Join us for our Black literary salon featuring author Felipe Luciano and moderator Jamal Joseph in conversation!
We Lit is a CCCADI series dedicated to exploring authors of the African Diaspora who have beautifully woven their experiences, cultures, and dreams into their works. We Lit is where words come to life, and stories become a bridge that connects us all.
In this next installment of the series, Felipe Luciano reads from his book “Flesh and Spirit: Confessions of a Young Lord” and shares with insights about surviving the streets and the suites.
“Flesh and Spirit: Confessions of a Young Lord” will be available for purchase at the event.
Growing up fatherless and poor, Felipe Luciano didn’t yearn for wealth or dream of becoming a famous actor or athlete. He was tired of being poor and ached to be a man, to reach that point of sagacity, courage, and independence that would signal to the world that he was now a warrior, ready to fight the battle for truth and justice, to slay the dragon of evil, whatever that might be. In Flesh and Spirit, Luciano paints a vivid portrait of his life in New York City as a member of the city’s Latino community as well as his pivotal role in the Young Lords and The Last Poets.
Sparing no one―not the revolutionaries, the Revolution, nor the author himself―Flesh and Spirit is written with honesty and humility to help guide young people of color and other Americans through the labyrinths of ideology, organization, missteps, false paths, and phony societal promises.
Felipe Luciano
Felipe Luciano is an Emmy Award–winning journalist, news anchor, and former adjunct professor at Fordham University. He is the co-founder and chairman of the Young Lords Party, a member of The Original Last Poets, an advocate for inter-ethnic communication, and the host of “Latin Roots,” a Latino music program in New York City. A talented diversity speaker, Luciano is committed to community empowerment, ethnic pride, and civil rights. He is a regular contributor to many New York–area newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times and Essence. His poetry has appeared in anthologies such as Puerto Rican Poetry: An Anthology from Aboriginal to Contemporary Time.
Luciano is an acclaimed poet and political activist who advocates for the Latino population of New York City, and for kids growing up in the same circumstances he did. Sparing no one—not the revolutionaries, the Revolution, nor the author himself—Flesh and Spirit is written with honesty and humility to help guide young people of color and other Americans through the labyrinths of ideology, organization, missteps, false paths, and phony societal promises. Luciano’s memoir Flesh and Spirit, paints a vivid portrait of his life in New York City; chronicling a Black Puerto Rican man’s transformation from an incarcerated gang member to the Co-Founder of the Young Lords Party and The Last Poets.
Jamal Joseph
Jamal joined the Black Panther Party at age 15. He was arrested at 16 in a case known as the New York Panther 21. He was released on bail after a year and became one of youngest leaders and spokespersons for the Black Panther Party. Jamal would spend nine years in prison where he earned two college degrees and founded a theater company. He has been a Professor of Film at Columbia University for 25 years and has been nominated for an Oscar, Emmy and Grammy for his work as writer, director and producer.