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COMPOST NOW! Right in your own neighborhood. #EastPoint Residents, drop off your compostable items any time using the bins in the front parking lot. We're at 2148 Newnan St. WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE? • Food scraps (produce, meat, dairy, bones) • Coffee grounds, coffee filters, tea • Paper towels and napkins • Cardboard pizza boxes • Shredded paper (not glossy or plastic) • Flowers and dead house plants • BPI certified compostable products WHAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE? • No plastic, plastic bags, or styrofoam • No pet waste • No baby diapers • No glass or metal • No chemicals or cleaning products • No yard waste Register and learn more at: compostnow.org/east-point

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE EBON DOOLEY ARTS & SOCIAL JUSTICE AWARDS Dec. 3, 2022 | 6:30-8 p.m. artsxchange.org/ebon-dooley CONTACT: Angela Oliver, media@artsxchange.org, 404-624-4211 ‘Herstory’ muralist, ‘Street Angel’ among honorees for ArtsXchange awards WCLK’s Kiplyn Primus to emcee fifth annual ceremony named for late activist East Point, GA — Six honorees have been named Ebon Dooley Arts & Social Justice Awards at the ArtsXchange: Dr. Janice Liddell, playwright and longtime Clark Atlanta University educator; Roselyn Lewis, Urban Youth Harp Ensemble founder and 40-year APS teacher; Carlton Mackey, Black Men Smile creator and assistant director of education at the High Museum of Art; the late “Street Angel” Marshall Rancifer, advocate for Atlanta’s homeless; Meadowlark Pictures, independent film and stage producers; and Ashley Dopson, community muralist and art teacher. Kiplyn Primus, host of WCLK’s “The Local Take with Kiplyn Primus,” will emcee the fifth annual awards ceremony from 6:30-8 p.m. Dec. 3 at the ArtsXchange, 2148 Newnan St., East Point. Tickets are $35 or free for members. The event will include a performance by the I Am Arts Dance Company and heavy hors d'oeuvres. The Dooley Awards are given annually to artists, activists or organizers/organizations whose work creatively builds community and advances liberation, in the legacy of ArtsXchange founder Ebon Dooley. This year, the awards ceremony will also be dedicated toDr. Doris Derby — a civil rights movement photographer, beloved Georgia State University professor, poet, artist and fervent supporter of the ArtsXchange, who passed on March 28, 2022. Derby was also our 2021 Ebon Dooley Change Maker honoree. Join us as we remember her, and as we celebrate the honorees: Liddell the Change Maker, Lewis the Bridge Builder, Mackey the Social Justice Champion, Rancifer the Economic Justice Champion, Meadowlark Pictures (Noah Washington, Solomon Simmon and Zipporah Dorsey) the Emerging Leaders, and Dopson the Jack Sinclair Visual Artist. For more information or to purchase tickets, see artsxchange.org/ebon-dooley. ABOUT THE ARTSXCHANGE The ArtsXchange, d/b/a the Southeast Community Cultural Center, was incorporated in 1983 and opened The Arts Exchange In 1984 in Grant Park, reshaping the landscape of Metro Atlanta’s arts scene. In East Point since 2017, the ArtsXchange empowers artists, social justice activists, and creative entrepreneurs to engage communities with innovative artistic learning experiences and cultural exchange. Our programming is designed to be inclusive, diverse, and to encourage positive change as participants come to a better understanding of themselves and others. Our art is our activism. ABOUT THE HONOREES Change Maker | Dr. Janice Liddell’s lifetime of work in theater has uplifted Black women, exploded myths about Black people, and reclaimed their histories. Moved by the reporting of the 50th anniversary of the Lena Baker execution, Liddell initially sent her play, “Who Will Sing for Lena?” to various theaters royalty-free if viewers would sign a petition for the posthumous pardon of Lena Baker. 2,500 signatures were sent to the Georgia State Board of Pardon and Paroles, which influenced the pardon in 2005. The play has since been performed at festivals, theaters and schools from Atlanta, Denver and NYC to Edinburgh, Belize City and Monaco. Liddell retired after serving in several capacities at Clark Atlanta University for more than 35 years, and as assistant vice president for academic affairs and coordinator of faculty development at Atlanta Metropolitan College until 2015. She is co-editor of a collection of literary criticism, an author of several published articles and poems, and has had several plays produced nationally and internationally. Bridge Builder | Roselyn Lewis’ decades as a music educator has built bridges for Black children in Atlanta Public Schools by introducing them to the harp, opera, handbells, and other musical fields in which they are traditionally underrepresented. As co-founder and executive director of the Urban Youth Harp Ensemble, which was founded in 2000 during her years as a choral music teacher at Brown Middle School, her encouragement has inspired career paths for now-professional musicians, such as Mason Morton, one of her first harp students, who is now on tour as a member of “America’s Got Talent” runners-up Sons of Serendip. Lewis retired as choral music teacher in APS after a stellar career spanning 40 years. Economic Justice Champion | Marshall Rancifer, lovingly known as the Street Angel, died in Sept. 10, 2022, leaving behind many years of tireless advocacy for Atlanta’s unhoused community. Through his Justice for All Coalition, Marshall helped innumerable homeless people get off the street; he estimated that over 25 years, he helped nearly 3,000 people find safe havens and new lives. Many of the people he helped were also substance addicted and he was there — often against city regulations — with food, hygiene kits, safe-sex kits, HIV/STD testing, referrals to detox programs, and assistance in getting documents like birth certificates for housing and employment services. Through unconditional love and an obsessive consistency, he fulfilled his covenant with God. Marshall had long ago recovered from addiction and living in the streets and promised God that if he was restored to his own personal fullness, he would work for the restoration of all of the “unsheltered,” as he called the homeless population. With his small band of volunteers, he did just that for a quarter of a century, enabling so many to escape sordid environments and extremely dangerous situations. Social Justice Champion | Carlton Mackey is the new assistant director of education with a focus on community engagement and dialogue at the High Museum of Art. An artist and scholar, he is also the creator of BLACK MEN SMILE®, a viral social media platform and empowerment movement for Black men to “celebrate the way we see ourselves,” and author of “50 Shades of Black: Sexuality and Skin Tone in the Formation of Identity.” As a community advocate, Mackey serves on the Atlanta Board of Education Ethics Commission and the Advisory Board of Foreverfamily, an Atlanta non-profit that works to provide the love of family and regular visitation for youths with one or more incarcerated parent. Mackey is the former director of the Ethics & the Arts Program at Emory University and co-created the Arts and Social Justice Fellows Program, which brings six Atlanta artists into Emory classrooms to help students translate their learning into creative activism. Emerging Leaders (for honorees under age 35) | Meadowlark Pictures comprises an ambitious trio of writers/producers/directors who aim to create bold stories and ensure that history is correctly passed down for generations. The group includes Noah Washington, a Georgia State University senior, FanBase app marketing copywriter, former BronzeLens Film Festival intern and great-grandson of Booker T. Washington; Solomon Simmon, a SCAD alum and aspiring filmmaker who has appeared onscreen in the TV dramedy “Atlanta;” and Zipporah Dorsey, also a SCAD alum, blogger, and writer whose directorial debut came in the Meadowlark Pictures play, “1906.” The play, a retelling of the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906 through the eyes of Black men who defended themselves, premiered at the AXC and has been part of many city- and county-wide commemorations of the lives lost. Jack Sinclair Visual Artist | Ashley Dopson is a conceptual fine artist who uses her art to create intimate moments in public spaces. Hermurals can be seen in many corners of the city — “Dream Big: The Phases of Ms. Kamala Harris” on Cascade and Beecher, “Herstory: Heroines of the West End” at the Goodwill on Ralph David Abernathy, and “Fish Are Jumpin’ and the Cotton Is High” at the Krog Tunnel entrance to name a few. Raised in Atlanta, she credits her early childhood in New Orleans for her colorful palette and rich textures. Her works are a conglomerate of primitive impasto and a contemporary take on the painting styles of the Harlem Renaissance. Dopson studied at Hampton University and had a 12-year career teaching art in public schools, winning Teacher of the Year at two schools. She has exhibited at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem New York and the Charles H. Taylor gallery in Hampton Virginia. She has completed 10 murals in Atlanta, where she often involved children in the neighborhood in the painting process. ABOUT THE HOST “The Local Take With Kiplyn Primus” airs at 7 a.m. Saturdays on 91.9 WCLK-FM. The Howard University and Clark Atlanta University graduate has a long career in public and commercial media. She is a veteran facilitator for StoryCorps' Atlanta studio, and has written extensively on global and local initiatives for several publications. Photo: Ebon Dooley

Premier Atlanta architect Oscar Harris’ exhibition continues at ArtsXchange Artist explores ‘Jazz & Spirituality’ in collection born during pandemic East Point, GA — Oscar Harris’ imprint can be seen all over Atlanta: the atrium at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Centennial Olympic Park, and MARTA stations from the westside to the top of the perimeter. But beyond the scope of his architectural vision lies a love for jazz that shows up in every stroke of his paintbrush. “When I go down into my studio to paint, the first thing I do is play the music I like,” said the straight-ahead jazz fan. “It starts going through me, one thing leads to another. I don’t know what paint brush I’m gonna pick up, what canvas I’m gonna pick up — I let my intuitiveness carry me.” Jazz & Spirituality, Harris’ latest collection of mixed-media paintings, opened Oct. 9 and has been extended through Dec. 4. It is free and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Jack Sinclair Gallery at the ArtsXchange. Harris' paintings are also available for purchase. An intuitive abstract impressionist painter, Harris said painting and music have always been part of his life. The Jazz & Spirituality exhibit grew from a discussion group of the same name that has met on Saturdays for years to explore the genre. The group also became a source of support for artists to continue their work when the pandemic closed venues in 2020. “I was overcome when they suggested doing the show,” Harris said. “Since I come from the architectural world, most of my friends and relationships are in the business world. Participating in this group, I’ve found wonderful friends who have this wonderful knowledge and experience in jazz.” Harris’ show is largely composed of paintings he created in his home studio during the pandemic shutdown. A disciple of “the second stroke,” he would often come back to his creations after a week or three to listen to them speak. Sometimes, he’d paint over the whole canvas. “I have a dialogue with each piece,” he said. “Back and forth, back and forth, until it finally comes to a resting point. Then I question if I should put that second stroke on or not. Once I do, it amplifies the sound in my mind.” “Are you willing to put on the second stroke? You might be afraid you'll ruin it,” he said. “But don't be afraid to put the second stroke on your life. Don’t be afraid.” The paintings range in size and mood; some offering quiet moments of reflection, others offering exploding sounds and cityscapes. “They’re so free-flowing,” said artist and curator Tracy Murrell. “There are some where the jazz is very visible, where you can see the music leading him. But others really bring you in.” ••• The Jazz & Spirituality group introduced Harris to books like “The Mysticism of Sound” and “Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music,” deepening his appreciation for the genre that he’s been a lifelong fan of, he said. “I came into the group with Mickey Mouse ears on, perked up and listening,” Harris said. “I learned about sound and how the musicians have to really believe in what they’re doing, it’s part of who they are. If they want to create a real, different sound, they have to bend the notes, like Miles (Davis). Make them special.” JuneAnn McDonald, another member of Jazz & Spirituality, said jazz history was also foremost in her lessons from the group. Her background in tech manufacturing and logistics in Silicon Valley has very little to do with jazz and spirituality, she said jokingly. “But I grew up in Guyana listening to jazz and I was curious whether the jazz experience here would be similar to mine, which was mainly my father and local jazz artists there,” McDonald said. “Once we started going through the pandemic, I was learning more about jazz musicians and how their journey in the 1940s,’50s, and ’60s mirrored what’s going on socially and politically.” Beyond the heartbreak of learning about those artists, though, the Jazz & Spirituality discussions were also a cure for the group of mostly seniors. “Early in the pandemic, seniors were the most vulnerable group; many were housebound,” McDonald said. “Our commitment to meeting on Saturdays became a way of coping with shutdown and the challenges it placed on us. The group was a way of keeping each other positive and moving forward in a time that could've been quite isolating and difficult.” The group has been a space to share thoughts about spirituality with many definitions. “I see spirituality as using your sweet spot — that sparkle, that thing within you,” Harris said. “When you're in your sweet spot, you’re gonna vibrate in a way that everybody can see.” Adeyemi Toure, Jazz & Spirituality member and dramatist who performed at the exhibition events, defines spirituality as “the innate ability to interpret our lives through expression. We carry that in our genes, not only biologically, but cosmically, vibrationally.” And for many in the group, it’s about collectivity. “One thing we’re passing on is our collective spirituality and how do we keep that fed?” McDonald said. “Being part of the collective is key in keeping our individual spirit high. Seeing what jazz musicians did to keep their spirits high in difficult times is something we learned and continued to use. We don’t use a spiritual text or anything like that, but we work on uplifting each other. Every week.” Founded by the Rev. Dwight Andrews at First Congregational Church in Atlanta in 2013, the Jazz & Spirituality discussion group initially met in-person but transitioned to virtual meetings at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Their discussions grew into new roads for artists and educators to share their knowledge, such as a member who now offers an online class exploring music communities around the world. Being around such a varied group of people inspired Harris more than he ever imagined, he said. “One of the most important things I’ve learned in the group is that you can’t be afraid to be yourself,” Harris said. “So with my paintings, I’m not tryin’ to imitate anybody, I’m just tryin’ to do what I do.” ••• Harris has shared his artwork around the city in a few shows over the years, including at Auburn Avenue Research Library for African American Culture & History and the Hammonds House. “Oscar has accomplished so much in his (architecture) career, and now seeing his career in art come alive, he’s really showing people how important it is to follow your passion,” said Murrell, who met Harris as the former Hammonds House curator. He was featured in a show of architect-artists there. “It will lead you to so many opportunities.” Aside from his trailblazing architecture in Atlanta and the Southeast for 40 years, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native is also the author of “Oscar: Memoir of a Master Architect.” A serial entrepreneur, Harris has created hundreds of career opportunities for aspiring professionals through Turner Associates, OLH International, International Aviation Consultants, and the Atlanta Center for Creative Inquiry, which is now Spike Studio, a mentoring and training program for high schoolers aimed at diversifying the creative design, engineering and construction fields. The studio — Harris’ nickname is Spike — began in 2004 in partnership with Carnegie Mellon, for which the alum was a trustee, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Benjamin E. Mays High School. He was inspired to begin mentoring in creative design, largely due to the absence of minorities and women studying and working in those industries, according to his website. In 2009, Spike Studio became an independent non-profit organization. This exhibit has included a panel discussion about reaching the next generation of designers and constructors, as well as a film screening of “Whisper of the Marimba,” and performances by various community musicians and poets. The Jazz & Spirituality group wanted to ensure there was something for varied interests, they said. “The whole program isn’t just about our group, but the community,” Harris said. The members hope the exhibition will give folks the same sense of community that they have found as a group. “The group is an extension of what we can do with our potential in the future — not only the music, but the spirituality,” Toure said. “We hope to infuse the ArtsXchange with the same kind of spiritual momentum that we’ve garnered, much like you do in a temple, much like you do when you have family gatherings, much like you do in a place where you meet up. Where anybody, any community would come together, to share ideas, to be inspired.”

Jan. 30 session to uncover, combat campaigns against U.S. history of racism By Angela Oliver On a cross-country trip in the summer of 1962, Dr. Doris Derby received a message about the arrest of one of her friends in Albany, Georgia. They knew each other from her alma mater, Hunter College. “I was intending to spend about a week seeing how she was,” said Derby, who was a teacher at the time. “I ended up saying the whole summer.” While Derby, 82, comes from a legacy of civil rights activists — from her grandmother, who was a founding member of the NAACP, to her father, who found ways to combat the discrimination he faced as a college student and engineer in the 1930s — that stop in Albany propelled the Bronx native’s journey through the frontlines of racial justice in the South. Her firsthand experience as an organizer and documentarian in the civil rights movement of the 1960s inspired the ArtsXchange’s latest series, The Power of Words: When Poetry Meets Freedom Songs and Images, an exploration of writing, culture, and literacy in the movements for civil rights. The session on Jan. 30 explored Derby’s work through the lens of race and the law with Dr. Natsu Taylor Saito, law professor at Georgia State University and author of “Colonialism, Race and the Law: Why Structural Racism Persists.” Part of the Georgia Humanities project, The Power of Words is a series of virtual creative writing workshops and author panels hosted by Theresa Davis, a fierce slam poet, longtime educator, and director of literacy programs at the ArtsXchange. The series seeks to help folks draw connections between the struggles of the 1960s and those they confront today. The ArtsXchange also aims to help folks expand their understanding of human rights issues in their communities and express their insights in writing. “I believe every person has a story to tell and our stories overlap more than we sometimes realize,” Davis said. “Writing creatively allows for honest expression and connection. My goal is to connect our individual stories to parts of Dr. Derby's journey.” That summer in Albany, Derby worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and freedom fighters like Andrew Young and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “That’s when I really got involved,” she said. The next year, in 1963, the late Bob Moses asked Derby to come to Jackson, Mississippi. She went to develop a literacy program, based at the historically Black Tougaloo College, to prepare Black people to vote. Along the way, Derby, who initially was a painter, picked up her father’s talent for photography. “I was interested in documenting what was going on — not only the marches and protests, but the broad spectrum of what people were doing to help themselves,” she said of her nine years in Mississippi. “The people were building up the preschools, Head Start programs, Freedom Schools, handcraft and farming cooperatives, the Delta health center, visiting nurses, adult education and nutrition programs… I wanted to document all of it.” Such documentation, said Dr. Natsu Taylor Saito, gives people a bigger window to the past. “I love the way she conveys the energy, richness, and love that permeated the movement,” Saito said. “A lot of times, the histories we see now portray the struggle, and that’s very important. But they don’t always show the richness and beauty of it all. Her work brings out those dimensions and without all of those things, I don’t think the movement would’ve been as powerful as it was.” Saito and Derby first crossed paths at Georgia State. In the late 1990s, Derby founded the university’s Office of African American Student Services and Programs. Saito – she also was an activist and organizer for Indigenous rights, anti-prison work and other causes during her college years and beyond – joined the faculty 1994, teaching public international law and international human rights; and seminars on race and the law, federal Indian law, and Indigenous rights. She will discuss her book’s use of the settler colonial framework as a way to understand the history of racialization and the construction and maintenance of racial hierarchies in the U.S. The dominant narrative insists that there’s an equal playing field, that this country is founded on on democracy and liberty, and that better enforcement of equal protection will rid the country of the racism upon which it was founded. “But what I’m saying in the book is that racialization of people – the ways different groups have been constructed and treated – has been dependent on needs they were perceived to serve for white settler colonizers,” Saito said. “It’s a different way of understanding the nature of this country and therefore the nature of race and racism in this country,” she said. “In order to bring about social justice, we have to look at the roots. When we take a different look, the solutions will be very different than usual as well.” With time has come some differences between the civil rights movements of the past and present. Populations have increased, giving the people more power in numbers and resources. Education has expanded, creating wider awareness of the problems and strategies to solve them. And technology and culture has evolved, moving Derby a long way from sewing her dresses with large front pockets that held her many cameras and lenses as the only woman on the Southern Media Inc. photography team. But the similarities abound. “Then is now, and now is the time,” Derby said. “We have to push forward. Young people, take it from here.” A recent celebration of SNCC’s 60th anniversary keeps her hopeful about the urgency of the movement and the ways young people, who were in great attendance, she said, are studying, continuing and documenting the fight. “Some of us are still around,” Derby said. But many from the frontlines of the 1950s and 60s have passed. “That’s why I keep being involved, because how many of us have photographs from that time? We have knowledge that the young people can use.” Her journey spawned about 9,000 images – some slides, some developed. A flip through the pages of her books reveal the heartbreak of that era, like the photos from James Green’s funeral in Mississippi. In May of 1970, Green, 17, and Phillip Gibbs, 21, were killed and several were injured when police fired hundreds of shots into a campus dorm where students were protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. It is now known as the Jackson State (University) Massacre. There were joyful moments, too, though, Derby said. Many of her own came in the solitude of writing poetry in the backyard of the “Freedom House,” a place just outside of Tougaloo’s gates, where she and other activists lived. “My poems definitely reflect what was happening politically with racism and segregation,” she said. “But the back of the house was a peaceful area surrounded by bushes. It was one of the places I wrote my poetry because it was so calm and in nature.” Her words and images help keep the truth alive. “We have to get more young people out to know what’s happened in the past,” she said. “We don’t keep it a secret. We need to uncover and show that these things are happening again.” Those happenings can be seen on any front page or news channel today. Just as students were killed by police in the massacre, many young folks today are overpoliced in their schools or gunned down with impunity by militarized police. Just as literacy tests suppressed the Black vote across Southern communities in earlier generations, today’s legislation invokes the same as it purges voter rolls, eliminates voting methods and closes polling places in predominately Black precincts.And just as people were discriminated against for public services, locked out of access to political office, and exploited in jobs with unlivable wages, today’s communities still face discrimination, deathly working conditions, and the daily fight to survive the conditions created and inflamed by poverty. The problems have traveled and mutated through enslavement, the rollback of Reconstruction, Jim Crow era, and the civil rights movement to today, Saito said. “What strikes me as similar now, though, is the energy that has come with the Movement for Black Lives and global protests that are more than protests,” she said. “They’re expressions of solidarity and community-based power. The problems are constant, but there’s a renewed sense of empowerment and the idea that, collectively, we can organize to change things. There’s a sense that it’s our responsibility to exercise our right to self-determination.” 2020 was a major turning point for that renewal. What some saw as social turmoil, others saw as social development in terms of organizing and making demands for change, she said. “And there was a surprising willingness, apparently, of institutions to take this seriously,” she said. “They felt the pressure to do something and there was a lot of movement, at least thinking about how to approach racial justice. Prior to that, an idea like abolishing the police would’ve been ludicrous in mainstream circles; now, it’s not.” With that turning point also came further education and unearthing of this country’s ugly history, thus, a widespread resistance to the progress that was edging on. Among the most blatant was the misinformation campaign about Critical Race Theory by conservatives. “A lot of the backlash we saw throughout Trump’s presidency was a reaction of people on the right,” Saito said. “There was real fear that the world as they know it is being dismantled; that the privilege they’ve come to accept as theirs is going away. Politicians on the right have taken advantage of that.” In "Origin Stories: Critical Race Theory Encounters the War on Terror,"forthcoming in the Michigan Journal of Race and Law (2022), Saito writes: “The depictions of critical race theory as anti-American propaganda intended to denigrate white people are wildly inaccurate. But critical race theory does ask, ‘What does race have to do with it?’ — a question. many Americans would prefer not to confront. It considers how and why race plays a role in any given issue and formulates strategies for contesting racial subordination. This approach, long utilized by individual scholars of color, was introduced as a conscious framework in the late 1980s by professors committed to incorporating the struggle against racism into their analysis of U.S. law and legal institutions. “Critical race theory insists on including the voices of all peoples and complicates the American master narrative—the origin story that provides a highly sanitized version of the violence employed against, and the exploitation of, Indigenous peoples, persons of African descent, and many immigrant groups, and relegates these actions to a past for which no one is today responsible.” The results of resisting this truth span nearly half the states in the U.S. that have enacted legislation to ban certain topics from the classroom. Arizona was an earlier purveyor of the campaign against teaching the history of white supremacy, dismantling ethnic studies classes in 2010. “The way they think, ‘If we can make that history go away, we won’t have these problems, people will be happy and get along again,’ results in this campaign of negating and silencing history and misrepresenting the positions of the struggle for racial justice,” said Saito. “That has been successful because cooperation of so much of the media.” The campaign against Critical Race Theory spawned largely from right-winger Christopher Rufo’s writings and Fox News interviews — riddled with falsehoods — which influenced the president at the time to issue an executive order banning federal agencies from requiring diversity trainings that mention racism or critical race theory, or white supremacy, according to reports by The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, NBC News and other outlets. President Joe Biden repealed that order on his first day in office. “Rufo’s plan to make CRT the villain wasn’t a coincidence,” Saito said. “It was deliberate instigation of (right-wing) movement to quash the widespread movement for racial justice that had expanded from being carried out by Black people and people of color on the fringes. More people started getting involved and the right was scared by that.” Counting on political fatigue throughout the country, the misinformation campaign was a very effective mobilizing tool for conservatives. But it’s not factual, Saito said. CRT was not being taught in public schools; it was very esoteric study in law schools and other areas on the college level. Such concerted efforts from oppressive forces — especially in an era where information, whether true or false, spreads online like wildfires — show the need for a series like The Power of Words. “This program is important as part of much broader effort to make sure this history and social reality are still accessible to people while they’re being eliminated and censored out of school curricula,” Saito said. “We need alternative education venues now more than ever. The series will continue with writing workshops hosted by Davis on Jan. 26, Feb. 12 and Feb. 23, all on Zoom. Dr. Doris Derby who has long lived in Atlanta and received the 2021 Change Maker Award during the ArtsXchange’s Ebon Dooley Art & Social Justice Awards in December, shared her work on the first author’s panel in October. Dr. Doris Derby - 2021 Change Maker Award- Acceptance Speech The final author’s panel will be on Feb. 27, featuring participants who want to share a public reading of their work. Davis hopes the workshops will inspire people to express themselves in a new way. Writing is important for many reasons, Saito added. “It helps you process and retain information, but it’s also a process of making something your own; something you can think critically about,” she said. “Writing is very powerful. It’s a way to express your vision of the world and your place in the world very directly, instead of just accepting what you’re told about who you are and where you belong. “It’s part of the whole process of empowerment. All the artforms can reflect that,” she continued. Derby’s art has empowered many over the years, from her poetry and images to dramatic readings she coordinated as co-creator of SNCC’s Free Southern Theater. She encourages young artists to be creative in the ways they use art of all formats to support communities, and to get their messages and demands across. “Keep creating and utilize what’s around you,” Derby said. “Don’t go for the money and make compromises with what your work is all about. Keep a job so you can function but don’t be discouraged if your work doesn’t have an immediate return. I was an educator and activist during those earlier years; I didn’t want my documentation work out there at the time. But when I was ready to come out with it, my time came.” Saito, a friend of the ArtsXchange since its founding days in the 1980s, also hopes the series will encourage people to support the organization. “The ArtsXchange is a great example of someone saying, ‘I see a need, let’s fill it.’ It’s such an important cultural institution in our community,” she said. “I hope people will be inspired to think of ways they can also create institutions that we need, because if we sit around and wait for the government to provide educational and creative outlets, or any other resources, we’re going to be waiting a long time.” To learn more about the series visit https://www.artsxchange.org/post/the-power-of-words-when-poetry-meets-freedom-songs-images

A Georgia Humanities Project exploring writing, culture, and literacy in the movements for Civil Rights. These events are part of The Power of Words When Poetry Meets Freedom Song and Images Program. Artistic expression is a critical part of any movement for social change. Everything from freedom songs to protest posters tell the stories of the fight for civil rights across generations. This project is based on the work of photographer and civil rights icon Dr. Doris Derby, Ph.D , "The Power of Words' is a series of virtual creative writing workshops and author panels hosted by Theresa Davis, a slam poet, longtime educator and director of literary programs at the ArtsXchange. As history has shown, young people are often the initiators and leaders of freedom movements. While black-and-white photos might make earlier movements seem distant, we are aiming to help Black and Brown high school-aged and college-aged people see the relevance of the Civil Rights Movement, and draw connections between the struggles of that era and those they confront today. We also hope to expand their understanding of human rights issues in their communities — school safety from gun violence, the lack of educational resources, food insecurity and other conditions of poverty, disparities in incarceration, and more — and develop their ability to express their insights in writing. All events are FREE and open to the public. PROGRAM EVENTS Sunday, October 31, 2021 / 2PM The Power of Words Author Panel with Dr. Doris Derby, Ph.D Host- Theresa Davis VIRTUAL LIVE STREAM- FACEBOOK and YOUTUBE Saturday, January 8, 2022 / 2PM Saturday Writer's Workshop with Theresa Davis Creative Writing Workshop VIRTUAL- ZOOM Images used during Saturday, January 8, 2022 Writer's Workshop Photos by Dr. Doris Derby Ph.D. Parishioner, Union Baptist Church, South Carolina, 1972 Dr. Doris Derby Schoolchildren, Farish Street, Jackson, Mississippi, 1968 Dr. Doris Derby Wednesday, January 26, 2022 / 7:30PM Wednesday Writer's Workshop with Theresa Davis Creative Writing Workshop VIRTUAL- ZOOM Sunday, January 30, 2022 / 2PM The Power of Words Author Panel with Natsu Taylor Saito Host- Theresa Davis VIRTUAL LIVE STREAM- FACEBOOK and YOUTUBE Saturday, February 12, 2022 / 2PM Saturday Writer's Workshop with Theresa Davis Creative Writing Workshop VIRTUAL- ZOOM Wednesday, February 23, 2022 / 7:30PM Wednesday Writer's Workshop with Theresa Davis Creative Writing Workshop VIRTUAL- ZOOM Sunday, February 27, 2022 / 2PM The Power of Words Author Panel Host- Theresa Davis VIRTUAL- ZOOM Details TBA HOST Theresa Davis is an educator, storyteller, poet, author, poetry slam champion and the host of the award winning open mic Java Speaks. She has performed on stages across the nation as a poet and keynote speaker. She was a classroom teacher for over 25 years, specializing in cross curricular education. As a slam poet, Theresa has competed individually and on teams for over a decade and in 2011 won the Women of the World Poetry Slam. In May 2013, her first full collection of poems entitled “After This We Go Dark” was published by Sibling Rivalry Press. “After This We Go Dark” became an American Library Association Honoree, and the book can now be checked out in local and college libraries around the world. Her latest poetry collection “Drowned: A Mermaid’s Manifesto”, released with Sibling Rivalry Press, in fall of 2016 received the award“Ten Books All Georgians Should Read”. In addition to being a teaching artist and outreach poetry coordinator for Georgia Tech for 6 years, Theresa hosts and participates in many of the lit events around Atlanta. Her one-woman show “Then They’ll Tell You it’s all in Your Head” Made its debut as a part of 7 Stages Home Brew series in fall of 2017. Theresa is the Literary Events Coordinator and The Charles “Jikki” Riley Memorial Library, facilitator for The ArtsXchange. SCHOLARS Dr. Doris Derby, Ph.D., is an honored humanities scholar, civil rights icon, documentary photographer, activist, educator, and author. Her first book, POETAGRAPHY: is an Artistic Reflections of a Mississippi Lifeline in Words and Images: 1963–1972. Her second book, A Civil Rights Journey, is an astonishing journal chronicling her thoughts, visual images, and experiences with the people of Mississippi and the founding of several important civil rights organizations. Her 3rd book is titled Patchwork: Paintings, Poetry and Prose; Art and Activism in the Civil Rights Movement: 1960-1972. Read more about Dr. Derby in this 2020 feature in The Guardian Learn more about Dr. Derby’s work in her latest photo book, “A Civil Rights Journey.” Prof. Natsu Taylor Saito, J.D., Regents’ ; Professor and Professor of Law, Center for Access to Justice, College of Law, Georgia State University will provide additional historical perspectives and legal analysis. After receiving her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1987, she taught as an adjunct at Emory University School of Law before joining the Georgia State Law faculty. Prof Saito teaches public international law and international human rights, race, ethnicity, and the law. Currently a faculty affiliate of the Center for Access to Justice as well as the Department of African American Studies. She joined the College of Law faculty in 1994 and became a Distinguished University Professor in 2016. In 2021, she was appointed a Regents’ Professor. Prof Saito is the author of three books and about fifty articles or book chapters. Her latest book is Colonialism, Race, and the Law: Why Structural Racism Persists (NYU Press, 2020). She has served as an advisor to the Asian American Law Student Association, the Latinx and Caribbean Law Student Association, the Immigration Law Society, and the student chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. This project is supported by Georgia Humanities, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, through funding from the Georgia General Assembly. Additional funding for the ArtsXchange is provided by a grant from the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta through the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts fund; and Fulton County Arts & Culture under the direction of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.

Louis Delsarte (Sep 1, 1944-May 2, 2020) A message from Lisa Tuttle, Resident Artist, Jack Sinclair Gallery Committee Member, and ArtsXchange Board Member ~ Written Sunday, May 3, 2020 "Sadly, late last night, we learned of the passing of our dear friend Louis Delsarte, an extraordinary artist, charming friend, and long-time member of the arts community and the ArtsXchange family. Our hearts and love go out to his wife Jea, their daughter Rachel, their families and friends. Not only has the world lost an extraordinary painter, muralist and printmaker, we, in Atlanta’s arts community, have lost the most wonderful friend and colleague. On behalf of the ArtsXchange and the Jack Sinclair Gallery Committee, I’ve been asked to add our heartfelt expression of esteem to the multiple tributes which are sprouting up online to honor Louis - from fellow artists, former students and the art world at large. If there’s a silver lining to any of this, as Delsarte was such a prolific artist, he’s left us the long-lasting legacy of magnificent artworks to treasure - the lobby mural and facade at Southwest Arts Center Theater, the tour-de-force Delsarte MLK mural, the Spirit of Harlem mural on 125th in NYC, and works in important permanent collections, including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, the Schomburg Center, Spelman College and Howard University – just to mention a very few. These losses are so much harder to process without the healing comfort of a gathering, a service, where we can come together to celebrate, memorialize and honor the life of someone we’ve appreciated and admired. Hug, cry, talk, laugh, maybe break a little bread together…That gathering, surely, is to come later down the road, and is something I know we all look forward to…. So, for now, good-bye, Louis, dearest friend! We wish you the very fondest of farewells! We will especially miss those lively conversations at exhibitions or in your studio(s). The ArtsXchange has lost one of its most renowned studio residents, and you, Louis Delsarte, will truly be missed! Know you were loved, and your spirit lives on in your beautiful artwork and our memories!" Rest in peace ~ Lisa Tuttle Louis Delsarte, New Hope Visions, 2008 To learn more about the life and works of Louis Delsarte visit his website. https://www.louisdelsarte.net/about

Mariana McDonald is a poet, writer, scientist, and activist. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including poetry in Crab Orchard Review, Lunch Ticket, and The New Verse News; fiction in So to Speak and Cobalt; creative nonfiction in Longridge Review and HerStry; and journalism in In Motion Magazine. She co-authored with Margaret Randall the recently-released Dominga Rescues the Flag/Dominga rescata la bandera, the story of black Puerto Rican heroine Dominga de la Cruz. Mcdonald lives in Atlanta, Georgia. This Moment Truth is trouble ... It is trouble for the warmonger, the torturer, the corporate thief, the political hack, the corrupt justice system, and for a comatose public.-- Toni Morrison, The Source of Self Regard, vii-viii. We are in a time of profound change. We are in a transformative moment when the Covid19 pandemic, uprisings against racial injustice and white supremacy, the unrelenting climate crisis, and rising forces of fascism and repression, all come together to force a shift that will either propel the world forward or drive it into a tailspin. This moment pivots on how much and how well the United States deals with its past. As Joanne Freeman noted in her August 2020 essay in The Atlantic: ...before the United States can move ahead, it has to reckon with its past ... America’s national identity is grounded in a shared understanding of American history -- the country’s failures, successes, traditions, and ideals. Shape that narrative and you can shape a nation. (emphasis added). How do we understand this moment? How do we address its urgency? How do we shape the US narrative? And what does this moment mean for artists, art, and the arts movement? What Are Artists To Do? Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it. -- Bertolt Brecht This is a time to reexamine and reflect on the role of art and artists, to ponder what artists should do. We need to be discussing this, debating it, and writing about it, not only among artists, but the whole community. As a member of the community of artists, I offer my thoughts on what artists need to do. First and foremost, we need to tell the truth. Artists tell the truth. We do not lie, cover up, obfuscate, gaslight, or avoid. Telling the truth in the United States, a nation rooted and rotting in lies, means we must directly and relentlessly fight the lies. We also need to bring people together emotionally, spiritually, politically, geographically, and organizationally. We can play a role in uniting people, on racial justice (pro-Black Lives Matter and against racist violence), gender justice (women's rights and rights of trans persons), and internationalism (pro-Palestinian, pro-Puerto-Rican independence, and against the Cuba blockade, for starters). We must also unite people to fight the climate crisis. We can strengthen our communities through art. Art expresses the people’s anguish, sorrow, determination, pride, and joy, and helps us heal from trauma. We also need to get people to think. We need art that encourages questioning, art that promotes critical thinking in the tradition of Paulo Freire, whose theory and practice help people discover solutions to their problems. We need to reflect on our real history, rather than the white-washed one we've been fed. We need to unearth our peoples' past contributions and realities. Last but least, we need to fight the fascist trends that are growing every day. These include, but are not limited to: voter suppression; racist anti-Black and anti-people of color violence; anti-intellectual and anti-science stances; anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-foreign language attitudes and policies; anti-women legislation and practices; actions that jeopardize the constitution-based courts system; and the wholesale obliteration of environmental protections. We must fight all fascist actions that curb our right to protest, and those that limit or simply refuse accountability for those in power. A key step is deconstructing the lies. Deconstruct And Refute the Lies I attest to this: the world is not white; it never was white, cannot be white. White is a metaphor for power, and that is simply a way of describing Chase Manhattan Bank. -- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro To fight fascism and move toward the society we want and need, artists must confront, deconstruct, and refute what I call the Ten Big Lies That Blind US, 2020: Lie Number 1: The United States was established based on freedom and equality; rather than forged in genocide and slavery. The Declaration of Independence was a document that belied the realities of its time. Certainly there were noble intentions among its drafters, who hoped the dreamlike vision they wrote about might one day be achieved. But as written, it is a kind of national creative non-fiction, a passage in a dreamed-of memoir about what might have been and what might be. Even the country's chosen name, made official on September 9, 1776, was equivocal. Long referred to as "the United Colonies," the nation was on that day named the United States of America, in an action that decisively made official the erasure of both indigenous North America and indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. Lie Number 2: White Supremacy. The fundamental, foundational lie of the United States was and is white supremacy, the ideology and system that allowed all subsequent lies to gain traction. White supremacy asserted, legalized, and operationalized itself based on the lie that Europeans persons were legally, morally, mentally, physically, and spiritually superior to all persons of color, be they indigenous peoples or kidnapped African people. A lie based on a lie, white supremacy invented whiteness and considered persons who were "non-white" to be less than human, thus excluding them from standards of human treatment, rationalizing their captivity, and legitimizing genocide. White supremacy can be likened to permafrost, frozen earth firmly held in place for centuries which now, due to earth's increased temperatures, is disintegrating and destroying the stability of the land and everything rooted in it, while in the process releasing toxic gases that further poison the earth. White supremacy is our nation's permafrost. And it is melting. Lie Number 3: The colonial settlers were helpful, kind friends of acquiescing natives; rather than murderers and thieves who oversaw the genocide of indigenous peoples that continues to this day. Lie Number 4: Slavery was not so bad, and it’s over; rather than being the systematic, centuries-long oppression, torture, violence, murder, and genocide of Black people. Lie Number 5: The United States colonized Puerto Rico to help the "savages" who could not govern themselves, rather than invading the island in 1898 to plunder its vast resources and use the island as a military outpost for intervention throughout the Americas. What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization -- and therefore force -- is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment. -- Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism Lie Number 6: "Manifest destiny" was a legitimate rationale for US expansion, rather than an excuse for outright theft of lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Lie Number 7: US worldwide interventions have been well-intentioned attempts to extend a helping hand to poor or disadvantaged nations; rather than a way to exploit populations and resources, establish and defend US hegemony, and control the planet's wealth. Lie Number 8: The United States is a unique, different, special, unparalleled, exceptional nation/geopolitical power; rather than using this essentially narcissistic lie as a veil to hide atrocities and excuse them, avoiding accountability for all crimes. Lie Number 9: The climate crisis is a hoax to be exposed, rather than the global existential crisis that will determine the planet's future. Lie Number 10: Covid19 is a hoax, a little flu, and is under control; rather than a raging global pandemic that has sickened millions and killed hundreds of thousands. We are rapidly approaching the figure of 200,000 US lives lost due to the lies of the current government, and by its incompetence and negligence responding to the pandemic. What is happening now in the United States, with the high and disproportionate number of deaths among Black people and other people of color, is a painful echo of the past, when the genocidal system of slavery prevailed, when blankets infected with smallpox were given to indigenous peoples, and when one-third of Puerto Rican women of childbearing age were sterilized by force. *** There are many other lies the country is based on, and they too should be addressed. These ten lies are essential to the nation's DNA. These are lies that need to be pointed out, refuted, and replaced with the real history of how this country came about, and at what cost to what peoples. What happens when we get rid of the lies? We will need to arrive at a new narrative, one that acknowledges the grievous harm done, while affirming the positive characteristics of US history. It will not be a simple or brief or easy process. And it is bound to be fraught with contradictions and pain. Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one identity, the end of safety. -- James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name As Baldwin suggests, the disruption of the lies, the disintegration of the long-accepted narrative, is disorienting. It is at once breathtaking and breath-giving for those long oppressed by the lies. The exhilaration of truth is both shocking and empowering. It leaves one yearning to know the real history, the real story, the truth. That search is one in which artists can play a key role. For those who have long benefitted from white supremacy and its quotidian goody-bag, white privilege, "the end of safety" is a source of extreme reaction, hatred and violence, which shakes the rustling robes of those deposed by the truth, and galvanizes their stubborn refusal to heed norms and laws, stoked by 45's unrelenting calls for chaos. This is the dangerous moment we are in. We are facing "anti-maskers" toting guns into state buildings rather than heed public health guidelines, and "pro-blue" armed gangs driving vehicles into throngs of peaceful protesters or gunning them down with rifles, both scenarios starkly absent appropriate responses from so-called "law enforcement." The "end of safety" is the source of cries to "go back to where you came from" directed at people whose ancestors were the first to till the land here hundreds of years ago, cries coming from people utterly terrified of 21st century U. demographics, which are constantly and irrevocably changing. The fundamental fear and outrage that MAGA supporters express with brute force -- and unprecedented impunity -- is that they will no longer be able to keep others down, to enjoy "birthright" advantages in housing, education, employment, and all arenas of social and economic life. Fears that they will no longer be able to convince anyone, including themselves, that they are "superior." If white supremacy were the underpinning of "only" extreme right-wing forces, this moment would be difficult, though not as daunting. But white supremacy is our nation's foundation, its permafrost, and it's not just the red-capped brutes who can feel the earth beginning to shift. The police --indeed, armed forces of all stripes -- are working hard to keep their footing, and their allies in domed towers and halls of state are stepping up to throw them a lifeline, as whole chunks of disintegrating soil break apart and fall into the depths. This is the fascism we have to fight. Archaeologists & Creators History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. -- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro As we tackle the big lies, we quickly encounter the role of erasure in white supremacy. For just as white supremacy invents, privileges, and sings the praises of whiteness, it launches the systematic erasure of Blackness. That erasure has served as an essential tool for genocide. White supremacy disappears Black people (and indigenous peoples, and colonized peoples), their history and voices, their actions and contributions, and even their names. For example, in "The Problem is White Supremacy," Barbara Smith speaks of Ann Petry's novella "In Darkness and Confusion" (about the 1943 Harlem Race Riot) in a way similar to how Toni Morrison discusses, in "The Foreigner's Home," Camara Laye's "The Radiance of the King" -- as works of literature that shed light on, and are examples of, the rich writing tradition of Black peoples in the USA and Africa, which has been for the most part buried and ignored. What this means for US history is that it must be excavated. We must become archaeologists, digging to unearth the real history of our country from the mass graves it was tossed in, from the incomplete parchment documenting who lived and who died, from the systematically promulgated canons that obliterate Blackness, and have made whatever little is permitted to be written in invisible ink. (How many important primary sources, such as the selected works of Puerto Rican leader Pedro Albizu Campos, quickly fall into out-of-print status, becoming unavailable to the next generations of readers?) Enter, into deep trenches with dusty clouds abounding, the artists. And art. And artistic movements. Support Black Artists and other People of Color Artists As we dig, we need to combat erasure intentionally and consistently. We must defend and support Black artists and other people of color artists by supporting and sharing the art they create, but also by identifying and breaking down the barriers that exist to Black art being embraced as central to US culture. These are publishing industry barriers, music industry barriers, art industry barriers, film industry barriers, media and social media barriers, and others, as well as the fundamental economic barriers that impede the work and success of virtually all artists. We should give special attention to the philanthropic and nonprofit worlds and their contradictions, as they are a source both of opportunity and of perpetuation of white supremacy. Art by and for the people Fortunately, there is a long and multi-faceted tradition of arts serving and advancing social change around the world. We can learn from cultural movements of the world’s past, from Lang Son to Santiago and from San Juan to Cape Town, as well as in the United States. For example, when the AIDS epidemic raged in the 1980s, activists envisioned how friends and family could create a quilt to honor their loved ones who died from the disease. The AIDS Quilt project grew rapidly into a national phenomenon, with thousands upon thousands of quilts being made and displayed, offering a healing and unifying activity to remember those lost to the disease, while helping shatter the stigma surrounding it. In the seventies throughout the Americas, protest music became a loud and ever-present part of movements against dictators and foreign intervention. Victor Jara, the beloved Chilean poet-songwriter who radiated courage as he fought to his death in the 1973 US-supported Pinochet coup, was a leading figure in what would become known (in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, and elsewhere) as the Nueva Trova, or new song movement. In the United States the songs of Nueva Trova were sung and played in movements across the country, deepening bonds of solidarity and friendship while educating activists about neighbors' struggles. We can also learn from socialist countries, such as Cuba and Vietnam, that have for decades utilized the arts and culture to transform their societies. There are lessons to learn from their experiences achieving society-wide goals by utilizing culturally effective campaigns, such as Vietnam's recent campaign against the coronavirus. As a result of their decisive efforts, cultural and educational offerings, and diligent handling of infections, Vietnam has defeated the coronavirus, with only 34 deaths to date. A New Nuremberg We also need artists and artistic movements to demand accountability. Artists can point to individuals and regimes that have committed crimes against the planet and peoples of the world, such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Jair Bolsonaro, and Rodrigo Duterte. Artists can help create and advance the demand that these individuals and regimes be held accountable. We need a global forum for accountability, justice, and consequences for those who have carried out genocidal crimes against people and terracide against the planet. We call on mechanisms and vehicles from the past century that were used to seek justice for crimes against humanity. Artists can and must declare that now, in the 21st century, we need a new Nuremberg. Onward/¡Pa’lante! Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again. -- “Thinking with Jimmy." Eddie Glaude, Begin Again, xxix. History is not in the rear-view mirror. It is straight ahead, every day, if we can only see it. It may sometimes be in our peripheral vision -- fleeting, uncertain, intuitive, even hallucinatory. Artists must strive for, and nurture in one another, characteristics that foster vision: boldness, courage, creativity, and innovation. We must defend and support artists with vision, and unleash it in ourselves. As artists, we are called upon to ask ourselves, “Can we have Cassandra-like vision? Can we imagine this world we want to see?" At what point do fortune tellers become fortune-creators? That dream-into-reality process can happen when artists combine vision, clarity, determination, and skills with the galloping will of the people. It will not be easy. It will be a bumpy ride. The potholes have been growing, and sinkholes show up where they're least expected. Then there's that ominous Hummer hogging the road. But there is a path that can be taken now, and artists must take it. For even in the darkest moments, we can call upon our ancestors to guide us, so that when we stumble, we can begin again. I'm holding Jimmy Baldwin's words close to my heart. And I'm riding with Cassandra. --------------------------------------- References Baldwin, James. I Am Not Your Negro. Documentary film based on Baldwin's unfinished manuscript Remember This House. Directed by Raoul Peck. Velvet Film, 2016. Baldwin, James. The Cross of Redemption. Uncollected Writings. Randall, Kenan, ed. New York: Vintage International, 2011. Baldwin, James. “Faulkner and Desegregation." Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son. New York: Vintage, 1992. Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. Translated by Joan Pinkham. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. Freeman, Joanne. “I’m a Historian. I See Reason to Fear -- And to Hope.” The Atlantic. August 17, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/historian-historic-times/615208/ Accessed September 2, 2020. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1990. Glaude, Eddie S., Jr. Begin Again. James Baldwin's America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own. New York: Crown, 2020. Morrison, Toni. The Source of Self-Regard. Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations. New York: Alfred Knopf, 2019. Smith, Barbara. "The Problem is White Supremacy." Opinion. Boston Globe. June 30, 2020. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/29/opinion/problem-is-white-supremacy/ Accessed September 2, 2020. Vietnam Coronavirus Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o6-TELdvRY. You Tube. Accessed September 2, 2020. Worldometer Coronavirus Tracking. Vietnam https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/viet-nam/ Accessed September 2, 2020. This blog was first Published in In Motion Magazine September 29, 2020

April Meyers Coping with the coronavirus hasn’t been easy. If you’re still struggling to get your bearings in these stress-laden days, meditation may help you cope! Meditation — and other mindful practices like yoga, deep breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation — can work wonders to dispel stress, calm anxiety, and fuel creativity during this tumultuous time. So whether you decide to practice at home or attend a retreat, give it a go! We've created a quick guide to help you get started on your own mindfulness journey. Why Practice Meditation? The mental and physical health benefits of meditation are vast. Meditation involves sitting or lying still and maintaining a gentle awareness of your breath. By turning your focus inwards and away from everything that’s going on around you — and away from that jumbled mess of thoughts constantly crowding your mind — meditation can calm your body’s stress response and alleviate any tension you’re holding in your muscles. Beyond temporary stress relief, meditation can also improve creativity, therefore making it a valuable tool for artists and art enthusiasts. Meditation can also improve your ability to focus and concentrate, build self-awareness, increase patience, reduce negative emotions, and help you build coping skills to better manage challenging situations that crop up in the future. Meditation and yoga go hand in hand, so if you’re looking for a new exercise to pick up in the new year, consider practicing yoga!. When it comes to yoga, there are many different types to consider. For example, We Know Yoga explains that Yin Yoga involves passive poses like child’s pose and seated stretches to help your body relax and unwind. Preparing Your Meditation Space When it comes to yoga and meditation, your environment will play a very important role in your ability to relax and focus. Set up a little meditation space in a quiet area of your home where you can escape from distractions. Keep this area clean and uncluttered. Incorporate soft lighting, calming artwork and décor that make you feel positive, and a touch of nature like a potted plant or painting of a forested landscape. Other helpful items for your meditation practice include an essential oil diffuser and a comfortable cushion. If you're going to listen to meditation music or a guided meditation session, a soundbar can deliver great-quality sound to the room, allowing you to forego the need for headphones. Getting Started Meditation is a skill that takes practice to master. At first, you will likely find it very challenging to prevent your mind from wandering. Start small and try meditating for just a few minutes so you can get used to the feeling of sitting still and the quiet. Focus on your breath, paying attention to how your stomach expands and contracts as you inhale and exhale. If your mind starts to drift, gently direct your attention back to your breath. It may help to play some relaxing music or guided meditations to keep your mind focused during your practice. Meditation apps like Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer offer a range of guided meditations that can help you get started and grow your practice. Dealing with Distractions The biggest challenge in meditation is dealing with distractions. Sometimes you may be able to dismiss distractions and allow them to pass without hogging precious mental real estate. Other times, however, you may need to give attention to your distractions so you can better manage them. Wildmind likens this to clearing the weeds from a garden. Give your thoughts a moment to process, see if you can reach some kind of conclusion, and bring your focus back to your breath. Remember, dealing with distractions is an integral part of the meditation process. Instead of feeling frustrated and annoyed with your distractions, use them as a tool to practice patience and acceptance. If you’re anxious about the pandemic, you’re not alone. These unprecedented times have led to an increase in stress levels for most people. While it’s completely natural to feel stressed during times of uncertainty, it’s also important to find ways to cope with negative feelings and protect your mental health. A daily meditation practice can do a lot to help. ArtsXchange provides inclusive and diverse programming to the community, combining arts and cultural exchange. If you'd like to learn more or wish to support our mission, contact us at 404-624-4211.

Lisa Nanette Allender is a SAG-AFTRA actor and writer. Lisa enjoys writing poetry and has been published in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies. Lisa has been studying Usui Reiki for over five years now, and will receive her certification as a Reiki Master, soon. She is launching her Reiki practice in 2021. Several years ago, I read about a program begun in Detroit for artists in every discipline, which guaranteed them a free house to live in -- and eventually own -- if they were willing to move into neighborhoods described as being in need of artists. Every city knows that when artists move in, the physical surroundings are made more beautiful, and quality of life improves, and then, commerce usually follows. So we find ourselves in this time, the time of CoronaVirus and COVID-19. And here in the United States, we face an ever-more-urgent reckoning of race as well as this international pandemic. This race reckoning is long overdue. We find ourselves (Full disclosure: this writer is white) not quite as woke as we believed. We find ourselves hounding our friends of color, unfairly asking them to help us resolve the systemic racism from which we (whites) continue to benefit. So, how do we define the role of the arts, the role of the artist? What can we ask for, from artists? When asked how to best fulfill one’s life as an artist, accomplished director and theatre artist Kenny Leon said, “The only thing you have on this earth is your time and your talents.” If too many Americans thought they also “have” luxury cars, fancy homes and designer clothing, the Pandemic has made clear that those are merely possessions, and do not raise our status, and certainly not our quality of life during a time of quarantine and self-isolation. And with nearly fifty (50) million Americans unemployed, a full refrigerator and people and companion animals in a home where we can hold each other, are what we value. Indeed, “gratefulness” has become “a thing”, not just an aphorism. Our time in quarantine, and self-isolation With a lucky 40% of Americans able to “work from home”, and another 40% going to work as essential workers (not only medical personnel, but grocery and pharmacy clerks, delivery drivers, truck drivers)and 20% (and rising) completely without employment, there’s never been more time spent at home, as event after event has been cancelled. No theatre, no movies, no sporting events. Americans must learn how to survive -- perhaps thrive -- when left, literally, “to their own devices.” Our electronic devices, that is. What connects us, what provides true communion, is interacting with others, being inspired by others. With no way to connect (other than “virtually”), we feel bereft. Actors and other performers no longer have in-person, live audiences. From this void, “online” or “virtual” performances have begun to sprout up, searching for viewers just as sunflowers bend toward brightness. The necessity has been to create a new way of “seeing”, even as we discover a new way of “viewing” and experiencing, art. Visionaries who illuminate our present reality, and offer solace for our future The case can be made that artists are who we turn to when we need comfort, when we need assistance, both individually and when our society suffers the open wound, bleeding afresh. We look to artists to balm that wound. In modern-day racist America, artists such as writer/filmmaker/director Jordan Peele, multi-hypenate writer/actor/singer/rapper Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) create works that allow the emotional to become visceral. Much like a victim of abuse will often cut herself, to ameliorate the emotional pain that she is afraid to feel, so that she can bleed, in order to make it real, so do we lean-into, or more accurately, perhaps, we bleed-into the pain, and what we cannot face on the television or on our computer screens: the real-life white knee, breaking the neck of George Floyd, the bullet wounds in the backs of black men (Jacob Blake, and too many others to list here) and black women (Breonna Taylor, and too many others to list here), the shots from law enforcement within two seconds of arriving at a playground, that kill a ten-year-old Tamir Rice, who was pretending with his equally-young friends -- ironically -- to be police officers. We look to artists to help us see these all-too-real atrocities through the lens of the film genre’ of suspense thrillers/horror, rap/hip-hop music, and dramatic plays. Jordan Peele’s Lovecraft Country exposes the realities of race relations in mid-20th-century America, and uses monsters as metaphor for what black people faced -- and still do. In Peele’s “fiction”, extraordinary powers bubble up within those who have been subjugated, spat on, dehumanized. Similarly, This Is America, Donald Glover’s explosive music video that adds an exclamation point to his music/lyrics, penetrates our collective numbness as we have borne witness to repeated beatings, chokings, shootings of black people, by law enforcement. And while Glover’s This Is America is reflective of American culture, and gun violence, it also feels eerily prescient (it was released over a year before George Floyd’s gruesome murder) in scenes where groups gather, and raise their arms, in a bid for justice -- however it may be won. We cheer for the protagonist in this video, because we need him to survive. In these Pandemic times, we are all trying, to survive. Pandemic Poetry In the week following 9/11, The New York Times received over 5,000 poems. The editors were inundated with submissions of poetry from well-known authors and poets as well as regular folks trying to process that horrific atrocity. I still recall a few lines from a poem by Nikki Giovanni from that time: Please, come have dinner with me These words are words we all are thinking now, alone in our homes, dreaming of a mask-free day when we can gather, unafraid, in a restaurant, where we may dine, inside a space other than our home. The words reverberate from one terrible time, to this terrible time, and it is no accident that poetry has once again, found a way to reach out to us. In the past few months, online readings have taken root, including the Performance Poets of Palm Beach, a First Sundays afternoon reading with featured authors as well as a generous Open Mic. Dustin Brookshire’s Wild & Precious Life Series features acclaimed authors every Wednesday night. The title of the series is part of the final line of a famous Mary Oliver poem: What will you do with your one wild and precious life? For Atlantans, the famous Java Monkey Speaks series has gone virtual as well, with award-winning poet, host, Theresa Davis serving as raconteur every Sunday night for a stellar Open Mic, with voices from everywhere. This writer was once asked “Lisa, you are an upbeat person; why is everything you write, so dark?” I heard myself say “You write what you don’t talk about, Dad.” We need artists to give us the truth. We need truths that illuminate other truths. Or lies that illuminate truths. Author William Faulkner said: “The past is never past. The past is still here.” We need artists who are unafraid, who will challenge us, not only in their roles as truth-tellers, but in their roles as sages, as comforters, as seducers, as those who ask us questions, who make us question. Everything. Artists allow us a way into the world, by reflecting our current events, and/or creating a new universe -- a utopia, or conversely, an apocalyptic dystopia. Consider Sibling Rivalry Press’ (SBR) tagline: Disturb and Enrapture The young publishing house which offers opportunity to all writers, specializes in giving voice to those voices traditionally silenced: LGBTQI+. SBR knows that the dynamic of art is to challenge us, and captivate us. Challenge the status quo, by disturbing our preconceived notions of what that status quo, is. Captivate us by the rapture of words, evocative/provocative. Change us! This blog was first Published in In Motion Magazine September 25, 2020

Shelley Danzy January 25, 2021 Read the original full article. “An artist’s duty is to reflect the times,” the great singer and activist Nina Simone once said. It’s easy to believe that she supernaturally perceived the Jack Sinclair Gallery at ArtsXchange. The space uses her quote, a beautiful truth, as a welcoming wall text. The exhibition truth 2 power: ART IN A TIME OF UPHEAVAL, on view through Sunday (January 31), features diverse and socially conscious work by resident artists Atu, photographer Jim Alexander, N’Dieye Gray Danavall, Theresa Davis, Carolyn Renée, Tafawa, Lisa Tuttle (also the exhibit’s curator), Kenneth Zakee and Sugacane Syrup artists Ugo Agoruah, Thomas Bess and Choze. Jack Sinclair Gallery is inside the ArtsXchange (Southeast Community Cultural Center) building in East Point. It’s named for the late Jack Whitney Sinclair, the installation sculpture artist who created the old Arts Exchange gallery space in the Grant Park neighborhood. Before joining the center, he’d started what was known as the Mattress Factory in Little Five Points and the Jack Sinclair Letterpress Studio. Under the leadership of Alice Lovelace, founder, and board chair, ArtsXchange has been a performance and studio home for artists since 1984, moving to its East Point home in 2019. Even COVID-19 can’t stop the creativity. ArtsXchange has shifted to virtual offerings that range from online acting classes for senior citizens to a writer’s workshop series and open-air artisan marketplaces, plus artist talks and classes. The focus on “interdisciplinary, intergenerational, multicultural” art “committed to social justice” remains. LOCATION, ETC.: 2148 Newnan St., East Point. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and noon-4 p.m. Saturday for socially distanced in-person visits. Masks required. CDC guidelines apply. Stay up to date on Sinclair Gallery events on its Facebook and Instagram pages. 404.624.4211.​ MORE ABOUT ARTSXCHANGE: Housed in the former Jere Wells Elementary School, with 20,000 square feet of space on four acres of land. Has 14 resident artists. Visual artists such as artist/educator Kevin Cole, Beverly Buchanan (1940-2015), and Louis Delsarte (1944-2020) have been part of its community. PREVIOUS EXHIBITS: Signs of the Times: Documenting the Power of the People, 1960-Today with documentary photographer Jim Alexander, whose work is part of the current show, and the juried show Scattering Dreams: Art in Response to Global Crisis, early in 2020. Kenneth Zakee's "Black Power" (2020), a fused textile applique, is part of the "truth to power" exhibit on view through Sunday. (All photos courtesy of the gallery) “Ida B. Wells” (2020) by Lisa Tuttle is pencil and watercolor on vellum. Wells (1862-1931) was an investigative journalist, educator, early civil rights leader, and a founder of the NAACP Also part of “truth to power” are “Creator” (left) and “Cornered Wisdom” by Atu, a master wood sculptor in the ancient West African tradition, WHAT’S NEXT: Sinclair Gallery will hold a solo show featuring Atu; invitational and juried shows; and another resident artist show. In February it launches the podcast series Art Shouts. Week 1 will focus on art and well-being and Week 2 on art and justice. Week 3 will focus on Sinclair Gallery and ArtsXchange events, with Week 4 focusing on art activism. MOST MEMORABLE: At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement last year, outside walls at the ArtsXchange building became a backdrop for community murals by emerging artists. A large cross-section of neighbors attended the unveiling, which was accompanied by music and visual performances. LAST WORD: “We’re trying to keep social justice and the arts relevant and alive,” says Vanessa Manley, who co-chairs the ArtsXchange board. “In the midst of everything we’re going through in this country, our artists were still creating. We really want this gallery — our entire cultural center — to be a destination for folks who want to hear a message in the art. We’re resilient.”