Programs Malcolm X Expanded - Exploring His Legacy at the Intersections of Black Art and the Built Environment

Mapping Malcolm: A Centennial Series

Join us on Friday, February 28th at 6:30 PM for the exciting launch of Mapping Malcolm: A Centennial Series, curated by Najha Zigbi-Johnson. This engaging, three-part public series will dive deep into Malcolm X’s lasting influence, examining his impact not only on the Harlem community but also on the broader landscape of New York City and beyond.

In our first program, Malcolm X Expanded: Exploring His Legacy at the Intersections of Black Art and the Built Environment, we’ll bring together organizer Lumumba Bandele, architect Sara Zewde, and Jerald Cooper, the founder of Hood MidCentury Modern, to discuss how Malcolm X’s legacy continues to resonate in the worlds of architecture, urban planning, and Black artistic expression. The conversation led by Najha Zigbi-Johnson will be an evening of powerful dialogue and insight, where we explore how history, art, and space intersect to shape our communities today. The program will be followed by a soulful DJ set by Tara, blending music and history to close out the evening.

 About Mapping Malcolm:

“For Harlem is where he worked and where he struggled and fought―his home of homes, where his heart was, and where his people are.” Nearly sixty years since the martyrdom of Malcolm X, these words from Ossie Davis’s eulogy remind us that Malcolm’s political and religious beliefs and conceptions of culture have profoundly shaped and been shaped by Harlem. Mapping Malcolm continues the project of reinscribing Malcolm X’s memory and legacy in the present by exploring his commitment to community building and his articulation of a global power analysis as it continues to manifest across New York City today. More specifically, the book explores the limits and possibilities of the archive, the political, material, and philosophical legacy of the Black radical tradition, the Black diaspora, and the state. Oriented toward sovereignty and liberation, Mapping Malcolm brings together artists, community organizers, and scholars to consider the politics of Black space-making in Harlem through a range of historical, cultural, and anti-imperialist worldviews designed to offer new, reparatory pedagogical possibilities. Together, they reconfigure how we understand, employ, and carry forward Malcolm X’s sociopolitical, cross-cultural analyses of justice and power as an everyday praxis in the built environment and beyond.

Panelists:

Najha Zigbi-Johnson

Najha Zigbi-Johnson is writer, educator, and cultural curator. Her Harlem-based practice sits at intersections of the built environment, contemporary Black art, and social movement history. She is the editor of Mapping Malcolm, a publication that brings together artists, transnational community leaders, and scholars who explore the politics of Black space-making across Harlem and the diasporic world. Najha teaches political science and architecture at The City College of New York, and has written for The Cut, New York Magazine, Essence, Artforum, SEEN Journal, and more.

Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele

Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele is a father, husband, educator and organizer based in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. He is the Director of Community Organizing and Advocacy at the Alliance of Families for Justice. Lumumba briefly served as the director of Strategic Partnerships with Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) in 2020 and from 2011 to 2020 he served as the Director of Community Organizing at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. As a member and organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Mr. Akinwole-Bandele helped establish its campaign to counter police abuse and misconduct. He also co-founded the world-renowned Black August Hip Hop Project. Black August raises awareness and support for political prisoners in the United States. Lumumba currently serves as an adjunct lecturer teaching Community Organizing at CUNY School of Professional Studies and he serves as board member for the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute.

Sara Zewde

Sara Zewde is founding principal of Studio Zewde, a design firm practicing landscape architecture, urbanism, and public art. Named to Time Magazine’s TIME 100 Next, Architectural Digest's AD100, and *Wallpaper’s 300 People Shaping Creative America, her practice is celebrated for its design methods that sync culture, ecology, and craft. In parallel to her design practice, Sara serves as Assistant Professor of Practice at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and is currently writing a book on her research retracing Frederick Law Olmsted's journeys through the Slave South. Sara holds a master’s of landscape architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, a master’s of city planning from MIT, and a BA in sociology and statistics from Boston University.

DJ Tara

Tara spins a collage of soulful sounds that captures an eclectic vibe. Her sets acknowledge the past while looking to the future and celebrating the now. In addition to performing at venues throughout New York City, Tara has two mix shows:  misc. on The Lot Radio in Brooklyn and UpBeat on Soho Radio in London, blending music that is both new and old, familiar and unknown, across eras, genres, and continents.