Please support the continuation of The Brothers’ Network by making a tax-deductible contribution during our Spring/Summer 2024 Fund Drive.
Who We Are
Who We Are
Founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2007, by Gregory Walker. The Brothers' Network is a Black-led, Black-run theater-producing, arts-presenting, and culture-promoting social enterprise non-profit arts organization addressing racial inequity through the lens of the Arts, culture, literature, history, and heritage. We are an extension of the Harlem Renaissance and The Black Arts Movement.
What We Do
We are celebrating our 16th year of engaging and informing residents about the humanity of Black people. To date, we have built a broad community of 1.5 million people interested in reframing the cultural hegemonic while ending the attempted erasure of men who are Black. Thank you to all our supporters, funders, and members.
Methodology
We meld artistic, archival, curatorial, and editorial practices to signify, solidify, and sustain the humanity of men who are Black locally and globally.
2024 The Brothers’ Network Celebrates James Baldwin and the 100th Year of his Birth.
View Our 2024 Centennial Celebration Event Calendar Here!
Our Centennial celebration will include theatre, jazz, cinema, lecture, salon, and a host of programs and experiences that amplify the importance of a literary and cultural giant like James Baldwin.
James Baldwin was a profound American writer and social critic whose works continue to resonate with audiences today. Born in Harlem in 1924, Baldwin's experiences as a Black man in America served as the foundation for his powerful and provocative writing. His unflinching exploration of themes like racial injustice, sexuality, and identity marked a new era in American literature. Baldwin's notable works include "Go Tell It on the Mountain," "Notes of a Native Son," and "The Fire Next Time." With his sharp intellect and eloquent prose, Baldwin fearlessly tackled systemic racism and discrimination, challenging readers to confront the uncomfortable truths of the human condition. Through his contributions to literature and activism, James Baldwin left an indelible mark on the civil rights movement and continues to inspire generations seeking social justice and equality.
The Brothers’ Network is founded on the teachings, readings, writing, and intellectual discourse of James Baldwin.
The Brothers’ Network and Saturday Free School Celebrate The Centennial of James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin: God’s Revolutionary Voice
Photograph by Ted Thai/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty
St. Paul de Vence, France, 1976. (photo by Dmitri Kasterine)
Philadelphia | Los Angeles | Chicago | Hartford | Miami | Harlem | San Francisco | Berlin | Edinburgh | Paris | Rome
Actors - Prtizker Award Architects- Art Collectors - Artists - Booker Award Authors - Ceramists - James Beard Award Chefs - Choreographers - Coffee Shop Owners - Coffee Shops - Owners - Coffee Shop Proprietors - College Deans - Composers - Classical Composers - Creators - Curators - Cinematographers - Dance Company - Dancers - Data Scientists - Educators - Engineers - Filmmaker CBE RA - Founders - Glass Blowers - Glass Artists - Harpists - Heinz Awards - Hotel Owners - Intellectuals - Jazz Scholars - Jazz Musicians - Journalists - Opera Singers - Painters - Performance Artists - Photographers - Iconic Playwrights - Playwrights - Poets - Poets and Playwrights - BBC Presenters - Professors - Northern Europe Publisher Rep - Readers - Scholars - Sculptors - Shoe Designer - Statistician - Students - Tea Lovers - Teachers - Textile Makers - Theatre Patrons - Thespians - Thinkers - Wine Makers - World Travelers -
Actors - Prtizker Award Architects- Art Collectors - Artists - Booker Award Authors - Ceramists - James Beard Award Chefs - Choreographers - Coffee Shop Owners - Coffee Shops - Owners - Coffee Shop Proprietors - College Deans - Composers - Classical Composers - Creators - Curators - Cinematographers - Dance Company - Dancers - Data Scientists - Educators - Engineers - Filmmaker CBE RA - Founders - Glass Blowers - Glass Artists - Harpists - Heinz Awards - Hotel Owners - Intellectuals - Jazz Scholars - Jazz Musicians - Journalists - Opera Singers - Painters - Performance Artists - Photographers - Iconic Playwrights - Playwrights - Poets - Poets and Playwrights - BBC Presenters - Professors - Northern Europe Publisher Rep - Readers - Scholars - Sculptors - Shoe Designer - Statistician - Students - Tea Lovers - Teachers - Textile Makers - Theatre Patrons - Thespians - Thinkers - Wine Makers - World Travelers -
YOU
Actors - Prtizker Award Architects- Art Collectors - Artists - Booker Award Authors - Ceramists - James Beard Award Chefs - Choreographers - Coffee Shop Owners - Coffee Shops - Owners - Coffee Shop Proprietors - College Deans - Composers - Classical Composers - Creators - Curators - Cinematographers - Dance Company - Dancers - Data Scientists - Educators - Engineers - Filmmaker CBE RA - Founders - Glass Blowers - Glass Artists - Harpists - Heinz Awards - Hotel Owners - Intellectuals - Jazz Scholars - Jazz Musicians - Journalists - Opera Singers - Painters - Performance Artists - Photographers - Iconic Playwrights - Playwrights - Poets - Poets and Playwrights - BBC Presenters - Professors - Northern Europe Publisher Rep - Readers - Scholars - Sculptors - Shoe Designer - Statistician - Students - Tea Lovers - Teachers - Textile Makers - Theatre Patrons - Thespians - Thinkers - Wine Makers - World Travelers - Actors - Prtizker Award Architects- Art Collectors - Artists - Booker Award Authors - Ceramists - James Beard Award Chefs - Choreographers - Coffee Shop Owners - Coffee Shops - Owners - Coffee Shop Proprietors - College Deans - Composers - Classical Composers - Creators - Curators - Cinematographers - Dance Company - Dancers - Data Scientists - Educators - Engineers - Filmmaker CBE RA - Founders - Glass Blowers - Glass Artists - Harpists - Heinz Awards - Hotel Owners - Intellectuals - Jazz Scholars - Jazz Musicians - Journalists - Opera Singers - Painters - Performance Artists - Photographers - Iconic Playwrights - Playwrights - Poets - Poets and Playwrights - BBC Presenters - Professors - Northern Europe Publisher Rep - Readers - Scholars - Sculptors - Shoe Designer - Statistician - Students - Tea Lovers - Teachers - Textile Makers - Theatre Patrons - Thespians - Thinkers - Wine Makers - World Travelers - YOU
The Brothers’ Network is…
Actors | Pritzker Award Architects | Art Collectors | Artists | Ghanian Artist Venice Biennale | Ballet Dancers | Booker Award Authors | Ceramists | James Beard Award Chefs | Choreographers | Coffee Shop Owners | Coffee Shop Proprietors | College Deans | Composers | Contemporary Classical Music Composer | Classical Composer | Creators | Curators | Cinematographer | Dance Company | Dancers | Data Scientists | Dub Poet | Educators | Engineers | Filmmaker CBE RA | Founders | Glass Blowers | Glass Artists | Harpist | Heinz Awards | Hotel Owners | Intellectuals | Jazz Scholars | Jazz Musicians | Journalists | Opera Singers | Painters | Performance Artists | Photographers | Iconic Playwrights | Playwrights | Poets | Poets and Playwrights | BBC Presenters | Professors | Northern Europe Publisher Rep | Readers | Scholar | First Black Sculptor | Sculptors | Shoe Designer | Statistician | Students | Tea Lovers | Teachers | Textile Makers | Theatre Patrons | Thespians | Thinkers | Ugandan Art Collectors | Wine Makers | World Travelers | Writers | YOU
Events
National Portrait Gallery, London, England, The Time is Always Now
Artists Reframe the Black Figure
Formidable … Nanny of the Maroons’ Fifth Act of Mercy by Kimathi Donkor (2012). Photograph: Courtesy of the Artist and Niru Ratnam, London. Photo: Tim Bowditch
Exhibition Dates: February 22, 2024 - May 19, 2024, National Portrait Gallery St Martin’s Place London, England
Fault-lines and glitches … Father Stretch My Hands by Nathaniel Mary Quinn (2021). Photograph: © Nathaniel Mary Quinn. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian
She was learning to love moments, to love moments for themselves by Amy Sherald (2017) © Amy Sherald. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
A major study of the Black figure – and its representation in contemporary art.
The exhibition, curated by writer Ekow Eshun, showcases the work of contemporary artists from the African diaspora, including Michael Armitage, Lubaina Himid, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Amy Sherald, and highlights the use of figures to illuminate the richness and complexity of Black life. As well as surveying the presence of the Black figure in Western art history, we examine its absence – and the story of representation told through these works, as well as the social, psychological, and cultural contexts in which they were produced. —National Portrait Gallery
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Quintessence Theatre Presents, ‘Father Comes Home From The Wars Parts 1, 2, & 3’
Written by Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Raelle Myrick-Hodges
Quintessence Theatre 7137 Germantown Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19119
May 29, 2024 - June 23, 2024
Please Use Code TBN2024 for 20% Off Your Ticket Purchase
Hero, an enslaved Texan, is offered a deal - to join his master in the Confederate army with the promise of emancipation if he survives — or to remain with his true love Penny and work the plantation. Creating a new Black American history cycle, Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks changes our perspective on the American Civil War and dramatizes the events leading up to Juneteenth.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
James by Percival Everett Book Discussion
Hosted by Sterling and Shane Johnson
Sunday, July 14, 2024
Location: TBD
Sterling Johnson
“Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a masterpiece, and “James,” Percival Everett’s new retelling of it, just might be one too”—New York Times
Shane Johnson
New York, New York
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, United States
NOW through July 28th, 2024
The Picnic by Archibald Motley.
“The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism,” will include the works of more than 100 artists from the early 20th century — a time early in the Great Migration, when Black life and Black art was being transformed. It was an artistic revolution that, according to the Met, upended the international understanding of modern art and modern life and changed “the very fabric of early 20th-century modern art.”
Curator Denise Murrell, said the term “Harlem Renaissance” generally refers to a cohort of artists who were “committed to the idea of portraying the modern Black subject in a modern way,” reflecting the changing cultural reality and vibrancy of places like Harlem. She described the style as one that combines African aesthetics with more experimental and expressionistic forms of European modernism.
Denise Murrell, curator of the exhibit, speaking with our founder, Gregroy T. Walker.
A new play conceived, directed, written, and produced by The Brothers’ Network. Funded in part by Black Theatre Alliance of Philadelphia.
Alain LeRoy Locke is heralded as the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance” for his publication in 1925 of The New Negro—an anthology of poetry, essays, plays, music and portraiture by white and black artists. Locke is best known as a theorist, critic, and interpreter of African-American literature and art. He was also a creative and systematic philosopher who developed theories of value, pluralism and cultural relativism that informed and were reinforced by his work on aesthetics.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
SELF RESPECT; OR WHEN A MAN HAS SOMETHING TO BE CONCEITED OVER
Books We Recommend Spring 2024
Erasure by Percival Everett
In "Erasure," acclaimed author Percival Everett delves into themes of race, identity, and the complexities of the publishing world. The novel follows the story of a well-established African American author, Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, who becomes disillusioned with the commercial expectations placed on black writers. In a bold and thought-provoking narrative, Everett challenges literary conventions and societal norms, inviting readers to question the constructs that shape our understanding of race and art. "Erasure" is a provocative and insightful exploration of the challenges faced by marginalized voices in the literary landscape.
James by Percival Everett
Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a masterpiece, and “James,” Percival Everett’s new retelling of it, just might be one too. That’s the verdict from our critic Dwight Garner, who allows that although he doesn’t much care for reimaginings of famous novels — “a wet-brained and dutiful genre, by and large” — “James,” told from the perspective of Jim, Huck’s enslaved companion, is a brilliant exception: “It should come bundled with Twain’s novel. It is a tangled and subversive homage, a labor of rough love.” —New York Times
Diasporic Visions: The Work of Lois Mailou Jones
Described as the "Queen Mother" of African American Art, Lois Mailou Jones's artistic career spanned nearly seven decades. Her illustrious artistic canon spans several periods and styles highlighting her metamorphosis into a uniquely African- American artist. This is highlighted through her movement through impressionism, cubism, and finally post-modernism. Her stylistic achievement makes her the epitome of a Black modernist because she used and departed from European conventions of art baked in with African aesthetics, making this Jones's unique take on a Black aesthetic highlighting her legacy and contribution as a testament to Black artistry and creativity.
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“The voice of intelligence… is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance.”
– Dr. Karl A. Menninger
Given the global pandemic of COVID-19 and the rising endemic of M-Pox, the Brothers’ Network reminds each of us and all of us to stay vaccinated, stay safe, and stay masked. Our programming continues with the highest level of caution and care for our community.