National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA)

02/23/2021

We loved ‘The Nutcracker.’ We rejoiced at ‘Black Nativity’ - The Boston Globe

Thank you Kirsten Greenidge and The Boston Globe for the your thoughtful #BlackNativity article. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/18/magazine/we-loved-nutcracker-we-rejoiced-black-nativity/?event=event25&fbclid=IwAR3j9d4erFMjc-HxnYFCwqCV2MezJcFeONXLiuAcfx7M-UsiKkH04CbcTQk

While I understood all spaces should be open to all, this specific space was created to expand a sense of belonging to more, writes playwright Kirsten Greenidge.

12/30/2020

#ThankYou Black Fine Arts Auction Still Available Until Dec. 30th https://one.bidpal.net/blacknativity50/browse/all

12/29/2020

Black Nativity Boston

Thank you for supporting Black Nativity: 50 Years of Triumph and Transitions! Our Black Fine Arts Auction still has items you may bid on. Don't miss out, the auction closes on December 30, visit bidpal.net/blacknativity50

12/21/2020

Black Nativity Boston

Fine Arts and Cultural Auction, bidding now open through Wednesday, December 30th. Note:
• Items that have received a bid by 11:59 p.m. on 12/23 will close on 12/23 at 11:59 p.m.
• Items that have not received a bid by 11:59 p.m. will remain open until 12/30 at 11:59 p.m.

To see art works beautifully made by African and African American artists and place your bid visit https://one.bidpal.net/blacknativity50/welcome.

12/21/2020

Black Nativity Boston

The Black Nativity 50th Celebration was a great success. The Fine Arts and Cultural Auction, part of this celebration, continues until Dec. 23. To see art works beautifully made by African and African American artists and place your bid visit https://one.bidpal.net/blacknativity50/welcome.

12/10/2020

BNN News

Thank you Boston Neighborhood Network and #ChrisLovett for your support of Black Nativity Boston

Tonight's segment with Edmund Barry Gaither of National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA) about this year's virtual performance of Black Nativity Boston--and celebration of its 50 years of being performed in Boston.

12/03/2020

Black Nativity Boston

Black Nativity Boston

While we're sad we cannot celebrate the holidays with you in person, we hope you'll join us online for a special 50th Anniversary Gala on Dec. 12. The evening will include the premiere of "Black Nativity: 50 Years of Triumph and Transition," honoring Black Nativity's history and legacy in Boston for the last half century. Tickets on sale now! blacknativity50.org

12/01/2020

Black Nativity Boston

Black Nativity, a cherished fifty-year tradition in Boston, is again offered as a Christmas gift from the City's Black community to all people of "good will." Traditionally produced by the National Center of Afro-American Artists as live performances with a cast of more than 75, the show never failed to lift hearts and spirits at Christmas time. This year, due to COVID-19, the NCAAA has reimagined our 50th season. We invite you to join us on December 12, 2020 for a virtual gala reception and auction featuring the premier screening of Black Nativity: 50 Years of Triumph and Transition, a video remembrance in lieu of its traditional live performances. You will gain fresh insights on legendary arts visionaries Elma Lewis and John Andrew Ross and meet the personalities behind our present production. To learn more and purchase tickets to the gala reception and Black Nativity: 50 Years of Triumph and Transition, please visit https://www.blacknativity50.org. Your contribution will help us continue the legacy of changing perceptions and transforming lives through live performances.

11/27/2020

Black Nativity Boston

Black Nativity Celebrates 50 Years in 2020! Join us for a special virtual Gala Reception and Auction on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 6:00pm. The evening will feature the premiere screening of "Black Nativity: 50 Years of Triumph and Transition," a digital remembrance celebrating the rich history of Black Nativity in Boston. Tickets will become available in the coming days. For more info, please email [email protected].

11/27/2020

09/02/2020

An Appeal to Friends of the NCAAA - NCAAA

All of us at the National Center of Afro-American Artists hope that you and your family are managing well during the current coronavirus pandemic. We smaller non-profit cultural arts organizations struggle in the best of times, but the current period is particularly challenging for us. With doors closed due to COVID-19, programs are profoundly interrupted as we work to find new formats to serve our community and supporters. [ 250 more words ]
http://ncaaa.org/an-appeal-to-friends-of-the-ncaaa/

Support the NCAAA programs that promote humane and restorative values and sustain diversity within our community of cultural institutions.

07/13/2020

Weighing the fate of our most problematic public art - The Boston Globe

“Public space has always been a battle terrain especially for those with really progressive points of view. Public space generally reflects the voice and vision of the status quo. And what does that do? You find facile explanations of the relationships between one group and another that are simply false to human experience.” - Barry Gaither, Executive Director and Curator, NCAAA.

Read Barry's other comments in the Boston Globe article here >

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/10/arts/weighing-best-options-disposing-or-adapting-old-monuments/

Perhaps the United States should take its cues from India, where British monuments are left to crumble in a park.

06/19/2020

Boston Juneteenth Committee

Boston Juneteenth Committee

#juneteenth #boston #history #ncaaa #emancipation

06/19/2020

10th Juneteenth Emancipation Observance - NCAAA

Boston Juneteenth Committee celebration Friday, June 19, 2020
http://ncaaa.org/10th-juneteenth-emancipation-observance/

Boston Juneteenth Committee celebration Friday, June 19, 2020

06/19/2020

Boston Juneteenth Committee

Boston Juneteenth Committee

#juneteenth #boston #history #ncaaa #emancipation

06/18/2020

National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA)'s cover photo

06/18/2020

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

A note from the director: On the will to be free

When Meta Warrick Vaux Fuller (1877-1968) completed Spirit of Emancipation in 1913 in observance of the fifty anniversary of the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, she offered a bold but cautious vision for black Americans. She visualized women and men who would stride forth in the world exercising their own power and guided by their own agendas. They would not expect others to give them anything, especially not for President Abraham Lincoln to give them freedom. Rather, by their actions and the power of their own volition, they would shape their tomorrows. Even as Fuller expressed these ideas in bronze, she knew there would be those who would strive to stifle black progress and to retard black advancement on every front. She symbolized those racist forces as vestigial limbs that stretched over the emerging freedwoman and freedman threating to pull them back into the darkness. Despite the threat, her freedwoman and freedman escape the violent grip of reactionary forces and strive toward fully realizing themselves—both singly and as a couple. Conceptually, her figures become the parents of successive generations of African Americans who refuse to be quieted and robbed of their potential. The youth in the streets protesting today are their great grand children that have been endowed with the will to resist and the boldness to force change now. These youth demand respect for their humanity and are unafraid of confrontation, because the terms of their survival have demanded surviving violence—especially state violence. I cannot look at Trayvon Martin or Sandra Bland without seeing generations of strong but ordinary black families that have sustained African American communities in cities and rural hamlets across the United States. Their flame of resistance can no longer be quelled by violence and suppression, because at last their fellow Americans have realized that the denial of freedom and agency to black Americans is ultimately the denial of freedom and agency to all Americans. The Spirit of Emancipation must speak to all of us-black, Latino, Asian, white, LGBTQ—if our nation is to become whole and just.

Edmund Barry Gaither
Executive Director
Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists

06/14/2020

The Boston Juneteenth Committee and the National Center of Afro-American Artists present the 10th Annual Juneteenth Emancipation Observance featuring an address by
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on June 19, 2020 as a virtual gathering. Watch the Juneteenth Observance on Friday, June 19, at 1:00 and 8:00pm on BBN Television, (COMCAST 23), RCN 83, and VERIZON 1960. You may also sign up for tickets via Eventbrite to receive information on links to the online virtual viewing locations of the Boston Juneteenth 2020 Emancipation Observance, BOSTONJUNETEENTH2020.EVENTBRITE.COM

06/12/2020

National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA)'s cover photo

06/12/2020

A note from the director: Deferred No More

Disregard for black lives cannot stand blocking the way to a new day. That is the lesson each day teaches us as we watch daily protests in the streets. We are harvesting the accumulated anger and disappointment that has festered in black America since its inception. Black men and women fought in the American revolution on both sides seduced by promises of freedom. They fought in the War of 1812 and for the Union in the Civil War. The latter seemed certain to fulfill guarantees of Emancipation and full civic and social participation, especially with the commencement of Reconstruction. Yet what followed was dehumanization, racial discrimination, Jim Crow, social and economic oppression. Black people sought freedom and opportunity everywhere, even by massive migrations, but alas, it could not be reliably found anywhere. Where freedom and opportunity should have been, there was only rejection and violence. Two World wars and a Civil Rights Movement later, it remained clear that black lives did not matter. But now a new generation has come, and it will not accept hopeless, nor will it submit to violence. Full freedom and dignity are now the agenda. Less cannot buy quiet and peace.

In this moment, new hope for change is manifested as the streets fill with young black people and their allies—Asian, Latino, Native American, LGBTQ and white. The alliance now holds more promise than at any time since our nation was born. I hope we have come to the place for which Langston Hughes appealed when he wrote “let America be America to me.” No longer can the dream be deferred.

Edmund Barry Gaither
Executive Director
National Center of Afro-American Artists

02/07/2020

National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA)'s cover photo

12/28/2019

Thank you for your support during 2019

12/19/2019

12/05/2019

#SeeBlackNativity Dec. 6 - 22, 2019 http://blacknativity.org/

09/11/2019

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

09/11/2019

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

07/12/2019

6th Annual Putting Your Touch on Greatness Day - NCAAA

6th Annual Putting Your Touch on Greatness Day - NCAAA

Community ritual washing and polishing of John Wilson’s Eternal Presence

06/19/2019

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

Join Us Today for our Juneteenth Celebration!
http://ncaaa.org/ncaaa-calendar/

05/15/2019

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

Join Us for the 9th Annual Juneteenth Emancipation Observance. Wednesday June 19 at 4pm

04/19/2019

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

#Pleased and #Thankful

http://ncaaa.org/abbotsford-wins-major-grant/

04/07/2019

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc.

02/06/2019

Developers vow April groundbreaking for long delayed development on Tremont Street in Roxbury

Thank you for your support of this important project and the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc. - https://www.universalhub.com/2019/developers-vow-april-groundbreaking-long-delayed

The developers who own the rights to several acres of what have become urban wilds on Tremont Street across from the Boston Police headquarters say they're so close to closing the financing they need for a $473-million multi-use complex that they've scheduled groundbreaking for April. Read more.

12/25/2018

Black Nativity Boston

Happy Holidays from all the cast and crew of Black Nativity! #blacknativityboston #happyholidays

12/06/2018

Ring In The Season With A Unique Spin on The Christmas Story - Exhale

Thank you Exhale Lifestyle!
https://www.exhalelifestyle.com/ring-in-the-season-with-a-unique-spin-on-the-christmas-story/

Edmond Barry Gaither speaks passionately about a stunning local production that has been a harbinger of the Christmas season for the past 47 consecutive years. This year marks its 48th. And, yet, many local families have never before been to see a performance. The show? Langston Hughes’ gospel pla...

11/22/2018

Black Nativity Boston

Like Us at Black Nativity Boston

Black Nativity is retelling of the Christmas story set to a jubilant score of gospel music, dance and narrative. Originally written by Langston Hughes. Black Nativity is a program of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc. @NCAAABoston