Post-Reflections on the Buffalo, New York Shooting Massacre

Discerning the Content of my Heart As a little girl, the Walnut Park Fred Meyer’s felt more like church or a mini family reunion rather than a grocery store. Centered at the heart of our small Black community—laughter, joy and service stocked shelves and overstuffed aisles.  I witnessed the practice of unconditional love and collective […]

A Poem Called Freedom

A Poem Called Freedom (Reflections on How To Stay Free While Black)   Keeping my head to the sky I will close my eyes And listen for the sparrows’ whistle, the rivers roll, the trees whisper of their journey to freedom.   As the wind wipes my tears and holds me near I will embrace […]

The Time I Ruled the World

Before there was Barack or Hillary, there was me. Black. Female. President. In the photo above, I had just been elected Beaumont Middle School’s first Black President. I knew in my heart I had enough love to change the world—one heart at a time. Our student body council bonded quickly in the name of “equality” […]

Flashback Friday: Ida B. Wells

This post was written by Velynn Brown for our Women’s History Month theme on March 25, 2015. Southern trees bear strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the root Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees Before Billie Holiday sang the lyrics above at Cafe Society, […]

Books Can Keep You Stitched Together

The first book to ever hold this type of “keepin” power for me was, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I slept with this book under my pillow every night. I was even willing to pay the “lost” fine fee that my middle school library would eventually charge me for not returning it. […]

Black Love: A Sacred Oneness

In this country the Black body has always been subject to the breaking and the taking—yet we’ve clutched tight to the promise to love. Against all odds we willed our oneness. Finding the other half of ourselves in moonlit fields, dimmed juke joints and strobe-lighted clubs. Safe places allowed us to wash away the touch […]

Finding Comfort in the Battle

This year has been cruel y’all–like the stinging hits of freezing rain or cutting winds of a blizzard storm-harsher climates have shifted our atmosphere. The down pour of political and civil unrest has left our country drenched in hate, apathy and fear. Racial divides, Trump’s win, continuous murders of Black Lives, Standing Rock, the threat […]

The Time I Ruled the World

Before there was Barack or Hillary, there was me. Black. Female. President. In the photo above, I had just been elected Beaumont Middle School’s first Black President. I knew in my heart I had enough love to change the world—one heart at a time. Our student body council bonded quickly in the name of “equality” […]

Making of A Remnant Keeper

Someone just blew up my neighborhood with an AK57 etched with these letters- g e n t r i f i c a t i o n. My layman’s definition of the word is “moving Black folks, so white folks can move in.” Black folks are not alone in this war. Our Native American brothers and […]