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 The 2008 Green Foods Festival will debut in Harlem on Saturday, June 21 in Mt. Morris (Marcus Garvey) Park. The interactive multicultural Festival, which will run from 12:00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m., marks a significant stride toward educating and empowering Harlem residents about making informed, healthy lifestyle choices while exercising sustainable solutions.

The one-day event features music, cooking demonstrations, notable authors and speaking experts in the fields of nutrition, natural medicine and natural healing, as well as contests and giveaways. Special guest speakers will include Dr. Aris LaTham and Queen Afua. Dr. Aris LaTham is a renown raw foodist, who has catered raw and vegetarian food all over the world, including for the U.S. Congress and major stars like Lauryn Hill, Cecile Tyson, Erykah Badu, Sidney Poitier, and Ben Vereen. Queen Afua is one of the world’s leading authorities on wholistic health and the director of the Heal Thyself Living Center. She has introduced the art of natural living worldwide, and served clients such as Stevie Wonder, Iyanla Vanzant, Erykah Badu, John Amos and Vanessa Williams, among others. Lillian Bulter, Founder of Raw Soul, Catering and Food Service will also speak at the event.

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By Nellie Bailey

On Saturday, June 21st in Marcus Garvey Park starting at 10 AM hundreds of Harlemites will take to the streets to voice their opposition to ethnic displacement and corporate centered development sweeping throughout Harlem.

The rapid transformation of Harlem through zoning and rezoning encompassing East, Central and West Harlem without a doubt has and will continue to displace thousands of local residents and small businesses.

After decades of public policy neglect, redlining and disinvestment Harlem now stands at the brink of losing its historic status as Black America’s cultural Mecca for more than a century. Although development is a welcome relief from abandoned buildings, garbage-strewn empty lots, few service amenities such as supermarkets, rampant drugs and crime, the “revitalization” of Harlem is displacing tenants, driving out local businesses and will impact Harlem’s ethnic, political and socio-economic makeup for decades to come if not permanently.

For decades progressive grassroots activists bemoaned the deliberate policy of redlining by banks that today occupies nearly every corner in the “new” Harlem although Blacks are still less likely to receive loans and mortgages than their white counterparts.

Local Community Boards are deluged with complaints from Blacks unable to secure bank loans that will prove even more difficult since the sub-prime mortgage melt down. The economic racism continues virtually unabated as does other forms of institutional racism manifested in high unemployment, the growing class of those permanently jobless, police brutality, poor education, homelessness and youth violence.

Virtually everyone is experiencing some form of economic difficulty including those who thought they were secure in their middle class abodes. Here in Harlem, unofficial reports indicate hundreds of tenants from Lenox Terrace, Delano Village/Savoy Parks, and the Riverton are seeking one shot deals at the Human Resource Administration to avoid eviction only to be denied. Unable to pay rents of over $2,000 hundreds of Black and Latino tenants have been forced out of the former state subsidized affordable Mitchell Lama building of 1,192 units at 3333 Broadway situated at the northern tip of Columbia University’s 18 acres expansion.

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Demonstration/Rally in Harlem
Against Displacement & Gentrification

HARLEM TENANTS COUNCIL, Inc.
21 West 130th Street New York, NY 10030
Email:Harlem tenants@gmail.com
Contact: Nellie Hester Bailey 646-812-5188

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Times & Locations:

10 AM - Main Gathering: Marcus Garvey Park: Enter at 124th and Fifth Avenue.

10 AM Feeder March in East Harlem: Gather at 116th & 3rd Avenue: northbound on Third Avenue to 125th Street. Proceed westbound on 125th to Madison Avenue southbound to 124th into Marcus Garvey Park at approximately 11 AM

11 AM Main March begins: Leave Marcus Garvey at 124th and Madison Avenue northbound to 125th - proceed westbound to Broadway- northbound to 145th- eastbound to Frederick Douglass Blvd - southbound to 116th Street - westbound to Morningside Avenue to Morningside Park.

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