Archival film night! Screening “The Sun Rises in the East”

As part of an ongoing series of archival film nights this summer, this event will feature a screening and discussion of the recent 2022 documentary, “The Sun Rises in the East,” by filmmakers and creators of Black-Owned Brooklyn, Tayo Giwa and Cynthia Gordy Giwa. Come learn about some important and often overlooked Brooklyn history!

Uncovering a rich local activist tradition, “this film chronicles the birth, rise and legacy of The East, a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 by teens and young adults in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Led by educator and activist Jitu Weusi, The East embodied Black self-determination, building dozens of institutions, including its own African-centered school, food co-op, newsmagazine, publishing company, record label, restaurant, clothing shop and bookstore. The organization hosted world-famous jazz musicians and poets at its highly sought-after performance venue, and served as an epicenter for political contemporaries such as the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords and the Congress of Afrikan People, as well as comrades across Africa and the Caribbean. In effect, The East built an independent Black nation in the heart of Central Brooklyn.”

You can read more about the film in an article here or on the film’s website.

This screening will be followed by a chance to discuss collectively about the film and the broader significance and strategies of these actions and histories today. Supplemented by additional archival social movement materials, the hope for this series is to not only foreground often overlooked activist histories of the city, but also reflect together more broadly on political organizing, identity and historical methods/archives/media, particularly in relation to current and ongoing struggles.