTube channel. You may click here to watch the discussion. If you have an account with the Los Angeles Public Library, you may have access to watch the film on Kanopy.
Click here to watch the panel discussion:
Black History Month Event:
Confronting a Pandemic Within a Pandemic: 2020 BLM Protests in LA:
Confronting a Pandemic Within a Pandemic: 2020 BLM Protests in LA: The year 2020 gave birth to unparalleled experiences. It will be remembered as a disruptive year; one in which the historic footprints are marred by bloodstains and indignation, a pandemic, and pandemonium.
Our resident historian, Sherwin Rice, dedicated countless hours to documenting the imagery associated with the echoes of “I can’t breathe,” as advocates for the oppressed marched through the streets of Los Angeles.
Rice’s 10-year-old granddaughter, Taylor Walker, immersed in the life-changing experience, is among the photographers whose work is now on display as part of a digital exhibition. Confronting a Pandemic Within a Pandemic: 2020 BLM Protests in LA, is curated by Sherwin Rice and Claire Gordon. It is published by the University Library at California State University Northridge.
We invite you to click here to see the digital exhibition.
Black History Month Event:
Dr. Cornell West, the highly sought-after philosopher, activist, and social critic, will be our featured speaker at a lecture and panel discussion on Friday, February 26 at 3 p.m. Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. He is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris. Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has written 20 books and has edited 13. The special Black History Month event is co-sponsored by the University Student Union, the University Counseling Services, the Department of Africana Studies, the University Library, and the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center. You may register for his lecture here.
New Podcast: Emancipated
Our new podcast, Emancipated: Voices and Images from the Archive, starts with the series Toña’s Crossing the River and Other Stories of Fight and Resistance from El Salvador. It is produced and hosted by our archival researcher Marta Valier, using oral histories with people who lived in El Salvador during the Liberation War (1980–1992). In the first chapter, we hear from Linda Garett and Toña Rios. Garrett, a policy analyst for Democracy in the Americas, lived in El Salvador in the 1980s and 1990s documenting different aspects of human rights for El Rescate, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization that provides immigration legal services, and for the United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador. This episode features Rios’s journey of her forced displacement in 1980 from her home in the city of Santa Ana into Guatemala, Mexico, and then the US, where she now works as a pastor at Baldwin Park United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. Her story illustrates the impact of the Salvadoran civil war on her and her family’s members, some of whom have been killed and others displaced. The 1970s brought to El Salvador increasing government repression, including the creation of government-organized death squads to combat opposition movements and in 1980 a series of failed military juntas took power. By 1981, leftist guerrillas and political groups joined forces, forming the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, the FMLN. Then, throughout the 1980s, a civil war was waged between the FMLN and the U.S.-backed Salvadoran military forces.
Click the button to listen to the podcast.
Bradley Center Updates
Welcome to Ada Trillo
As part of our efforts to connect with new and talented independent photographers working on areas of interest to the Center, photographer Ada Trillo agreed to become a Bradley Center Affiliate Photographer. Trillo, a Philadelphia-based photographer, is native to the Juarez-El Paso binational metroplex. In her work, she focuses on borders of inclusion and exclusion as they are experienced through people in forced prostitution; climate and violence-related international migration; and US exclusions, resulting from long-standing borders of race and class. Through the elements of documentary and fine art photography, Trillo’s goal is to bring attention to the impact that these borders have on exploited and marginalized people and amplify their voices. She utilizes photography as a platform to document our times by capturing both our most joyous and painful moments. This art has the power to lay bare our common humanity and dignity. We are showcasing some of her photos here. You may also visit click this link to visit her website.
Images of the Month
Baseball star and record-breaker Hank Aaron passed away last January 22. Aaron was born on February 5, 1934. The Tom & Ethel Bradley Center’s images of Aaron in Los Angeles include photos by photographers Guy Crowder and Harry Adams.
Hollywood legend Cicely Tyson passed away last January 28. The Bradley Center has a series of photographs of Tyson at the NAACP Image Awards in 1981. The images were taken by photographer Guy Crowder.
Mary Wilson (1944-2021), a founding member of The Supremes, passed away last February 8. Photographer Guy Crowder took several photos of Wilson at her birthday party in Los Angeles in 1985. These images are included in our collection at the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center.