African American Heritage Month

The Intra-American Slave Trade Database is a resource for the study of the African diaspora in the Americas. Launched online in 2018, it documents more than 27,000 voyages that trafficked enslaved Africans and African-descended people from one part of the Americas to another from 1550 to 1860. This database strengthens research throughout the University of California system on the history and impact of the slave trade and slavery in the Americas by connecting scholarship on the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds.

America’s suburbs are undergoing significant transformation. The traditional view of suburbs as predominantly white, middle-class areas no longer reflects reality. Today, they encompass a diverse mix of residents—rich and poor, Black, Latino, Asian, immigrants, and the unhoused. This shift is especially evident in Los Angeles, where many suburbs have become majority-minority. The New Suburbia explores the experiences of Asian Americans, Black Americans, and Latinos who moved into formerly exclusive neighborhoods.

In 1759, the Diamond sailed to unspecified ports in the Americas, Jamaica, Panama, Colombia, and more unspecified destinations in what was then known as the Spanish Caribbean, embarking and disembarking human cargo as part of the slave trade. The Diamond serves as an entry point into a discussion of the movement of Africans and African-descended captives to the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea-bordered regions, the ocean memory of those human cargo lost to the voyages through the Americas, and how that loss reverberates into the present.

Stream films on Kanopy or Hoopla, both on-demand streaming film services. They both have an extensive library of African American cinema and documentaries that are free with your Los Angeles City or Los Angeles County library card.

kanopy.com/en/category/40898?frontend=kui

 hoopladigital.com

The Los Angeles Public Library and the Los Angeles County Library cards give you access to many resources, including two amazing online music collections. Freegal features unlimited songs, and Hoopla lets you check out full albums. These two databases have endless amounts of music from the African and African American diaspora to explore, from famous hits to underground sounds.

hoopladigital.com/search?q=African+American+music&scope=everything&type=direct&kindId=6

freegalmusic.com

A double bill featuring two debuts! L.A.’s Yellowjackets bring four decades and headline status to open the evening. “The standout male vocalist of our time” (The New York Times), Kurt Elling reimagines Weather Report tunes with original band member Peter Erskine. Featuring works by Wayne Shorter, Weather Report is the defining modern jazz act of the 1970s and 1980s.

Black Hole —Trilogy and Triathlon is the final part of Shamel Pitts’ BLACK Series triptych, brought to life by the Brooklyn-based arts collective TRIBE. This multidisciplinary performance, enriched by Afrofuturism, weaves together dance, sound, video, and light into a narrative celebrating vitality, tenderness, and the power of unity and progress. Through the journey of three performers of African heritage, Black Hole explores themes of transformation and potential, transcending the darkness into a metaphorical space of empowerment.

This film by writer-directors The Wachowskis envisions a dystopian future where humans are trapped in a virtual reality simulation while AI machines harvest their bodies for energy. Cyberpunk themes blend with stylistic elements from anime and Hong Kong action cinema as computer hacker Neo and a group of rebels fight against the machines to free humankind.

Grammy-Award winner, drummer, and composer Terri Lyne Carrington blends jazz, indie rock, and hip-hop with her multi-talented sextet Social Science. This fresh ensemble thoughtfully confronts urgent social and societal issues through a suite of powerful compositions, inspiring a deep regard for humanity and freedom while never forgetting to excite on a purely musical level.

At War with Ourselves—400 Years of You features a text by National Book Award-winning poet Nikky Finney inspired by her 2013 poem The Battle of and for the Black Face Boy. The music was composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Abels, composer for the Jordan Peele films Us and Get Out. This powerful new work for string quartet, narrator, and chorus explores race relations, social justice, and civil rights in 21st-century America.