By Amanda Berg
South Bronx United Newspaper Club selfie during the last day of after school tutoring. From left to right, Samuka, Amanda, Moriken, and Ayouba.
My dad tells a story about the scars on his knees. He learned to play baseball on the asphalt lot behind his school. For years he played on that blacktop, with chalk marks for bases and a chain link fence as the boundary. A slide into home meant a bloody knee.
When he moved from the Bronx to suburban Long Island his new school had a baseball field made of grass and dirt. He wondered why it was not paved over.
One day a friend, the first in his neighborhood to have a color television, invited him over to watch a Yankees game. The game flickered on the screen and the outfield glowed green. The color tubes were less surprising than the grass.
Picture Poem by Samuka Kenneh for the SBU Press.
I forgot about my family’s connection to the Bronx during my first few months working with South Bronx United. Both of my father’s parents grew up here and my dad was born here. One of my very first memories taking documentary photos was freshman year of college when I asked my dad to go back to his childhood home on Tenbroeck Avenue with me.
The front page of SBU Press, a community newspaper published by students of the South Bronx United after school tutoring program.
Facilitating the newspaper club at South Bronx United was a great learning experience in terms of teaching youth and considering my documentary approach. It was a fun adventure, exploring and bonding through creative expression, getting to know a place where I have roots but am not familiar.
The main members of the club are Samuka, Ayouba, and Moriken. They prefer to call it the “newspaper squad.” Everyone contributed to the writing, photography and design of the paper. I love how collaborative the process has been. Sometimes one person would do the interview and another write the story, while a third person would take pictures and make key edits. We covered everything from the Bronx African Cup of Nations Soccer Tournament to the local community farm. One of my favorite stories written was about being young and Muslim during Ramadan in the Bronx.
The newspaper gave us all an excuse to be together, ask questions, and take a closer look. The club was a reminder of the kind of community engagement and self-reflection that drew me to photography in the first place.