Bronx Music Heritage Center To Host Multiple Events As Part Of The Evelina 100 Campaign

The Bronx Music Heritage Center has announced its participation in the Evelina 100 campaign which will feature a week-long calendar of events to celebrate the legacy of Evelina Antonetty.The celebrations commemorate what would have been the 100th birthday of Antonetty, a Bronx-based activist, educator and advocate who was born on September 19th, 1922. Known colloquially as "The Mother of the Puerto Rican Community" as well as "The Hell Lady of the Bronx", Antonetty founded United Bronx Parents, and played a tremendous role in organizing Nuyorican communities around issues of education and inequity.

"Evelina, and her impact, are so important to the people of the Bronx," said Elena Martinez, co-artistic director of the BMHC. "She lifted spirits, battled against discrimination and inspired generations to political consciousness over the course of the 20th century. We're thrilled to play a part in honoring her legacy through music, discourse and community building."

On September 12th, there will be registration drives at sites and campuses around the city all day long. At noon, during the voter registration drive at Hostos Community College located at 500 Grand Concourse (off E. 149th Street), the BMHC will present a performance of traditional Puerto Rican music by Bobby Sanabria, Matthew Gonzalez, and Oxil Febles to support the registration drive at Hostos. Then, at 5pm a concert will take place at the Bronx Music Hall Plaza located at 438 E. 163rd Street. As a homage to Antonetty's registration drives where she would have the legendary cuatrista Yomo Toro playing music to attract people to register, the evening's concert will feature an all-female lineup of vocalists and musicians performing songs they wrote as part of BMHC's exhibit "A Portrait of Persistence" that commemorated a century of women's suffrage in the United States. Artists include Oxil Febles, Rae Da Vine, Sofia Tosello, Monica Meaux Hope, Antoinette Montague, Marilyn Castillo, Mikaela Curet, Francesca Lamantia, Bharati Kemraj and more! Nos Quedamos will run a voter registration table during the concert.

Then, on Saturday, September 17th, as part of the Bronx Rising! series, BMHC will host Fort Apache Revisited, a day-long series of panels, and a concert, about the legacy of the protests in response to the controversial 1981 Paul Newman film "Fort Apache, The Bronx." The film was criticized and boycotted at the time for its racist portrayals of Black and Puerto Rican residents in the borough. This event will take place at the BMHC (1303 Louis Nine Blvd) and is located near the site of the original precinct. Antonetty was a leader in the movement protesting the film.

The early program will cost $7 at the door and the schedule is as follows:

• 12:00pm: A land acknowledgment by George Stonefish, an indigenous community leader from the American Indian Community House and welcoming remarks by Bobby Sanabria and Elena Martinez of the BMHC.

• 12:30pm: Panel 1: Indigenous Perspectives on Fort Apache and the Politics of Sovereignty featuring artist Nadema Agard, writer David Bunn-Martine (AMERINDA) and Dr. Charles Venator-Santiago (University of Connecticut).

• 2:00pm: Panel 2: Fort Apache: RESISTANCE will discuss the resistance to the film from the perspective of Joe Conzo Jr. and Lourdes Torres, who protested the film alongside Evelina Antonetty.

Then at 5:00pm, the program will continue with a free concert at Bronx Music Hall Plaza located at 438 E 163rd St:

• 5:00pm: Concert at the BMH Plaza featuring Bobby Sanabria & Aburé performing the music of the Fort Apache Band, some of whose members took part in the movie protests, to recognize the role of arts & culture in resistance.

The Events on the Bronx Music Hall plaza are free. For those unable to attend in person, a livestream will be available on the BMHC's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/bxmusic/. For more information, call (917) 557-2354. For more information on Evelina 100 and the week's activities: https://evelina100.org/

These events are just three of the many cultural events by the BMHC. The BMHC's Bronx Rising! Series is a multi-disciplinary series that brings the Bronx's cultural riches, past and present, to life through music, comedy, film screenings with Q&As, poetry readings, and spoken word events. The Bronx Living Legends series commemorates the contributors to the borough's unparalleled musical heritage throughout the decades from doo-wop to hip-hop to Latin jazz. The BMHC also features classes and exhibits year round illuminating the rich and diverse cultural legacies of the borough that are known throughout the world.

The BMHC is run by the nonprofit Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDco). Earlier this year, WHEDco received a $2.5 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to complete construction of the Bronx Music Hall, which will be the future home of all BMHC programming when it opens. The 14,000 sq. ft. music hall will be the first newly constructed music performance venue to open in the Bronx in more than a half century. It will offer a variety of flexible indoor and outdoor spaces for concerts, film, dance, live theater, and spoken word events, as well as music and dance classes, serving 20,000 in-person audience members and students annually at full capacity post-pandemic.

For the last decade, BMHC's programming has been held primarily at the BMHC Lab, a storefront space at WHEDco's Intervale Green affordable housing development.

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