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Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem

Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem
Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem

Funeral services were held Monday for late attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church. A viewing was held before the service. Maddox’s son Charles said Alton’s body will be taken back to Georgia.

RELATED: Alton Maddox, Jr., the ‘People’s Lawyer’ and Attorney-at-War, dead at 77

Photos by Nayaba Arinde, Amsterdam News Editor

Credit: Nayaba Arinde photo

The post Funeral service held for late Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. in Harlem appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest

Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest
Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest

Funeral services were held Monday for late attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church. A viewing was held before the service. Maddox’s son Charles said Alton’s body will be taken back to Georgia.

Photos by Nayaba Arinde, Amsterdam News Editor

Credit: Nayaba Arinde photo

The post Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. laid to rest appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

AMATEUR NIGHT AT THE APOLLO MAY 2023

Harlem Bespoke:  The renowned Amateur Night at the Apollo returns in 2023 after almost almost a two years absence and tickets are now on sale for November.

Wednesday, May 3rd, 7:30PM, Amateur Night live at the Apollo Theater, 253 West 125th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue.  Local events have been selling out way in advance recently so those who want to get a head start on good seats should do so sooner than later.  More details and advance online tickets at the official Apollo site: LINK

* This article was originally published here

UPDATE: MORNING HARLEM COFFEE SHOPS 2023


Harlem Bespoke:
 Uptown has the usual coffee chains like Starbucks available for early morning brew but what are local shops that are open at 8:00AM?   Below are the mom and pop shops to check out for all those early risers out there in the neighborhood with a few new additions including Harlem Cafe and Sojourner Coffee.


Harlem Cafe, 2259 Adam Clayton by 133rd Street: LINK
Sojourner Coffee, 137 West 116th Street by Adam Clayton: LINK
Dell’Aria,  232 East 111th between 2nd and 3rd: LINK
Avrilililly’s,  1610 Amsterdam and 139th Street: LINK
I Like It Black,  409 West 125th by Morningside: LINK

Le Petit Parisienne, 151 Lenox by 118th Street: LINK
Double Dutch, 2194 Frederick Douglass Blvd by 118th: LINK
Sugar Hill Cafe, 410 West 145th Street by St. Nicholas: LINK

Monkey Cup, 1965 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd by 118th: LINK
Oma, 1707 Amsterdam Avenue by 145th Street: LINK
Pabade Cafe, 135 East 110th between Lex and Park: LINK
Il Caffe Latte, 189 Lenox Avenue by 119th Street: LINK 
Dulceria, 2220 Frederick Douglass by 120th Street: LINK
Kura Kuma, 121 Lasalle Street by Broadway: LINK

Super Nice, 156 East 117th Street by Lexington: LINK
Ginjan, 85 East 125th Street by Lexington: LINK
Ploughshare, 1351 Amsterdam by 126th Street: LINK
9 Tails, 34 West 126th Street, by Fifth Avenue: LINK
Dear Mama, 611 West 129th Street by Broadway: LINK
Proof Coffee, 2286 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd by 135th: LINK
NBHD Brulee, 2620 Frederick Douglass Blvd at 140th: LINK
Manhattanville Coffee, 142 Edgecombe by 142nd Street: LINK
Hamilton’s, 3570 Broadway by 145th Street: LINK
Chipped Cup,  3610 Broadway by 148th Street: LINK
Common Good, 2801 Frederick Douglass Blvd at 149th: LINK
Lucille’s, 26 Macombs Place at 150th Street: LINK

* This article was originally published here

Black Protestant church still vital despite attendance drop

silhouette of cross

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The wide empty spaces in pews between parishioners at a Sunday service at Zion Baptist Church in South Carolina’s capital highlight a post-pandemic reality common among many Black Protestant churches nationwide.

At its heyday in the 1960s, more than 1,500 parishioners filled every seat at Zion. But membership at the historic church — a crucial meeting point for many during the Civil Rights Movement — dwindled over recent decades.

The trend has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which infected and killed Black Americans at a disproportionate rate. Zion’s attendance dropped from 300 parishioners before the outbreak to 125 now.

Founded in 1865, Zion still has a choir capable of beautiful singing, but it also shrunk by more than half. The stomping of feet and the call-and-response of the leader and congregation have dimmed from what they were before the pandemic.

“It saddens my heart,” said Calvernetta Williams, who has worshipped at Zion for 40 years. “The pastor has a lot of outreach to do, and so do we … because it’ll never be the same.”

Zion’s shrinking attendance is in line with a recent Pew Research Center survey; it found significant attendance drop among Black Protestants that is unmatched by any other major religious group. The number of Black Protestants who say they attend services monthly has fallen from 61% in 2019 to 46% now, said Pew, and they are the only group in which more than half (54%) attend services virtually.

Zion broadcasts services online, produces digital content and is active on social media. But the Rev. M. Andrew Davis said his church’s virtual experience can’t match in-person interactions, including the smiles of children, and how sometimes older congregants share testimonials about how God healed them.

Davis’ sermon on a recent Sunday was titled: “Trust during times of trouble.” He recalled the pandemic as one the most challenging times in his church’s history – and offered words of hope. “We may not ever go back to the way it was, but we can do better,” Davis told parishioners.

Black Americans — two-thirds of whom are Protestant — attend church more regularly than Americans overall, and pray more often, surveys show. But patterns of worship are shifting across generations: younger Black adults attend church less often than their elders, and those who attend are less likely to do so in a predominantly Black congregation.

“It’s imperative that we get our young people back,” said Donnie Mack, a deacon at Zion. “As we say in old churches — if you don’t see any young people, if you don’t hear any babies crying, then, you’re at a dying church.”

Several Black church leaders said it’s proved difficult to convince members to return for in-person worship. They note that many congregants are older, have inadequate access to health care, and hesitate to return to church for fear of catching a contagious illness.

Black adults also suffer from higher rates of obesity, diabetes and asthma, making them more susceptible. They are also more likely to be uninsured.

Additionally, many Black working people had jobs deemed essential and were less able to work from home during the pandemic, raising concerns about exposing others in their often crowded households to the virus.

“The pandemic exasperated that,” said the Rev. Quardricos Driskell, pastor at Beulah Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia.

Attendance at his 160-year-old church dropped from a peak of more than 200 people who met in two Sunday services in the early 2000s, to less than half that at a single service. “We’re lucky if we have 100 on any given Sunday,” Driskell said.

Despite the attendance drop, academics, pastors and parishioners agree that churches remain fundamental to Black communities, providing refuge and hope.

“No pillar of the African American community has been more central to its history, identity, and social justice vision than the ‘Black Church,’” Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote in ‘The Black Church,’ his companion volume to the PBS series.

“For a people systematically brutalized and debased by the inhumane system of slavery, followed by a century of Jim Crow racism, the church provided a refuge: a place of racial and individual self-affirmation, of teaching and learning, of psychological and spiritual sustenance, of prophetic faith.”

Although there’s broad respect for the historical role of Black churches, including their crucial role fighting for racial equality, polls show that there’s also a perception among Black Americans that they have lost influence in recent decades.

“It still functions in the same way: It’s a source of hope for people who cannot hold on to political promises, they can’t necessarily go to the law and get the things that we need and give them the safety that we need,” said Tamura Lomax, professor of religious studies at Michigan State University who specializes in the Black church.

But attendance had been dwindling — even before the pandemic and the 2020 protests over racial justice — because the way people connected to the church had changed, Lomax said. A pivotal moment came when the Black Lives Matter movement was founded. Its members, she said, embraced some of the African spirituality and religious practices that were taken from their ancestors during enslavement and rejected the Christ-centered movement that had been pivotal to the civil rights struggle.

“They didn’t want to carry the patriarchal kind of Black masculinity leadership model,” Lomax said.

During the pandemic, Black pastors used their influence to encourage vaccinations from the pulpit, while hosting testing clinics and vaccination events in church buildings.

The Rev. Eldren D. Morrison of Shaw Temple African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Georgia’s Cobb County, said in-person attendance plunged by half — from 400 worshippers to about 200 — since the virus outbreak. But the pandemic helped pastors like him rethink how to connect with their congregation.

“It’s teaching us that we’re not necessarily looking for numbers, but we’re looking for engagement,” Morrison said.

“Whether that’s virtual, or whether that’s people in pews or whether it’s through some type of ministry involvement throughout the community, people are involved with the church and are growing their faith. And that’s what the mission is in the end anyway.”

___

Associated Press visual journalist Jessie Wardarski contributed.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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* This article was originally published here

The Mayor’s Op-Ed: NYC Executive Budget

The #1 source in the world for all things Harlem.

Last week, the Adams Administration released our Fiscal Year 2024 Executive Budget. As President Joe Biden has often said: “Show me your budget and I will show you your values.” That is why this budget invests in our Working People’s Agenda, prioritizing education, jobs, housing, health care, and public safety. As Mayor, I’m committed to…

The post The Mayor’s Op-Ed: NYC Executive Budget appeared first on Harlem World Magazine.

* This article was originally published here

A Guide To Pena Palace And Sintra: How To Get Pena Sintra Tickets And Explore This Magical Destination

The #1 source in the world for all things Harlem.

Sintra, a charming Portuguese town located about 30 kilometers west of Lisbon, is known for its picturesque landscapes and stunning castles. The most famous of these castles is the Pena Palace, a whimsical and colorful structure that looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale. In this article, we will provide you with…

The post A Guide To Pena Palace And Sintra: How To Get Pena Sintra Tickets And Explore This Magical Destination appeared first on Harlem World Magazine.

* This article was originally published here

New Yorkers Poised To Win First-In-The-Nation All-Electric New Buildings Law

The #1 source in the world for all things Harlem.

New York is on the verge of becoming the first state from Harlem to Hawaii with a law requiring new buildings to be constructed without fossil fuel systems. A mandate that will go into effect for smaller buildings in 2026 and larger buildings in 2029. The all-electric new construction requirement, which is included in the…

The post New Yorkers Poised To Win First-In-The-Nation All-Electric New Buildings Law appeared first on Harlem World Magazine.

* This article was originally published here

Students And Stars Shine At The Harlem School Of The Arts Annual Gala 2023

The #1 source in the world for all things Harlem.

Honorees included actress, singer, director, and Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University Phylicia Rashad. Including former President of Spelman College and Former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell who was presented with the award by her son, Sekou Campbell, and The Legacy of…

The post Students And Stars Shine At The Harlem School Of The Arts Annual Gala 2023 appeared first on Harlem World Magazine.

* This article was originally published here

The Fabulous Couple, Harlem A$AP Rocky And Rihanna At The 2023 MET Gala

The #1 source in the world for all things Harlem.

On May 1, 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC was abuzz with excitement as celebrities, fashion designers, and other figures gathered for the annual Met Gala. This year’s theme, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” promised to showcase the best of American fashion, and guests were eager to see what the evening had…

The post The Fabulous Couple, Harlem A$AP Rocky And Rihanna At The 2023 MET Gala appeared first on Harlem World Magazine.

* This article was originally published here