Arts Advocate

Celeste Bateman is a longtime advocate for the arts in and around her hometown of Newark, NJ often combining arts with social justice topics or social commentary in her programming. In 1988, she created the first citywide celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who spent time in the city days before his murder on April 4, 1968. Combining musical performances with dramatic readings or keynote presentations, she created Sing in Parise of King! an event that continues to this day. Speakers over the years have included Yolanda King*, Rev. Dr. Bernice King, Rep. William Grey* (D, PA), Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery who marched on the frontlines with Dr. King; Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III (Abyssinian Baptist Church, NYC), Butts’ predecessor and Princeton professor, Rev. Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor*, Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica, Dr. Clement A. Price*, former Chair, Rutgers-Newark History Department, Rev. Dr. Joan Parrot, journalist Tony Brown and many others.

In the late 1990s, she started the Brick City Arts Tours, organized to take local elected officials and arts advocates to local art galleries, recording studios, performance and potential live/work spaces to make the case for local government support of the arts. (Brick City is a term of endearment first used by the local Hip Hop community referring to the “bricks” of the housing projects in which many hip hoppers grew up). The Brick City Arts Tours were the precursor to Open Door Studio Tours (now Newark Arts Festival) created by the Newark Arts Council (NAC) a few years later.

As acting Executive Director of the Newark Arts Council, she wrote and received a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts which helped launch NAC’s Arts Start program which currently funds community organizations’ arts/cultural programs in Newark neighborhoods.

Ms. Bateman has served on many arts and tourism grant panels over the years on the local, county and state levels and has fought intently for fair and equitable distribution of funds for under-funded organizations serving under-served communities.

She has served on numerous committees, Boards and Advisory Councils helping to bring the arts and culture to the community at large.

(Photo: Photos by Jamil)