GUYANA: Recital of poems composed by Stanley Greaves – March 12. 2022- @ 5.00PM Guyana

You are warmly invited to join us for a recital of poems composed by Stanley Greaves – By Moray House Trust

Title:             “Pomes”

Date:             Saturday 12th March 2022

Time:             5.00 PM Guyana
                      4.00 PM EST
                      9.00 PM UK/GMT

Guyana SPEAKS: Oscar Abrams (1937-1996) and the Keskidee Centre – Sunday, 13th March at 3pm UK time

Oscar Abrams

Guyana SPEAKS will be hosting a special event to celebrate the work of the Guyanese-born architect and cultural activist, Oscar Winston Abrams (10/3/37-15/2/96) on Sunday, 13th March 2022 at the following time:

 3pm London, UK

11am Georgetown, Guyana :   11am New York, USA  :  11am Toronto, Canada

 

Abrams was a theatre designer and community organiser and activist who is best known for establishing and directing the Keskidee Centre in London.  As Britain’s first Black arts centre it combined theatre programmes with grassroots activism and cultural education.  Our distinguished speakers include: Oscar Abrams’ daughter, journalist Amah-Rose Abrams, as well as:         

GUYANA: Famous Upper Demerara and Guyanese swimmer: Walter Spence – By Dmitri Allicock

Walter Spence

By Dmitri Allicock

Walter Spence may be the first Guyanese to ever win an Olympic medal. He competed for Canada in the 1928 Olympics and won a bronze medal in the 4×200 m freestyle relay event.

Walter Percy Spence (March 3, 1901 – October 16, 1958) was a swimmer from British Guiana (who competed for Canada in the 1928 Summer Olympics and 1932 Summer Olympics. He immigrated to the United States and held several national swimming titles there.

Spence was born in Christianburg, British Guiana, the oldest of eight children—four brothers and four sisters. His father was Scottish and worked as a big game hunter and guide, while his mother was Indian.               

CRICKET: Sonny Ramadhin, West Indies legendary spinner, dies aged 92 – The Guardian

—  Ramadhin’s death confirmed by Friarmere CC in Oldham

— Spinner helped West Indies to first Test series victory in England in 1950

PHOTO: Sonny Ramadhin was the first man of Indian heritage to represent West Indies. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Ali Martin – THE GUARDIAN – Sun 27 Feb 2022 

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Sonny Ramadhin, whose beguiling spin bowling helped West Indies to secure their first Test series victory in England in 1950, has died at the age of 92. Born in Trinidad in 1929, Ramadhin was the first man of Indian heritage to represent the region in cricket and a star of his time, claiming 158 wickets from 43 Tests during a 10-year international career.

USA: The True Story of ‘The Underground Railroad’ – Smithsonian Magazine

Slavery in USA

The adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel reimagines the eponymous trail to freedom as an actual train track.

Smithsonian Magazine – Meilan Solly

When Cora, the fictional protagonist of Colson Whitehead’s 2016 novel The Underground Railroad, steps onto a boxcar bound for the North, the train’s conductor offers her a wry word of advice: “If you want to see what this nation is all about, I always say, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America.”

Peering through the carriage’s slats, Cora sees “only darkness, mile after mile,” Whitehead writes. Later, toward the end of her harrowing escape from enslavement, the teenager realizes that the conductor’s comment was a “joke … from the start. There was only darkness outside the windows on her journeys, and only ever would be darkness.”         

Celebrating African American History Month – By: Labor Heritage Foundation

Introduction:  Fredrick D. Redmond

Fredrick D. Redmond is the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. He was elected to the position by the AFL-CIO Executive Council on

Fredrick Redmond

Aug. 20, 2021, and is the first African American to hold this office in the history of the labor federation. He had previously served on the federation’s Executive Council since 2008.

As international vice president for human affairs, a position to which he was first elected to in 2006, Redmond oversaw the union’s Civil and Human Rights Department and worked with USW allies across the country in responding to attacks on voting rights and in combating economic inequality.

Redmond has spent his entire life fighting for racial justice in the workplace and throughout our communities.            

CANADA: Toronto Black Film Festival celebrates 10th Anniversary – February 16-21. 2022 – Online

TORONTO BLACK FILM FESTIVAL CELEBRATES ITS 10TH ANNIVERSARY!
FEBRUARY 16 – 21, 2022 | ONLINE

#TBFF22: 200 FILMS from 30 COUNTRIES +
Opens with the Canadian Premiere of Krystin Ver Linden’s ALICE
Starring Emmy Award Winning Actress, Keke Palmer
And Grammy Award Winning Rapper, Common

Amplifying Black Voices and Uplifting Black Talent with a Thought-Provoking Programming that Challenges Conventions and Leaves a Distinctive Mark on our Times

 The Toronto Black Film Festival dedicates its 10th edition to the late Sidney Poitier            

GUYANA: Eddy Grant’s ‘Electric Avenue’ featured in this year’s Super Bowl + Video

The iconic Eddy Grant is a proud Guyanese.

Feb 13, 2022 Kaieteur News- By Davina Bagot

“It’s not once that BMW has chosen me and this particular song. It’s twice and that must be a world record itself because I can’t think of anybody else in the space of five years who had the same song used by a company for the Super Bowl. It’s a massive stage and every artiste, every writer would like to have this opportunity.” – Eddy Grant

Iconic Guyanese artiste, Eddy Grant has given his fans yet another reason to brag as he continues to display his talent on the international stage. This year, Grant, a singer/song writer, was privileged to have his song used in one of the advertisements played during the airing of the Super Bowl, viewed by millions globally.

Since its emergence in the late 1960’s, the United States (US) playoffs would see the best teams in the football sport meeting to defend or battle for the title, and given the importance of the game to the US, millions of dollars would be pumped into various aspects of the event.

SHORT STORIES: Glimpses of a Childhood in British Guiana in the 1940s – By Geoff Burrowes

 By Geoff Burrowes

I was born in colonial British Guiana (now Guyana)  into a white, middle class, Anglican family in Kitty Village in 1942. I mention white because BG, as British Guiana was called, was a multicultural society and although our family didn’t discuss race it was easy to see that not everybody looked the same as we did!

       Middle class because we never missed a meal and had a maid, a cook and a gardener. Our food was plain but tasty and nourishing: breakfast was normally plantain porridge and cocoa, lunch was generally rice, meat or fish with sides of cassava, fried or green plantain and occasionally, ugh, ochro (slippery, slimy ochro). And we called lunch breakfast or brekfuss. Our maid Nanny Cleo and our cook, Ina Murray were unfailingly kind and along with our parents made sure we behaved properly. My mum and dad made sure that we treated them with respect and listened to them.         

AFRICA: Desmond Tutu’s life and death hold important lessons for America and the world – By Mohamed Hamaludin

By MOHAMED HAMALUDIN

Desmond Tutu

Desmond Mpilo Tutu, son of a South African schoolteacher and a laundress, rose to the position of Catholic Archbishop of Cape Town, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and headed his country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission charged with paving the way for unity between the majority 48 million Africans and the 10 million Europeans who ruthlessly suppressed them for 46 years.

When Tutu died on Dec. 26, 2021, of complications from cancer at age 90, the world honored the five-foot six-inch, 150-pound champion of democracy for a life well lived. He had been “a true servant of God and of the people,” President Joe Biden said. “His legacy transcends borders and will echo through the ages.”