malcolm x post 7- harlem trip. (graded #4)

On Wednesday, March 4, we went on our trip to Harlem.  Prior to visiting Harlem, when reading the autobiography, I was able to have a visual of how Malcolm was describing all of the places he went to... or so I thought.  I found out that I was wrong because it did not compare to how Harlem is actually like after visiting it yesterday.  Therefore, for me, it now gives a whole new view to reading the autobiography and actually being able to see what Malcolm was talking about. It was very interesting to learn about all of the places and see how much Harlem has changed over the years.  

Can you imagine 30 years ago stepping into Harlem like we did yesterday? Malcolm explains several times throughout the novel how bad things were in Harlem back then.  A few days ago an acquaintance told me a story about when his two friends went to the city some thirty years ago and ended up getting lost in Harlem.  They drove to the city to meet up with some friends and lost track of time.  It was about ten at night and they found themselves in Harlem. He, as well as Malcolm stated, went on to say that during this time, especially in the summer, so many people filled the large streets of Harlem drinking, smoking, and doing what not.  So his two friends came to a red light and they heard some people talking about them and start to approach the car.  They had no choice but to run the light.  He emphasized how lucky his two friends were because if they had stayed there something terrible could have happened. When he was telling me this I was so surprised at how surreal this situation was and could not have imagined how scary it must have been.  

To think that Malcolm actually grew up in Harlem and how big of a mark he had left is truly amazing.  It was really cool to see all of the places, like the mosque and street, named after him. The Masjid Malcolm Shabazz was an interesting place to visit because I really did not know too much about how it looked prior.  In the book all Malcolm talked about was what he has preached to the people, but not what the mosque had looked like.  It was really interesting to know that Malcolm was the actual creator behind this mosque as well. 

Aside from Malcolm, Harlem itself was so intriguing.  Going on the bus tour with Neal Shoemaker and Andi Owens was a lot of fun to learn about Harlem itself and important landmarks.  Neal was very funny and made our sightseeing interesting, especially when he told us of his own life experiences.  My favorite part of the trip was going to the Apollo theater. Billy, our tour guide, added so much to the experience because he was really funny, especially when he broke out in song and dance.  The Apollo theater had so much history in it and was so awesome to be in and learn about.  

I was so fascinated by the Apollo theater that I did some more research on the history of it. Although Billy did an excellent job explaining the main history and famous people that performed in the Apollo theater, I still wanted to know more. So this websites is the official Apollo Theater website and tells you all there is to know.

http://apollotheater.org/about_us.html 

I didn't talk about it previously in my blog, but you can't mention our trip to Harlem without talking about Sylvia's.  Sylvia is truly the queen of soul food and you are not going to find better in Harlem.  Aside from the great food that we all enjoyed and the brief history of Syliva's we got from Neal, again I wanted to know more about the coming about of the famous Sylvia's restaurant.  The first link answered all of my questions. In addition, I found out that there is a cook book entitle Sylvia's Soul Food that features all of the best recipes. The second website is a link to the cookbook. 

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/442344/sylvias_resturant_serving_up_soul.html?cat=8

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Sylvias-Soul-Food/Sylvia-Woods/e/9780688100124