The 51st annual Harlem Week celebration is ready to happen from August 1–17 with the theme “Have a good time Our Dream.” The collection of occasions will proceed to give attention to unity and the cultural legacy of Harlem throughout a interval of uncertainty in America.
“We thought it was essential to have a look at that theme to encourage, as Harlem Week has all the time executed, at the beginning the Harlem neighborhood and people in Harlems world wide to actually have fun us and have fun our magic,” stated Marko Nobles, vice chair of Harlem Week.
Harlem Week was created out of the historic Harlem Day occasion in 1974 with a number of main Black figures in politics, artwork, and tradition within the neighborhood on the time, together with then-Manhattan borough President Percy Sutton, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Harry Belafonte, Charlie Rangel, Rev. Wyatt T Walker, and others. The purpose was to assist financial empowerment and uplift the neighborhood, which had been going through a number of hardships, as had your complete metropolis. It quickly expanded to a number of occasions by the summer time and turn into often known as Harlem Week, which honored its fiftieth anniversary in 2024.
Whereas Harlem has been often known as the capital of African American tradition, Nobles stated Harlem Week has all the time celebrated all of the cultures which have made up the neighborhood.
“What individuals don’t understand is that Harlem has all the time been a multicultural neighborhood; it’s simply that it’s not centered on as a lot. There are some 90 totally different cultures which have all the time been in Harlem and referred to as Harlem residence.”
Nobles has been concerned in Harlem Week for many of his life — since he was 14 — and professionally since 1983.
Among the signature occasions attendees sit up for every summer time embody Senior Residents Day, Well being Summit, Youngsters’s Competition, Financial Empowerment Day, and the Trend Present. The ultimate weekend and third Saturday and Sunday for Harlem Week all the time options “Summer season within the Metropolis,” adopted by “Harlem Day,” during which one hundred and thirty fifth Avenue is blocked off for the actions.
This 12 months, there can be a number of tributes to Harlem figures Charles Rangel and Hazel Dukes, who have been each vital within the lineage of Harlem Week through the years. The primary of those, on August 9, would be the NYC Household Stroll, which can be renamed the Hazel Dukes Memorial Well being Stroll starting this 12 months, as a tribute to Dukes and her legacy with each well being advocacy and the stroll itself.
Throughout Harlem Day on August 17, there can be a public tribute to each Rangel and Dukes on the fifth Avenue primary stage between fifth and Lenox, which can be subsequent to the historic Lenox Terrace advanced, the place each lived till their deaths. Rangel was famously often known as “The Lion of Lenox,” having been born on the avenue, now co-named Malcolm X Boulevard, just a few blocks down on 132nd Avenue. He just lately died at Harlem Hospital (one hundred and thirty fifth between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell).
Nobles stated that through the years, Rangel would sit on his terrace on the constructing and benefit from the festivities when he wasn’t concerned in any other case.
This 12 months’s celebration comes when the brand new Trump administration has invoked an enormous crackdown on range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) packages in grants and different establishments that promote Black tradition and historical past. A number of companies have chosen to finish their DEI packages in response. Nobles stated there was a distinction in entry to funds and sources, and with out naming anybody specifically, that sure sponsors with whom they partnered with simply final 12 months are now not working with them on account of the Trump crackdown.
“There’s a totally different manner that we’ve needed to maneuver as we have a look at the sponsorship or the assist stage to supply Harlem Week, contemplating that it’s a free occasion,” Nobles stated.
In keeping with Nobles, the mission has remained the identical and the group is trying to construct intergenerational connections
In recent times, organizations like TheSoapBoxPresents have garnered consideration for his or her collection of out of doors block get together music live shows all through Harlem. Nobles stated they’ve created a brand new partnership with them in addition to different Harlem-based teams like Sundae Sermon, a not-for-profit selling dwell music, and Picture Nation, an arts and media firm, amongst others.
For more information and the up to date Harlem Week schedule, go to harlemweek.com.
