photos of and articles on The EAST

the east front mural
the east2.jpg
the east.jpg
Black News.pdf
the east nightclub.pdf
jitu and seitu.pdf

Dublin Core

Title

photos of and articles on The EAST

Subject

Brooklyn CORE members

Description

This is a collection of photos of and articles on the EAST, the cultural nationalist organization founded by Jitu Weusi (among others). I am including it here for several reasons:
- as I have argued previously, the EAST in many ways represents a natural evolution of ideas that started in Brooklyn CORE
- several members of Brooklyn CORE were also members of the EAST and the EAST had a close working relationship with the Dr. Sam Pinn of Brooklyn CORE in the 1970's and 1980's. Brooklyn CORE's Sonny Carson is included in the mural (bottom right) on the building's front.
- there has been precious little scholarship done on the EAST. Having all these items in one place encourages scholarship by making it easier for students.
* The place to start is still Dr. Kwasi Konadu's book 'A View from the EAST'

Included here (besides the photos of the former EAST headquarters at 10 Claver Place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn) are:

- a copy of Black News*, a newspaper published regularly by the EAST similar to the Black Panther's newspaper. This copy is significant because it lists Msemaji Weusi (aka (Maurice Fredricks of Brooklyn CORE) as part of the editorial board. It also includes an interesting article on Jitu Weusi and COINTELPRO. (taken from freedomarchives.org)

- a hard to find article* on the EAST's jazz nightclub that includes photos taken by Basir Mchawi, a leader of the EAST who also used to hang around the Harlem CORE offices as a teenager in the mid 1960's. (from Wax Poetics magazine)

- a journal article on writings by Black prisoners during the 1970's that focuses on the work of Jitu Weusi and Jim Seitu Dyson (also of Brooklyn CORE). This is the only piece I have come across that discusses Seitu's work from a scholarly perspective. Shout out to Dr. Maisha Winn for being down by law.

- this is a link to a conference paper done by Dr. Russell Rickford on the Uhuru Sasa Shule, the school at the center of the EAST ('Uhuru Sasa' is Swahili for "Freedom Now'). The piece is interesting for its praise and damning criticism. Rickford's dissertation was on the Afrocentric independent Black school movement of the 1970's and 1980's. Uhuru Sasa was one of the very first such schools and is discussed at length in his dissertation.
CLICK HERE

- this is a link to series of interviews of members of the EAST including Jitu Weusi in which he discusses his reasons for starting the school in relation to the school boycotts of the 1960's in New York City.
CLICK HERE

* photos taken from http://www.placematters.net/node/1545
credited to Martha Cooper

Coverage

Brooklyn , Bedford-Stuyvesant, 1970's

Collection

Citation

“photos of and articles on The EAST,” corenyc.org, accessed October 9, 2024, http://corenyc.org/omeka/items/show/320.

Output Formats