The Many Lives Of Ms. Dora Lee Brown

Monday, Feb. 26, 2018 - 

If you’ve spent any time in the Hill in the past 52 years, you probably know Ms. Dora Lee Brown.

You might not know how many lives she has lived, the history she has helped make or the wisdom she has honed after decades of fearlessly speaking up and breaking barriers.

“You need to get some credentials while you’re fighting for your rights,” Brown told the Independent during a four-hour interview at her Asylum Street home on Saturday afternoon. “You can’t demand anything if you don’t have credentials.”

Click here to read the full article.

“Gina’s Journey” On The Big Screen

Regina Mason (right) and filmmaker Sean Durant at the New Haven Museum on Monday.

Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - 

In 1825 in Litchfield, Conn., William Grimes wrote and published the story of his life as a slave and of his subsequent escape to freedom.

Almost two centuries later, his great-great-great-granddaughter Regina Mason picked up where her pioneering ancestor left off, with a book, a documentary and her own story of self-discovery through a rigorous commitment to her family’s past.

On Monday night at the New Haven Museum, Mason and filmmaker Sean Durant presented Gina’s Journey: The Search for William Grimes, a new documentary about Mason’s 15-year pursuit to research, publish and celebrate the life of a family member (and former New Haven resident) who wrote the first autobiographical slave narrative.

Click here to read the full article...

New Haven “Rises” To King’s Full Vision

AME Bishop W. Darin Moore at New Haven Rising’s MLK Day rally at Varick Church.

Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018 - 

On the day that slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. would have turned 89 years old, hundreds of New Haveners gathered to celebrate his legacy of racial and economic justice, and to extend that legacy to the current fight for immigrant rights.

Over 400 New Haveners packed into the Varick Memorial AME Zion Church on Dixwell Avenue on Monday night to sing, dance and listen to a three-hour Martin Luther King Day service organized by the local labor advocacy group New Haven Rising.

A diverse crowd of older African American churchgoers, UNITE HERE union organizers, and local politicians filled the pews and balcony, with an overflow audience moving to the church’s basement to watch a livestream of the festivities happening upstairs.

Click here to read the full article...

Love Marches On

Wanda Faison and Deacon Vincent Smith on the Love March.

January 15, 2017 - Rodney Mitchell hoisted the American flag at the front of Sunday’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Love March, just as he has for the past decade and a half. His possible successor was right beside him.

Standing alongside him was his son Jayden, who held a simple yellow poster emblazoned with a white peace sign.

Click here to read the full article (http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/mlk_love_march/).