Vol. 1, Issue 6 June 2019 KEEPING YOU UP-TO-DATE MONTHLY WITH THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN SHELBY COUNTY, TN LETTER FROM THE EDITOR By Yvonne D. Nelson, Ph.D. Summer time is here, school is out, and thousands of youth are looking for something positive to do during this brief hiatus from school. Would you like a suggestion for improving the lives of youth residing in Memphis and its surrounding communities? Sponsor a child’s partial- or full-tuition for an employment youth summer program. You might save a child’s life if you can. We are happy to report that NEWSCENE was granted approx. one-fourth of the grant funding requested from the Memphis City Council. This $15k in funding, combined with funds raised from our first WATERMELON FUNDRAISER, will be used to print and mail subscriptions and to further support our programs. We hope we can depend on you to become a paid annual subscriber soon! As you know, we depend heavily on you to spread the word about NEWSCENE. Your willingness to share links to featured stories to create new viewers, your desire to submit calendar events, pictures, and stories about events that have recently taken place are greatly appreciated. So is your desire to support us through purchasing advertisements through our advertising department that feature your local businesses, reunions, and other activities. This newsletter is for you and about you and the things you know about that are happening in your communities. I am depending on you to make sure we have accurate meeting dates and fresh content for each monthly NEWSCENE edition. NEWSCENE subscriptions are currently available for $36/bi-annually. You can subscribe online, call us at 901-300-0250, email Memphis.Meetings@gmail.com, or write us at I Love Shelby County, P.O. Box 9146, Memphis, TN 38190-0146. Thank you, Yvonne Blues City Cultural Center Programs and Education Director, Roniece Gilkey (Center) and Sheneka Nutall, Pinnacle Financial Partners Sr. Vice President/ Financial Advisor of Lending Offices (front row right), teamed up for “The Whitehaven 38116 Summer Youth Experience” finances matters day. Story and Pictures by Dr. Yvonne D. Nelson EXPERIENCES AT SUMMER CAMP Roniece Gilkey has been the Programs and Education Director for the Blues City Cultural Center for the past three years. The agency evolved from its early beginnings as DOPKWE HOUSE in the late 1960s, an arts conglomerate under the direction of Tony Thompson, to the BEALE STREET REPERTORY COMPANY (BSRC) in the mid-1970s. BSRC was founded by Levi Frazier Jr., Deborah Hardin, Jon Wilson, Harold Gentry, Gregory Boyd, and Ron Parker. The mission of the organization was to provide a home for black performing artists who had few venues to display their talents in at the time. The BEALE STREET WRITERS were a cadre of scribes who originally included Quincy McKay, Hosea Henderson Jr., Mary Ruth Robinson, Cynthia Jones Sadler, Tommie Lee Ray, Akiba Shabazz, T. T. Roberson, and Pat Barnes. These individuals, who developed out of the BSRC, made a commitment to put pen to paper to express the black experience from a southern perspective. After approaching Memphis’s first black-owned radio station owner Art Gilliam about the concept of plays written by the writers being aired, WLOK 1340 AM aired these productions every Sunday morning for more than two years. Later, Memphis Cablevision televised a theatre series, SWEETER THE JUICE, featuring a variety of topics with an emphasis on Southern black culture monthly.
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