(RED BANK, NJ) -- Tanisha Ford, author of Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement, is a 2024 NAACP Image Award winner. Her book, Our Secret Society, Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement, is what brings her to Two River Theater on March 22, 2024 at 7:00pm, as the guest speaker for the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center fundraiser.
The event is dubbed “Welcome to Our Met Gala,” which salutes the traveling fashion show known as “Ebony Fashion Fair,” lauded by the Black community, founded by Eunice Johnson, and produced by Johnson Publishing Company, who Ford writes extensively about in her award-winning book.
Today’s term used to describe Tanisha would be influencer. Ford was named to Root Magazine list of the 100 Most Influential African Americans, in 2019. The CUNY history professor and contributing writer for the New York Times and Harper’s Bazaar Magazine, heads up a stellar line-up of events for Women’s History Month, presented by the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center. The salute to Ebony Magazine, is a Fashion Retrospective in conjunction with Two River Theater’s Costume Department, to benefit the Art of Social Justice, a professional development program for teachers. Contact [email protected] for more information. Tickets $100. With a signed copy of the award-winning book $150. Log on to www.tthomasfortuneculturalcenter.org to purchase tickets.
Saturday, March 23, 2024 – 3:00pm-5:00pm, Caroline Hunter Williams is the guest speaker for the opening of the new exhibit “Shaping Black identity & Black Influence on Mass Media.” Williams is a founding member of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement, and an important catalyst for world change. It was her voice and action, along with the movement that led to the toppling of apartheid in South Africa. This is a story you DO NOT want to miss, and the bonus part, Williams is alive to tell it. You must register with [email protected] Donation for exhibit and talk is $20. Doors open at 2:00pm. Seating limited for the 3:00pm presentation. First come. First served.
Saturday, March 30, 2024 - 3:00pm-5:00pm, Join Dr. Carla Peterson, a professor at the University of Maryland, whose book, Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth Century New York City was the inspiration behind the African American Scott Family, in the popular HBO/MAX series The Gilded Age. The show also includes the character of T. Thomas Fortune. Dr. Peterson's, grandfather, Jerome Peterson, was T. Thomas Fortune’s partner in the New York Age newspaper. Join them for an engaging conversation with Dr. Carla Peterson and the Cultural Center’s Executive Director, Gilda Rogers. Suggested donation $20. Dr. Peterson’s book will be on sale in the Cultural Center’s gift shop. Please register with [email protected] to reserve your seat.
The T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center is located at 94 Drs. James Parker Blvd. in Red Bank, New Jersey. The mission of the T. Thomas Fortune Foundation is to preserve and further the civil rights and social justice legacy of T. Thomas Fortune through community outreach, education, the arts and public programming.
