Harlem Renaissance- Film Screening and Discussion!
Sat, Aug 22
|RBA Creative
From These Roots (1974) is William Greaves' 25-minute award-winning portrait of the Harlem Renaissance
Time & Location
Aug 22, 2026, 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
RBA Creative, 3718 MacArthur Blvd, Oakland, CA 94619, USA
About the event
Join us for Saturday, August 22, 2026 for ArtistSpeak!
A discussion and screening of From These Roots (1974), William Greaves' award-winning portrait of the Harlem Renaissance.
After the film, resident expert Carol Belle-Thomas Moss and Co-host Latisha Baker will spotlight four artists often left out of the Harlem Renaissance story: painters Laura Wheeler Waring and Lois Mailou Jones, and sculptors Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller and Selma Burke. We'll trace how their influence carried forward — Jones taught sculptor Elizabeth Catlett at Howard University, who in turn mentored art historian Samella Lewis.
Directed by pioneering filmmaker William Greaves and narrated by actor Brock Peters, with an original score by ragtime legend Eubie Blake, From These Roots tells the story of 1920s Harlem entirely through period photographs — many by the celebrated photographer James Van Der Zee. Winner of 22 international film festival awards, it remains one of the definitive portraits of the…