35
REMEMBRANCE CELEBRATING
YEARS
Original image by Jim Alexander
Honoring our Founder
EBON DOOLEY
Art & Justice Awards September 22, 2018 &
ArtsXchange.org
EBON DOOLEY
Ebon Dooley, an Activist, Poet and Revolutionary, Passed Away on October 12.
About Ebon Dooley
Ebon was born Leo Thomas Hale, the oldest child of Leo and Beatrice hale of the small farming community of Milan, Tennessee. Son of a school-teacher and the grandchild of middle-class farmers, he went to Nashville’s Fisk University on an early entrant scholarship. Ebon’s activism might be said to have begun with his work as managing editor of the Fisk literary magazine and newspaper (which included Nikki Giovanni as a freshman reporter). He went on to further activism when, as a regional honors scholar, he entered Columbia Law School in 1963. In New York he saw two very different sides of the larger world, as a law school management trainee at manufacturers’ Hanover Trust and as a member of the law students’ civil rights research council and volunteer for the Harlem Community Action Project of Harlem-You-Act. At the first Black Power Conference in Newark, he was impressed by the Chicago delegation; unable to get a large enough scholarship to go on to graduate school in business after his 1967 graduation from Columbia, he went to Chicago as a vista legal volunteer. Ebon’s reputation rests mainly on one small but solid book of poetry. Revolution (1968) was written over a period of two years in the Chicago of the late 1960s. while Ebon found Chicago “a very depressing experience in many ways,” he also found it an even more vibrant intellectual, political, and artistic community than he had found in New York. He witnessed the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, worked with youth gang leaders of the “Main 21,” and counseled local citizens in their struggles for civil rights. the heart of Ebon’s Chicago experience was the Obac Writers Workshop (organization for black american culture), founded in 1967. After Chicago, though the quality of his work did not decline, Ebon’s production slowed, as the activist poet gradually came to give more time to activism than poetry. In September of 1969 he went to Atlanta to take over the management of the Timbuktu bookstore. He later managed Uhuru, another bookstore specializing in afro-american works, until 1974. He was involved in the establishment of the Dunbar Center, the Atlanta Center for Black Arts, and the Arts Exchange, and was on the board of directors of the Southern Education Program, formed to recruit black teachers from the north for local colleges. As a Ceta worker, he began teaching at Atlanta’s Neighborhood Arts Center in 1975 and later was its acting director for nine months. He understood that these centers provide the opportunity for creative expression, community building and empowerment. In addition to all of the above and much more, Ebon was one of the early organizers of WRFG. ArtsXchange.org
Opening the new campus in East Point in 2018
We are the next generation to stand up, show up, and takes our places; nurturing coming generations of torch bearers for the arts. We advocate for artists to achieve success. We provide studio, and performance space. ArtsXchange; the place to work, to commune, to serve, and to develop.
EBON DOOLEY ART & JUSTICE AWARD A Legacy of Service
“When the times get hard, the people get hard.” Ebon Dooley
Award
Celebration Event Sept. 22, 2018 On May 4, 1984, the Southeast Community Cultural Center opened for business and the in-town artists colony known as The Arts Exchange was born. In 2018, the artist run center will host a 35th birthday celebration. The celebration will include the Ebon Dooley Art and Justice Awards. Five awards will be presented in recognition of individuals and organizations who demonstrate the extraordinary ability to lead, spread knowledge, organize, and involve the community to influence issues that impact the lives of the communities they serve.
Eligibility
Must live and work in the state of Georgia; and should demonstrate a deep and long-term commitment to their work; have an ability to build bridges between diverse communities beyond the barriers of race, class, or occupation, have a commitment to the advancement of social and economic justice in collaboration with poor and working-class people; and have an understanding of multiple ways the arts and creativity contribute to an organizers toolbox.
Categories • • • • •
Bridge Builder Change Maker Economic Justice Champion Social Justice Champion Emerging Leader (Must be under age 30)
Honorary Host Committee Former Atlanta Mayor, Shirley Franklin along with the family of Ebon Dooley
Host Planning Committee Longtime ArtsXchange supporters, Teressa Hale-Mathurin (Ebon’s daughter), curator and producer Kemi Bennings (Soul Sista’s Juke Joint), curator and arts educator, John Brandhorst (Grady High School); founder and artistic director of Giwayen Mata, Omelika Kuumba; and choreographer and creative director, Charles Bullock (Youth Ensemble of Atlanta) and arts administrator, Leigh K. Davis, Guled Abdilahi of WRFG Radio and Kahina Ghafoor, community activist, as well as arts advocates and patrons, Jea Delsart (wife of renown visual artist, Louis Delsart), and past board chair, Cheryl Odeleye (Fulton County’s Southwest Arts Center); along with ArtsXchange board members, Nino Augustine, Alice Lovelace, Grene Baranco, Michael Powell and Vanessa Manley. The ArtsXchange program consultant for this event is Charmaine Minniefield. ArtsXchange.org
Ebon Dooley was a long time advocate of the fair distribution of wealth, promoting tolerance, freedom, and equality for all. He led with the spirit of grassroots movement for collective action in pursuit of economic and social justice. As the founder of the community-based radio station, WRFG Radio, the Neighborhood Arts Center and then the Arts Exchange, Dooley put the arts at the center of this struggle.
BE A PART OF THE HISTORY Change Agent $25,000+
Community $15,000+
• Naming rights - as we open our new campus, there are special projects and spaces that
can bare your name. Please inquire directly for more details. • Premium logo placement in all related event signage, print and online materials,
including link to your website. • Access to sponsors and patrons launch event in Spring 2018. • Access to sponsors and patrons pre-award reception • Opportunity to pay it forward for 2 artists to attend the celebration. • Priority logo placement in all related event signage, print and online materials, including
link to your website.
Family $10,000+
• Access to sponsors and patrons launch event in Spring 2018 • Access to sponsors and patrons pre-award reception • Opportunity to pay it forward for 2 artists to attend celebration • Logo placement in all related event signage, printed material, web presence., including
link to your website.
Honorary Host $5,000+
• Become a member of our inaugural Collector’s Guild with an exclusive limited
edition print by renown visual artist, Louis Delsart. • Access to sponsors and patrons launch event in Spring 2018 • Access to sponsors and patrons pre-award reception • Opportunity to pay it forward for 2 artists to attend celebration • Name recognition in all related event signage, printed material, web presence
including link to your website.
Friend
$2500+
Inquire Today
• Opportunity to pay it forward for 1 artist to attend celebration • Name recognition in all related event signage, printed material, web presence.
• Admin@ArtsXchange.org or call 404-624-4211
ArtsXchange.org
BE A PART OF THE HISTORY