Bessie Smith Cultural Center of Chattanooga

Euge Groove is coming to the Bessie as part of our Songbook series on Saturday, June 29th at 7 pm. Individual tickets are $30 each and $25 each for groups of 8 or more.  For the group discount all 8 tickets must be purchased at the same time. Groove will be backed by the Joe Johnson Band. Groove, is a smooth jazz saxophonist with a strong Top-40 background.

Born in Hagerstown, Maryland, Groove graduated from the University of Miami School of Music in 1984. A rather late-bloomer in the genre, Groove did not record his first solo album until 2000. Prior to that, he had replaced Richard Elliot in the Tower of Power when Elliot decided to pursue a solo career, and he also did session work with various pop acts, most noticeably the Miami girl group Exposé. He has a sax solo on their No. 1 hit “Seasons Change,” and another on their 1993 hit “I’ll Never Get Over You (Getting Over Me).” In 2008 he went on Tour with the legendary Tina Turner.

Euge Groove’s best-known solo hits include “Sneak a Peek,” “Slam Dunk,” “Rewind,” “Don’t let me be lonely tonight,” “Livin’ Large” and “XXL.” His most recent hits include “Get ‘Em Going”, “Chillaxin’, and “S7ven Large”. Solid albums include; S7ven Large (2011), Born 2 Groove (2006), Livin’ Large (2004) and Play Date (2002). His most recent album is titled “House of Groove.”

For more information on Groove visit his web-site http://www.eugegroove.com/. For more information on the show contact the Bessie at (423) 266-8658 or info@bessiesmithcc.org.

For All The World To See: Visual Culture and The Struggle for Civil Rights is a National Endowment for the Humanities traveling exhibition that will be on display in the museum galleries September 1, 2013 – October 20, 2013.

“…we had averted our eyes for far too long, turning away from the ugly reality facing us as a nation. Let the world see what I’ve seen.” – Mamie Till Bradley
For All The World To See: Visual Culture and The Struggle for Civil Rights examines the role that visual culture played in shaping and transforming the struggle for racial equality in America from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s.

In September 1955, shortly after fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Mississippi, his grieving mother, Mamie Till Bradley, distributed to newspapers and magazines a gruesome black-and-white photograph of his mutilated corpse. The mainstream media rejected the photograph as inappropriate for publication, but Bradley was able to turn to African-American periodicals for support. Asked why she would do this, Bradley explained that by witnessing, with their own eyes, the brutality of segregation, Americans would be more likely to support the cause of civil rights.
Through a compelling assortment of photographs, television clips, art posters, and historic artifacts, For All the World to See traces how images and media disseminated to the American public transformed the modern civil rights movement and jolted Americans, both black and white, out of a state of denial or complacency.
Visitors to this exhibition will explore dozens of compelling and persuasive visual images, including photographs from influential magazines, such as LIFE, JET, and EBONY; CBS news footage; and TV clips from The Ed Sullivan Show. Also included are civil rights-era objects that exemplify the range of negative and positive imagery—from Aunt Jemima syrup dispensers and 1930s produce advertisements to Jackie Robinson baseball ephemera and 1960s children’s toys with African American portraiture. For All The World To See is not a history of the civil rights movement, but rather an exploration of the vast number of potent images that influenced how Americans perceived race and the struggle for equality. As EBONY founder John H. Johnson put it, magazines and television “opened new windows in the mind and brought us face to face with the multicolored possibilities of man and woman.”

For All The World To See is curated by Dr. Maurice Berger, Research Professor, The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore. It is co-organized by The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.

Photo Credit:

Emory Douglas
We Shall Survive without a Doubt, 1971
Photo-silkscreen on paper
15 1/2 x 11 in.
©2010 Emory Douglas/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the March on Washington and sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation the Bessie Smith Cultural Center and Union Hill M.B. Church welcome Harold Middlebrook and C.T.Vivian to the Memorial Auditorium on Saturday, April 13th at 4:00 p.m.. The event will also feature the Stillman College Choir and honor James Mapp, Dr. Paul A. McDaniel, Rev. J. Lloyd Edwards, Dr. Tommie Brown, Dr. Bruce McDuffie, John P. Franklin, Johnnie Holloway and members of Howard High School Class of 1960. The celebration is free and open to the public.

****** PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL TAKE PLACE AT THE MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM, COMMUNITY THEATER*******

The Bessie Smith Cultural Center and Chattanooga State Community  College will welcome Ishmael Reed to Chattanooga for ChattState’s  second installment of the Writers at Work series. Reed, will be at the Bessie on Tuesday, April 9 at 7:00 p.m. for a Poetry Reading, Q&A, and book signing. TheCreativeUnderground will also do a special tribute to Reed during this event as part of the Jazzanooga celebration. The event is free and open to the public.

Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1938, Ishmael Reed grew up in Buffalo, New York, where he graduated from the University of Buffalo. Reed has published 28 books that include novels, plays, poetry, and essays. He is known for his challenging satire focused primarily on the hypocrisies of American society and the African-American experience. His experimental style in both language and theme has been praised by critics, and his work has been nominated for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to writing, Reed is a teacher and commentator having taught at numerous institutions across the country including Harvard, Yale and the University of California at Berkeley.

For more information about other events tied to Reeds visit “ChattStates Writers at Work” on Facebook.