Photo Update - The Bronx

The Bronx, the northmost borough of NYC - famous for its music scene, its cultural and ethnic diversity, but also for its reputation for a high criminal rate. To me, this part of New York was pretty much as exciting as Manhattan. Therefore, I'll take a look back at the field trip to NYC, on which I went with fellow students from Bonn's North American Studies Program.

Our visit to the Bronx museum was already worth our trip to this part of the city. At this time, there was an exhibition with 130 powerful photographs of the Civil Rights Movement called "Road to Freedom" and we even had the pleasure to be the first visitors. The very touching black and white pictures captured some key moments which downright soaked us into this era and gave an impression of this crucial change in the history of the US.

Many images show Marthin Luther King, for example when he was arrested, but in fact, also all of the other pictures had left a permanent impression, too, because they very intensively depict the discrimination and violent injustice African-Americans had to face. In this video you can see some of the exhibited photographs: Road to Freedom. Here's also a link to a book which shows some of these pics: book recommendation

In addition, here you can see some of my impressions of the Bronx: http://nadines-perspective.blogspot.com/p/new-york-city.html You have to scroll down to "Day III".

Not only our visit to the Bronx Museum was pretty fascinating, we also made an exciting bus-tour with the one and only "Notorious Ph.D", or Mark Naison, as he's also known... He lead us to the roots of Hip-Hop music, so our trip also included a stop at "The Point" - the place where most of the famous hip-hop singers started and where this music genre has its origin. Back on the bus again, we kept listening to the development of James Brown's "Give it up or turn it loose" to the Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's delight", or "The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel" up to "Deja Vu" by Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz. In the meantime, we drove across the borough and caught a glimpse of the people who live there.

All in all, I enjoyed our trip to the Bronx very much and I can only recommend everyone who goes to NYC, to take a look over the edge of Manhatten and to also visit other boroughs, especially the Bronx.