2015 is the 25th Anniversary of the Classic Hip-hop album that I produced with X Clan – “To The East Blackwards“.
It is also the 50th Anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” a day when state troopers and the police brutalized a group of peaceful protestors during a march on The Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma Alabama.
X Clan began as a group as messengers of The Blackwatch Movement which was organized in Brooklyn NY after the killings of Black teenagers Yusef Hawkins in in Bensonhurst and Michael Griffith who was struck and killed by a car as he tried to run across the parkway to evade a mob of White teens that chased him and 2 friends after their car broke down in Howard Beach Brooklyn. His friend Cedric Sandiford was also badly beaten with baseball bats and tree limbs. These events led to a series of marches called “A Day Of Outrage” that took over the Brooklyn Bridge and led to clashes with the police at the foot of the bridge.
The parallels between the events that happened 50 years ago in Selma, 25 years ago in Brooklyn and today’s current climate in the wake of #Ferguson and the untimely deaths of Mike Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin (among many others) are stark and very real.
As we look back during these historic milestones of the past, we will discuss how those events relate to the present and help to prepare our youth for the future using the movie Selma as a foundation of the conversation about human rights, civil rights, voting rights and civic duty.
I challenge the Hip-hop community, artists and fans alike, to join me in raising $50,000 to send 5,000 Pittsburgh Area youths to see the movie Selma for free. After which we will hold 2 community conversations, one hosted and facilitated by youths and the other a inter-generational conversation, followed by a essay writing contest for Middle and High School Students.
DONATE HERE: #SelmaForStudentsPGH indiegogo Crowd Funding: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/selma-for-students-pittsburgh/x/2827174
Or: Make Checks payable to: POISE Foundation/B-PEP with “SELMA FOR STUDENTS FUND” in the memo/comment section.
Mail Checks to: B-PEP c/o of Marlene Ramseur, Freedom Unlimited, Inc. 2201 Wylie Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
For More info. please visit our web-site www.selmaforstudentspgh.com
Hip-hop cares about young people!
#SelmaForStudentsPGH
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