September 12, 2005
The Black Dot Collective: New Orleans to Oakland
Ask any Black Oaklander where his "mama anem" are from and chances are you'll hear New Orleans, as well as Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Although this Northern California industrial city by the bay is very urban, at the center of the world's most sophisticated technology hot spot (Silicon Valley) where ideas for companies like Google, e-bay, Pixar and countless others are all within a 40 mile radius of each other, it is also a city where Blackfolk celebrate their simple, Southern roots by keeping bits of New Orleans culture alive. From countless creole restaurants to mardi gras and carnival parades, folks in the bay have been welcoming the Nawlins spirit since the forties, when African Americans migrated here from the South to work in the WWII shipyards in Oakland and Richmond.
The Black Dot's Marcel Diallo
One organization that is doing it's share is the Black Dot Collective. Founded in 1996 by Marcel Diallo, the Black Dot is a nonprofit cultural arts organization committed to community development and cultural sustainability through fostering the living arts such as hip hop, freestyling (or emceeing), independent media, digital media production, filmmaking, dance, visual art, vegetarian cooking and theater.
Black Dot, in collaboration with the EastSide Arts Alliance has co-sponsored the Malcom X Jazz Arts Festival for several years for the East Oakland Community, which has brought such renowned artists as Amiri Baraka, Kahlil El Zabar and The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, and The Last Poets. Black Dot continues to program such events as the Annual Ritual Theater Festival and provide workshops for youth through the Beats, Flows & Videos Program. Black Dot is currently in the process of developing a permanent Ritual Space and Black Dot Cafe in West Oakland.
The Black Dot has been at the vanguard of innovative youth programs and the renaissance of community cultural venues in the Bay Area. The Black Dot Café, established in 1998, provides Bay Area artists, activists, residents, community organizations, children and their families with a space that serves as a resource center, a town hall forum, a classroom, a meeting space, a snack bar and a performance venue.
The Black Dot is currently working to bring New Orleans folks to live and work in West Oakland, which is the Bay Area's oldest continuously Black community.
Learn more about their efforts by tuning into a recent interview with the organization founder and director, Marcel Diallo in our WhachuSEE Special Reports video above. Then BlogOn here to continue the conversation online.
BlogOn: What can Black communities do to create sustainable Black communiites in the wake of gentrification? Will the relocation of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the Gulf Coast create a new welfare state or will Black communities reach out and help each other?
Posted at September 12, 2005 11:44 AM