TAR BABY a quarterly journal of art, political, and radical imagination launches on Sunday afternoon, March 23, 2025, from 3:00-6:00 pm at the Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba House, 219 East 2nd Street, New York, NY 10009, between Avenues B & C, on the Lower East
Side of Manhattan, at a celebration hosted by the Harlem Arts Salon. FREE. Contact harlemartssalon@gmail.com or visit Harlem Arts Salon for reservations.

TAR BABY is published by Ford Morrison, head of the Toni Morrison Foundation, and edited by poet, novelist, and playwright Ishmael Reed. Mr. Morrison will be joined on
Sunday by managing editor Tennessee Reed and contributing poets and writers including Karla Brundage, Nancy Mercado, Chavisa Woods, and Quincy Troupe in performance with Kelvyn Bell, Greg Osby, and Lonnie Plaxico. Volume 1, Issue 1 (Spring 2025), its inaugural issue, features these highlights:

Cover Feature: A Young Lord in the MAGA Era — Felipe Luciano interviewed by Nancy Mercado, PhD
• Interviews with Don Lemon, composer Mary Watkins, Nigerian poet Theresa Lola,
and Dr. Michael LeNoir
• Essays & Criticism by Professor Tommy J. Curry, Justin Desmangles, Armond
White, Kathryn Waddell Takara, and others
Memoirs & Nonfiction from Jearey Renard Allen (Mother Wit) and Quincy Troupe
(The Accordion Years)
• Poetry from Ishmael Hope, Anthony Stowers, and Kathryn Takara
• Visual Art by Lezley Saar and Pascal Lemaître; photography by Ming Smith and
Anthony Barboza

Named in tribute to Toni Morrison’s complex, boundary-defying novel, Tar Baby , publisher Ford Morrison writes, “Tar Baby is not only a nod to the legacy—it is a mission to engage deeply, provoke thoughtfully, and embrace the unresolve, as a site of intellectual and artistic vitality.”
Editor-in-Chief Ishmael Reed frames it more bluntly, “Unlike Brer Rabbit, Tar Baby doesn’t plan to get stuck.”Tar Baby is being published quarterly in both print and digital formats and welcomes submissions from writers, critics, and artists working at the intersection of aesthetics and politics. It is a space of convergence, where diaspora meets discourse, cultural criticism meets poetry, and the unspeakable finds form.

Subscriptions and submissions will be at www.tarbaby.com. This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.
Harlem Arts Salon has been presenting book signings, art exhibitions, and cultural programs featuring distinguished African American artists, creative thinkers, and other iconic cultural figures, since 2004.