Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and East 96th Street.
Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. is an American civil rights and social justice activist, Baptist minister, politician, radio talk show host, and TV personality, who is also the founder of the National Action Network civil rights organization. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts a weekday radio talk show, Keepin' It Real, which is nationally syndicated by Urban One, and he is a political analyst and weekend host for MSNBC, hosting PoliticsNation.
Madam C. J. Walker was an African American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist. She is recorded as the first female self-made millionaire in America in the Guinness Book of World Records. Multiple sources mention that although other women might have been the first, their wealth is not as well-documented.
Wyatt Tee Walker was an African-American pastor, national civil rights leader, theologian, and cultural historian. He was a chief of staff for Martin Luther King Jr., and in 1958 became an early board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He helped found a Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) chapter in 1958. As executive director of the SCLC from 1960 to 1964, Walker helped to bring the group to national prominence. Walker sat at the feet of his mentor, BG Crawley, who was a Baptist Minister in Brooklyn, NY and New York State Judge.
The Abyssinian Baptist Church is a Baptist megachurch located at 132 West 138th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA and American Baptist Churches USA. Its Executive Minister is Rev. Dr. S. Raschaad Hoggard
Black Hebrew Israelites are a new religious movement claiming that African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites. Some sub-groups believe that Native and Latin Americans are descendants of the Israelites as well. Black Hebrew Israelites combine elements to their teaching from a wide range of sources to varying degrees. Black Hebrew Israelites incorporate certain aspects of the religious beliefs and practices of both Christianity and Judaism, though they have created their own interpretation of the Bible, and other influences include Freemasonry and New Thought, for example. Many choose to identify as Hebrew Israelites or Black Hebrews rather than Jews in order to indicate their claimed historic connections.
Calvin Otis Butts III was an American academic administrator and a senior pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, which historically was the largest black church in New York City. He led the Abyssinian Development Corporation, which focuses on Harlem, and was president of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury.
Charles Barron is an American activist and politician who currently serves in the New York City Council, representing Brooklyn's 42nd district. He previously held the same seat from 2002 to 2013, and served in the New York Assembly from the 60th district between 2015 and 2022.
The Gospel at Colonus is an African-American musical version of Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus. The show was created in 1983 by the experimental-theatre director Lee Breuer, one of the founders of the seminal American avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines, and composer Bob Telson. The musical was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show had a brief run on Broadway in 1988.
Suzan Denise Johnson Cook is a U.S. presidential advisor, pastor, theologian, author, activist, and academic who served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom from April 2011 to October 2013. She has served as a policy advisor to President Bill Clinton and later to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, a dean and professor of communications at Harvard University, a professor of theology at New York Theological Seminary, a pastor at a number of churches, a television producer, and the author of nearly a dozen books. She was the first female senior pastor in the 200-year history of the Mariners Temple Baptist Church in NYC part of the American Baptist Churches USA and a close friend of Coretta Scott King. She is an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
Frederick Boyd Williams was a religious leader of national importance in the United States. As Canon of the Church of the Intercession in Harlem, New York from 1971 to 2005, he led an influential congregation, the first in the nation to establish a programmatic response to AIDS. A patron of the arts, he provided the first home for the Boys Choir of Harlem. He was a co-founder of the Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement (HCCI), which coordinated 90 congregations to develop 2000 units of housing and retail space. While earning a doctorate from Colgate Rochester Divinity School, he led a congregation that worked for civil rights and social justice, both in the United States and Africa.
Preston Robert Washington was a prominent minister of Memorial Baptist Church in Harlem, New York. He was a co-founder of the Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement and held leadership positions from 1986 to 2001, bringing millions of dollars in development projects for housing and retail to the neighborhood.
Timothy Wright, generally credited as Rev. Timothy Wright or Reverend Timothy Wright on recordings, was an American gospel singer and pastor.
Dianne Smith is an abstract painter, sculptor, and installation artist. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New York City's Soho and Chelsea art districts as well as, numerous galleries and institutions throughout the United States, and abroad. She is an arts educator in the field of Aesthetic Education at Lincoln Center Education, which is part of New York City's Lincoln Center For the Performing Arts. Since the invitation to join the Institute almost a decade ago she has taught pre k-12 in public schools throughout the Tri-State area. Her work as an arts educator also extends to undergraduate and graduate courses in various colleges and universities in the New York City area. She has taught at Lehman College, Brooklyn College, Columbia University Teachers College, City College, and St. John's University.
Yvette A. Flunder is an American womanist, preacher, pastor, activist, and singer from San Francisco, CA. She is the senior pastor of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ in Oakland, California and Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries.
African-American socialism is a political current that emerged in the nineteenth century, specifically referring to the origins and proliferation of Marxist ideologies among African-Americans for whom socialism represents a potential for equal class status, humane treatment as laborers, and a means of dismantling American capitalism. Black liberation is in line with Marxist theory, which asserts that the working class, regardless of race, has a common interest against the bourgeoisie.
Conrad Bennette Tillard is an American Baptist minister, radio host, activist, politician, and author.
On December 8, 1995, eight people, including the assailant, were killed when a gunman seized hostages at Freddy's Fashion Mart in Harlem, New York City and set the building on fire.
Sacred jazz is jazz composed and performed with religious intent.
Black Catholicism or African-American Catholicism comprises the African American people, beliefs, and practices in the Catholic Church.
