Support the Fall Fundraising Drive of the Bronx African American History Project

Support the Fall Fundraising Drive of othe Bronx African American History Project


With sober appreciation of the hard times we live in, I am writing to ask your support of the Fall Fundraising Drive of the Bronx African American History Project

The BAAHP is not merely an internationally known community history project. It is a collaboration between scholars, community leaders, and ordinary citizens that gives a voice to people who would otherwise be left out of history books and neglected by those formulating social policy. The BAAHP doesn’t only record and archive oral histories, it makes that information available in forms that help people in the Bronx right now! Our research team are advocates and organizers as well as scholars. We not only write books and articles, we are out in the community giving tours, workshops and lectures and helping residents tell their stories in ways that empowers them and bring needed resources to their neighborhoods.

Here are some examples of ways the BAAHP brings history to life:

§ We helped coordinate a campaign to name a street and park after the great Bronx coach and recreation leader Hilton White, who sent scores of players to college on basketball scholarships, including 3 players on the 1966 National Championship Texas Western Team
§ We helped organize a Bronx Berlin Youth Exchange which has brought two groups of poets and rappers from Berlin to New York and sent a group of Bronx poets and rappers to Berlin
§ We helped sponsor the first ever “Akwisadae” festival at Fordham University which brought more than 200 people from all over the world to celebrate the culture of the Ashanti people of Ghana and announce to the world the existence of a huge Ghanaian community in the Bronx
§ We helped the largest mosque in the Bronx, the Futa Islamic Center, regain ownership of its building when it had been seized by the City in a tax dispute.
§ We are helped create an affordable housing complex for retired musicians in the Bronx, under the auspices of Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation, that will also include a performance space and music school
§ We have let the world know, through our White Paper on African Immigration to the Bronx, that more than 20 new mosques and Islamic centers have opened in the Bronx in the last ten years, most founded by African immigrants, without prompting a single protest!

If you are interested in promoting research that empowers Bronx residents, that creates an archive on Bronx history consulted by scholars around the world and inspires Fordham to place more of its resources at the disposal of people in Bronx communities, there is there is no better way of doing so than contributing the Bronx African American History Project.

Please make your checks out to the “Bronx African American History Project” and send them to BAAHP, 641 Dealy Hall, Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458

Or, if you would like to Donate Online, go to http://fordham.edu/gifts_to_fordham/ Click on “Make a Gift Online” then select “BAAHP” under “Annual Giving and Resticted Funds”

Thank you for considering the BAAHP!


Sincerely



Mark D Naison
Founder and Principal Investigator
Bronx African American History