Sunday School

Sunday School!: Honoring Queer Black Youth

Sunday School is a place to celebrate and uplift the sacred energy of Queer Black Youth…to listen and affirm the spiritual resources that have allowed them to be themselves.

Laila A. photographed by Justin Valas at the Keep the DREAM alive event

August  22, 2010  Honoring Laila A.!

6pm at the Eleanor on Rigsbee (This is a wheelchair accessible space *email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail for more details)

Bring food and enjoy cake as activist, singer, songwriter and all around awesome person Laila A. and her guitar tell us what she holds sacred and how she keeps her purpose and her bravery flowing.

See you there!!!

Honoring Queer Black Ancestors

January-August 2010

Sunday School is a monthly session that celebrates the spiritual legacy of Queer Black Ancestors with attention to their sacred texts, our memories of their impact and the knowledge that they remain among us in infinite ways.  Come and feel the spirit!

Joseph Beam ❤ Audre Lorde: February 7th 2010

10:30 am at the Eleanor on Rigsbee (email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com for directions)

Co-facilitated by Justin Smith and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, this session will continue the love-fest of Audre Lorde and Joseph Beam’s letters to each other and support of each other’s revolutionary moves in Black Gay and Lesbian publishing creating a context for solidarity, love and community between queer Black folks of all gender-expressions.

We will be engaging two closely  related sacred texts, Audre Lorde’s Eye to Eye: Black Women Hatred and Anger (here) and Joseph Beam’s Brother to Brother (here)

along with a sermonette by Lex about the what she found in Joseph Beam and Audre Lorde’s letters in the Schomburg Black Gay and Lesbian Archive!

March: Queer Legacies of Toni Cade Bambara

Co-facilitated by Kai Lumumba Barrow and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, this session celebrates the impact of Toni Cade Bambara’s bravery and authenticity on the work of June Jordan, Nikky Finney, Cara Page, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Cheryll Greene and of course the co-facilitators ourselves.  We will investigate the cosmic environmental and communal significance of her visionary work.

April: Essex Hemphill

Co-facilitated by Sendolo Diamamah and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, this session will celebrate the visionary poetic work of Essex Hemphill and may include a screening of one of his last speeches on AIDS and the Responsibility of the Writer.

May: Sanesha Stewart, Ty’lia Mack and Sakia Gunn

On Sunday May 23rd, leading up to the birthday of Sakia Gunn, we will honor the spirits of those brave gender non-conforming youth who became ancestors tragically early because of hateful violence and media disrepect.  In the midst of the Combahee Survival Revival Week we will renew our commitment to each other and the communities we deserve.