Come see scholars from the city of Antioch shine in this amazing production for three shows only!
Set during the last years of New York City’s celebrated High School for the Performing Arts in the early 1980s, Fame JR. is the bittersweet, but ultimately inspiring, story of a diverse group of students who commit to four years of grueling artistic and academic work.
In the theater at the Nick Rodriguez Community Center, 213 F Street in Antioch’s historic downtown Rivertown. Presented by Aspire Youth Programs in partnership with the City of Antioch. Follow Aspire Youth Programs on Facebook.
The Antioch High School Marching Band during a performance. Photo courtesy of Courtney Emery.
By Courtney Emery (Trantham), Music Department Lead, Antioch USD, Music Teacher, Antioch High School and Antioch Middle School
The Antioch High School Marching Band and Choir are planning an educational trip to New Orleans, LA in March 2025. We chose New Orleans because of its rich musical history and culture, especially as New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz.
The trip will be five days and four nights and will include a performance in Jackson Square, a clinic at Loyola University, viewing a private jazz performance at the historic Preservation Hall, a visit to the New Orleans Jazz Museum, a steamboat dinner jazz cruise and more.
The students will be traveling from Antioch to New Orleans via airplane. Many of our students have not been out of the state before, let alone on an airplane. This is sure to be an experience they will remember for life.
As many of our students are unable to afford the cost of the trip, we are holding several fundraisers to help raise money. They include:
Car Wash on 5/25/24 from 9:30am-2:00pm at Les Schwab Tire (89 Carol Lane, Oakley) (Weather permitting – will cancel if it rains).
Walkathon at AHS on 6/1/24, more details TBA
Any person wishing to sponsor a student in need through a financial donation is welcome to email me at CourtneyEmery@antiochschools.net.
Get free passes for donatingto Maya Community Foundation
By Greg Heckman, Director of Marketing, Maya Cinemas
Maya Cinemas, known for developing movie theatres in underserved communities with state-of-the-art presentation, first-class amenities and community involvement, is offering free movies passes for donations to the Maya Community Foundation. Beginning on April 1st and running through April 15th, movie-goers can make a donation at any Maya Cinema and receive 1 free movie passes (valid 4/1/24 – 5/15/24) for every $10 they donate and 3 passes for every $25. One hundred percent of donations will be granted as college scholarships to members of the communities surrounding the theaters. Scholarship applications are live at wearemaya.org/scholarship-applications.html and will be open until May 30th.
The Maya Community Foundation is dedicated to the development and enrichment of the lives of people in the community in which Maya Cinemas’ theatres serve. The foundation is dedicated to fostering and supporting under-served, low-income communities through a variety of programs.
Donations can be made in-theatre at any of Maya’s six locations:
Pittsburg, CA – 4085 Century Boulevard
Salinas, CA – 153 Main Street
Bakersfield – 1000 California Avenue
Delano, CA – 401 Woollomes Avenue
Fresno, CA – 3090 East Campus Pointe Drive
North Las Vegas, NV – 2195 North Las Vegas Blvd.
“Support of higher education is an important building block. The Maya Community Foundation and Maya Cinemas endeavors to enrich the community through several efforts with education being a primary focus.” said Heidi Garcia, Maya Community Foundation.
ABOUT MAYA CINEMAS
Maya Cinemas was chartered in 2000 with a mission to develop, build, own and operate modern, first-run, multi-plex movie theaters in underserved, family oriented, Latino-dominant communities. Maya Cinemas offers first-run Hollywood movies and unique content through its Canal Maya program in high-end theaters focused on quality of design, state-of-the-art film presentation technology, and providing first-rate entertainment with superior customer service. The Maya Community Foundation is dedicated to the development and enrichment of the lives of people in the community in which Maya Cinemas serve.
In a post on Facebook on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, Antioch High School offered “Congrats to the winners of the Annual AHS Poetry Contest. They’re poets and now they know it!”
The AHS Poetry Contest was open to all AHS students, and there was no set theme. Of course, the poems had to be unique and original, but beyond that, the students were encouraged to let their creative juices flow and write about whatever stirred their souls and moved their hearts. The results were fascinating.
The top three entries from each grade level were awarded beautiful rosette ribbons, certificates and goody bags with gift cards to Starbucks, In-N-Out Burger, and lots of Easter candies.
Freshman Class
First: Navayah Thompson
Sophomore Class
First: Shadrack Gitan Nganga
Second: Mckeyla Feliciano
Third: Sydney Hill and Julianna Fraser (tie)
Junior Class
First: Jamall Burks
Second: Eimy Garcia
Third: Samantha Gonzalez-Guzman
Senior Class
First: Alex Valladares
Second: Mariah Worrell-Osborne and Zora Musawwir (tie)
Third: Tianna Kemokai
Pam Swicegood, Antioch High School English & Creative Writing Teacher, Coordinator of the AHS Poetry Contest and Advisor for The Pantheon, AHS’s Literary Magazine, provided the following information about the contest and winners:
The winning poem from the senior class was entitled Hateful Prometheus, by Alex Valladares. In Greek Mythology, Prometheus was one of the Titans, birthed from clay and given the strengths and abilities of the gods. Prometheus loved mankind, and when he saw they were struggling on earth, he stole fire from the Gods and gave it to man. This angered Zeus, who punished Prometheus and took his revenge on humans, giving them all the negative aspects of life. In Alex’s poem, Zeus’ punishment presents itself in the form of critical, manipulative parents who lack compassion, bark orders to their children, and fail to be a guiding light or nurture their children’s joys or success. Thus, making Prometheus hateful toward his creator.
The winning poem from the junior class was entitled The Unknown, by Jamall Burks. This poem is a beautiful, poignant ballad dedicated to the late Malik El-Ameen, a former AHS student who was shot last year by his father. Jamall was Malik’s best friend.
The winning poem from the sophomore class was entitled Navigating High School, from Shadrack Nganga, a new student who recently moved to Antioch from Kenya. In his poem, Shadrack writes about the struggles of feeling out of place in a new country surrounded by strangers and trying to fit in. Though at first he felt judged and criticized, wanting to hide and keep himself small, he eventually found new friends who showed him kindness and acceptance. His poem encourages others to embrace their uniqueness and face their fears, because in time, they’ll “find their song.”
The winning poem from the freshman class was entitled Happy Black History!, by Navayah Thompson. In her poem, Navayah acknowledges the history of pain and injustice from slavery’s chains to civil rights, celebrating the triumphs and struggles of those who came before her and honoring their journey.
The subjects of other winning poems were varied and beautiful; about dewdrops and disco balls, romance and unrequited love, friendship and betrayal, and wanting to have it all. One was written from the point of view of a character in a book she read in her junior English class. Another celebrated the experience of dancing the “Mama Candelaria” at a street carnival with all the beautiful costumes, the “Morenos”, and the lively rhythms and upbeat music in her home country of Peru.
All in all, the annual AHS Poetry Contest was a huge success and showcased some of the many outstanding students we are fortunate to have at Antioch High School.
2022 District CA-11 Congressional Art Competition winner, “Growing Up” by Menglin Cai of Danville. Source: Office of Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (when he represented the 11th District)
Deadline for submittals is April 5th
Walnut Creek, CA – Today, Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (D, CA-10) announced he will participate in the nationwide 2024 Congressional Art Competition. High school artists living in California’s 10th Congressional District may begin submitting original artwork to his office virtually from now through Friday, April 5th. The winning piece will be selected by a panel of local judges who will view all artwork electronically and announced at a reception to celebrate all participants following the submission deadline.
Participants may submit one photograph or scan of their artwork, taken in the highest possible resolution, to kaylee.deland@mail.house.gov. Submissions must include the Student Release Form. Artwork entered in the contest may be up to 26 inches by 26 inches, may be up to 4 inches in depth, and not weigh more than 15 pounds. If your artwork is selected as the winning piece, it must arrive framed and must still measure no larger than the above maximum dimensions.
Paintings – including oil, acrylics, and watercolor
Drawings – including pastels, colored pencil, pencil, charcoal, ink, and markers (It is recommended that charcoal and pastel drawings be fixed.)
Collages – must be two dimensional
Prints – including lithographs, silkscreen, and block prints
Mixed Media – use of more than two mediums such as pencil, ink, watercolor, etc.
Computer-generated art
Photography
All entries must be original in concept, design and execution and may not violate any U.S. copyright laws. Any entry that has been copied from an existing photo or image (including a painting, graphic, or advertisement) that was created by someone other than the student is a violation of the competition rules and will not be accepted. Work entered must be in the original medium (that is, not a scanned reproduction of a painting or drawing).
The rules for the 2024 competition are available here or on House.gov.
“Every year I am so impressed by the talent of the students in our district who participate in the Congressional Art Competition,” said DeSaulnier. “I am pleased to again host this event as an opportunity for young artists to showcase and be recognized for their creativity.”
The competition is open to all high school students living in California’s 10th Congressional District. The winning piece will be displayed in the U.S. Capitol and the winner will be invited to Washington D.C. to attend a national reception honoring winners from around the country. All submissions must be emailed to Kaylee.deland@mail.house.gov no later than 5:00 p.m. PT on April 5, 2024.
The Congressional Art Competition is a nationwide high school visual art competition to recognize and encourage artistic talent in the nation and in each congressional district. Since the Competition began in 1982, more than 650,000 high school students have participated. Complete contest guidelines and submissions forms are available on the Congressman’s website here. For more information or help submitting artwork, please contact DeSaulnier’s office at 925-933-2660.
The story of Black History Month begins in Chicago during the summer of 1915. An alumnus of the University of Chicago with many friends in the city, Carter G. Woodson traveled from Washington, D.C. to participate in a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation sponsored by the state of Illinois. Thousands of African Americans travelled from across the country to see exhibits highlighting the progress their people had made since the destruction of slavery. Awarded a doctorate in Harvard three years earlier, Woodson joined the other exhibitors with a black history display.
Despite being held at the Coliseum, the site of the 1912 Republican convention, an overflow crowd of six to twelve thousand waited outside for their turn to view the exhibits. Inspired by the three-week celebration, Woodson decided to form an organization to promote the scientific study of black life and history before leaving town. On September 9th, Woodson met at the Wabash YMCA with A. L. Jackson and three others and formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH).
When Woodson established Negro History week in 1926, he realized the importance of providing a theme to focus the attention of the public. The intention has never been to dictate or limit the exploration of the Black experience, but to bring to the public’s attention important developments that merit emphasis.
He hoped that others would popularize the findings that he and other black intellectuals would publish in The Journal of Negro History, which he established in 1916. As early as 1920, Woodson urged black civic organizations to promote the achievements that researchers were uncovering. A graduate member of Omega Psi Phi, he urged his fraternity brothers to take up the work. In 1924, they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week. Their outreach was significant, but Woodson desired greater impact. As he told an audience of Hampton Institute students, “We are going back to that beautiful history, and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements.” In 1925, he decided that the Association had to shoulder the responsibility. Going forward it would both create and popularize knowledge about the black past. He sent out a press release announcing Negro History Week in February 1926.
Woodson chose February for reasons of tradition and reform. It is commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays of two great Americans who played a prominent role in shaping black history, namely Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, whose birthdays are the 12th and the 14th, respectively. More importantly, he chose them for reasons of tradition. Since Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, the black community, along with other Republicans, had been celebrating the fallen President’s birthday. And since the late 1890s, black communities across the country had been celebrating Douglass’. Well aware of the pre-existing celebrations, Woodson built Negro History Week around traditional days of commemorating the black past. He was asking the public to extend their study of black history, not to create a new tradition. In doing so, he increased his chances for success.
Yet Woodson was up to something more than building on tradition. Without saying so, he aimed to reform it from the study of two great men to a great race. Though he admired both men, Woodson had never been fond of the celebrations held in their honor. He railed against the “ignorant spellbinders” who addressed large, convivial gatherings and displayed their lack of knowledge about the men and their contributions to history. More importantly, Woodson believed that history was made by the people, not simply or primarily by great men. He envisioned the study and celebration of the Negro as a race, not simply as the producers of a great man. And Lincoln, however great, had not freed the slaves—the Union Army, including hundreds of thousands of black soldiers and sailors, had done that. Rather than focusing on two men, the black community, he believed, should focus on the countless black men and women who had contributed to the advance of human civilization.
Source: ASALH
From the beginning, Woodson was overwhelmed by the response to his call. Negro History Week appeared across the country in schools and before the public. The 1920s was the decade of the New Negro, a name given to the Post-War I generation because of its rising racial pride and consciousness. Urbanization and industrialization had brought over a million African Americans from the rural South into big cities of the nation. The expanding black middle class became participants in and consumers of black literature and culture. Black history clubs sprang up, teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils, and progressive whites stepped and endorsed the efforts.
Woodson and the Association scrambled to meet the demand. They set a theme for the annual celebration, and provided study materials—pictures, lessons for teachers, plays for historical performances, and posters of important dates and people. Provisioned with a steady flow of knowledge, high schools in progressive communities formed Negro History Clubs. To serve the desire of history buffs to participate in the re-education of black folks and the nation, ASNLH formed branches that stretched from coast to coast. In 1937, at the urging of Mary McLeod Bethune, Woodson established the Negro History Bulletin, which focused on the annual theme. As black populations grew, mayors issued Negro History Week proclamations, and in cities like Syracuse progressive whites joined Negro History Week with National Brotherhood Week.
Like most ideas that resonate with the spirit of the times, Negro History Week proved to be more dynamic than Woodson or the Association could control. By the 1930s, Woodson complained about the intellectual charlatans, black and white, popping up everywhere seeking to take advantage of the public interest in black history. He warned teachers not to invite speakers who had less knowledge than the students themselves. Increasingly publishing houses that had previously ignored black topics and authors rushed to put books on the market and in the schools. Instant experts appeared everywhere, and non-scholarly works appeared from “mushroom presses.” In America, nothing popular escapes either commercialization or eventual trivialization, and so Woodson, the constant reformer, had his hands full in promoting celebrations worthy of the people who had made the history.
Well before his death in 1950, Woodson believed that the weekly celebrations—not the study or celebration of black history–would eventually come to an end. In fact, Woodson never viewed black history as a one-week affair. He pressed for schools to use Negro History Week to demonstrate what students learned all year. In the same vein, he established a black studies extension program to reach adults throughout the year. It was in this sense that blacks would learn of their past on a daily basis that he looked forward to the time when an annual celebration would no longer be necessary. Generations before Morgan Freeman and other advocates of all-year commemorations, Woodson believed that black history was too important to America and the world to be crammed into a limited time frame. He spoke of a shift from Negro History Week to Negro History Year.
In the 1940s, efforts began slowly within the black community to expand the study of black history in the schools and black history celebrations before the public. In the South, black teachers often taught Negro History as a supplement to United States history. One early beneficiary of the movement reported that his teacher would hide Woodson’s textbook beneath his desk to avoid drawing the wrath of the principal. During the Civil Rights Movement in the South, the Freedom Schools incorporated black history into the curriculum to advance social change. The Negro History movement was an intellectual insurgency that was part of every larger effort to transform race relations.
The 1960s had a dramatic effect on the study and celebration of black history. Before the decade was over, Negro History Week would be well on its way to becoming Black History Month. The shift to a month-long celebration began even before Dr. Woodson death. As early as 1940s, blacks in West Virginia, a state where Woodson often spoke, began to celebrate February as Negro History Month. In Chicago, a now forgotten cultural activist, Fredrick H. Hammaurabi, started celebrating Negro History Month in the mid-1960s. Having taken an African name in the 1930s, Hammaurabi used his cultural center, the House of Knowledge, to fuse African consciousness with the study of the black past. By the late 1960s, as young blacks on college campuses became increasingly conscious of links with Africa, Black History Month replaced Negro History Week at a quickening pace. Within the Association, younger intellectuals, part of the awakening, prodded Woodson’s organization to change with the times. They succeeded. In 1976, fifty years after the first celebration, the Association used its influence to institutionalize the shifts from a week to a month and from Negro history to black history. Since the mid-1970s, every American president, Democrat and Republican, has issued proclamations endorsing the Association’s annual theme.
What Carter G. Woodson would say about the continued celebrations is unknown, but he would smile on all honest efforts to make black history a field of serious study and provide the public with thoughtful celebrations.
Daryl Michael Scott, ASALH Former National President
For those interested in the study of identity and ideology, an exploration of ASALH’s Black History themes is itself instructive. Over the years, the themes reflect changes in how people of African descent in the United States have viewed themselves, the influence of social movements on racial ideologies, and the aspirations of the Black community.
The changes notwithstanding, the list reveals an overarching continuity in ASALH – our dedication to exploring historical issues of importance to people of African descent and race relations in America.
2024 Theme
African American art is infused with African, Caribbean, and the Black American lived experiences. In the fields of visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression, the African American influence has been paramount. African American artists have used art to preserve history and community memory as well as for empowerment. Artistic and cultural movements such as the New Negro, Black Arts, Black Renaissance, hip-hop and Afrofuturism, have been led by people of African descent and set the standard for popular trends around the world. In 2024, we examine the varied history and life of African American arts and artisans.
For centuries Western intellectuals denied or minimized the contributions of people of African descent to the arts as well as history, even as their artistry in many genres was mimicked and/or stolen. However, we can still see the unbroken chain of Black art production from antiquity to the present, from Egypt across Africa, from Europe to the New World. Prior to the American Revolution, enslaved Africans of the Lowcountry began their more than a 300-year tradition of making sweetgrass baskets, revealing their visual artistry via craft.
The suffering of those in bondage gave birth to the spirituals, the nation’s first contribution to music. Blues musicians such as Robert Johnson, McKinley ‘Muddy Waters’ Morganfield and Riley “BB” B. King created and nurtured a style of music that became the bedrock for gospel, soul, and other still popular (and evolving) forms of music. Black contributions to literature include works by poets like Phillis Wheatley, essays, autobiographies, and novels by writers such as David Walker and Maria Stewart. Black aesthetics have also been manifested through sculptors like Edmonia Lewis and painters like Henry O. Tanner.
In the 1920s and 30s, the rise of the Black Renaissance and New Negro Movement brought the Black Arts to an international stage. Members of the armed forces, such as James Reese Europe, and artists such as Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker and Lois Mailou Jones brought Black culture and Black American aesthetics internationally, and Black culture began its ascent to becoming a dominant cultural movement to the world. In addition to the Harlem Renaissance, today we recognize that cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New Orleans also were home to many Black artists.
The 1960s continued this thread through the cultural evolution known as the Black Arts Movement, where artists covered issues such as pride in one’s heritage and established art galleries and museum exhibitions to show their own work, as well as publications such as Black Art. This period brought us artists such as Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. The movement would not have been as impactful without the influences from the broader Black world, especially the Negritude movement and the writings of Frantz Fanon.
In 1973, in the Bronx, New York Black musicians (i.e. DJ Kool Herc and Coke La Rock) started a new genre of music called hip-hop, which comprises five foundational elements (DJing, MCing, Graffiti, Break Dancing and Beat Boxing). Hip-hop performers also used technological equipment such as turntables, synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers to make their songs. Since then, hip-hop has continued to be a pivotal force in political, social, and cultural spaces and was a medium where issues such as racial violence in the inner city, sexism, economic disinvestment and others took the forefront.
The term Afrofuturism was used approximately 30 years ago in an effort to define cultural and artistic productions (music, literature, visual arts, etc.) that imagine a future for Black people without oppressive systems and examines how Black history and knowledge intersects with technology and science. Afrofuturist elements can be found in the music of Sun Ra, Rashan Roland Kirk, Janelle Monáe and Jimi Hendrix. Other examples include sci-fi writer Octavia Butler’s novels, Marvel film Black Panther, and artists such as British-Liberian painter Lina Iris Viktor, Kenyan-born sculptor Wangechi Mutu, and Caribbean writers and artists such as Nalo Hopkinson, and Grace Jones.
In celebrating the entire history of African Americans and the arts, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) puts into the national spotlight the richness of the past and present with an eye towards what the rest of the twenty-first century will bring. ASALH dedicates its 98th Annual Black History Theme to African Americans and the arts.
