Toast to the Harlem Renaissance:
100 Years of Legacy with Wendy Kay Johnson
Thursday November 14
18h30-21h00
Join AAWE for a special, intimate evening celebrating 100 years of the Harlem Renaissance!
Experience the words, colors, and sounds of this vibrant era as we toast to a century of creativity, culture and community. With a glass of bubbly in hand, immerse yourself in the legacy of the artists, writers, and musicians who transformed Harlem and beyond.
Our featured speaker, Wendy Kay Johnson, will share personal stories of resilience and the power of art to inspire hope for the present. After her talk and a Q&A session, enjoy a Café Society type of experience inspired by legendary venues of the Harlem Renaissance. We'll listen to a playlist curated by Wendy, and read passages from influential Harlem Renaissance writers and thinkers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and W.E.B. DuBois.
If you have a favorite passage you'd like printed for the event, feel free to email DEIB chair, Chloé. We will also have some of Wendy's favorite passages available to read.
Hors d'oeuvres, cheese, wine and bubbly will be served. Non-alcoholic drinks will also be provided.
Don't miss this event! Sip, celebrate, and explore the enduring impact of the Harlem Renaissance on art, music, and social change.
Tickets: 31€ per member, spaces are limited.
Member Guest tickets: 35€, we encourage you to bring a friend who would like to know more about joining AAWE.
All proceeds will go to paying our speaker, Wendy Kay Johnson, and towards the refreshments.
About The Speaker
Wendy Kay Johnson is a vibrant figure of the African American community in Paris, whose life story spans continents, cultures, and decades of activism. Wendy's journey began in Harlem, New York, where she grew up surrounded by the cultural richness of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1961, she ventured to Paris as a junior year abroad student from Hunter College, where she fell in love with a Frenchman, transferred to the prestigious Sorbonne and established her life in France.
With nearly 50 years of experience as a legal translator and English teacher, Wendy is fluent in French, as well as Portuguese and Italian. Her linguistic mastery is matched by her passion for social justice. She has spent decades working with French organizations to uplift underprivileged women and children, building a remarkable legacy of community organizing and activism.
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One of her proudest accomplishments is facilitating the publication
of her father’s memoir,
A Dancer in the Revolution: Stretch Johnson, Harlem Communist at the Cotton Club, a powerful narrative of resistance, art, and activism. She is not only the proud heir of her parents’ legacy of activism, but the proud mother of her two children and grandmother to three granddaughters, and is currently writing her own memoir with them in mind.
