12/23/15
Dear artists, vendors, educators, businesspersons:
We are requesting your attendance at a community meeting to discuss plans for the renaming of the 14th Street corridor, downtown Oakland. The meeting will be held on Sunday, Jan. 3, 3-5pm, at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 14th and Franklin, Oakland. In preparation of a planning meeting with the City of Oakland on Monday, Jan. 4, 2:30pm, we want to discuss the proposed name: Black Arts Movement Cultural and Economic District. We want to honor the Black Arts Movement, the most radical artistic and literary movement in American history. BAM was the artistic sister of the Black Power Movement. The Black Arts Movement gave rise to Black Studies, Asian Studies, La Raza Studies, Native American Studies, Gender Studies, et al. Oakland played a critical role as a group of artistic freedom fighters. We think of such persons as Ruth Beckford, Adam David Miller, Emory Douglas, Halifu Osumare, Sarah Webster Fabio, Avotcja, Marvin X, et al. See the book Black Artists in Oakland, ed. by Duane Diterville. See also The Black Arts Movement by James Smethurst, UMASS Press; also SOS: Calling all Black People, A Black Arts Movement Reader, edited by Sonia Sanchez, James Smethurst and John Bracey, UMASS Press.
We hope to see you at the community meeting, Sunday, January 3, 3pm, and the City of Oakland planning meeting on Monday, January 4, 2:30. The City of Oakland planning meeting will be hosted by Lynette McElhaney, President of the Oakland City Council. If you can't make both meetings, come to one, if you can.
For more information, please contact me at jmarvinx@yahoo.com. Call 510-200-4164.
Sincerely,
Marvin X, BAM Planner
Tentative Agenda for community meeting, Sunday, Jan 3, 3pm at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 14th and Franklin
We will only have time to deal with priority items on this list. Come with ideas. Think for the next fifty to one hundred years! We will deal with agenda items in future meetings.
Social
Musical interlude
Welcome
Prayer Libation
*Overview of BAM District Plan
*Name: Black Arts Movement Cultural and Economic District
Establish the BAM District Development Corporation
***Mental Health Peer Group meetings (required)
*Planning team
*Business Plan
*Banners
*Vendors
*Budget for BAM District planners
Grants
Self Sufficiency or Do for Self
Land trust
Life estate for housing
Art space
Housing for artists, workers, homeless, persons with mental and physical disabilities
District tour
David Blackwell Institute of Art, Math, Science and Technology
BAM Union of Artists
Elder Council
Men's Council
Women's Council
Young Adult Council
Children's Council
Acquiring properties along corridor
Silicon Valley grants for STEM education, e.g., Blackwell Institute, and to offset gentrification and secure space for North American Africans as part of Oakland Downtown Plan
Timeline
Next Meeting: Monday, January 4, 2:30pm, Oakland City Hall
We propose the BAM District include the Dr. David Blackwell Institute of Art, Math, Science and Technology
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David Blackwell
Born: April 24, 1919; place: Centralia, Illinois
AB (1938) University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; AM (1939) University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
Ph.D. (1941) Statistics, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign thesis: Some Properties of Mark off Chains; Advisor: Joseph L. Doob
Professor Emeritas of Statistics, University of California at Berkeley
Research Interests: Mathematics
university URL: http://stat-www.berkeley.edu/users/davidbl/; email: none
David Blackwell is, to mathematicians, the most famous, perhaps greatest, African Amercan Mathematician. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics in 1938, Master of Arts in Mathematics in 1939, and his Ph.D. in 1941 (at the age of 22), all from the University of Illinois.
He is the seventh African American to receive a Ph.D. in Mathematics. He is the first and only African American to be any one of: a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a President of the American Statistical Society, and a Vice President of the America Mathematics Society.
