BLCD 2014
I’ll try to describe it, but you shoulda1 been there.
Well, RC “Black” folks gathered at UCONN2 in Storrs, Connecticut,3 in July 2014.
We came from all over the Eastern coast of the US of A, including
Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Jersey and New York.
Everybody was eager to hear
The words and wisdom of Rudy Nickens4 and Barbara Love5
And reunite with old friends
And catch up with6 the happenings and goings on7 in they8 lives
And miss old friends who could not be there.
There was young folk and old folk
Southern folk and Northern folk
Straight folk and Gay folk
New to RC folk and old to RC folk
Folks who could talk in Spanish, English and in tongues and other tongues
First time to BLCD9 and veterans of BLCD
Leaders, followers and the non-committed
Fundies10 classes and ongoing classes
No one left behind.
There was powerful demos,11 creative panels
And even a young people/young adult occupation.
You ask about theory? Plenty!
I’ll just state a few: Like—
LIVE Goal 1,12 not just theorize it
Live our lives as a contradiction to our distresses
Showing public appreciation to others
Behave like we are important enough to take care of ourselves.
And party? You know, yeah.
Child, even folk who usually to disappear at the sound of the word “party”
Showed up and had theyselves13 a good old time.
Card playing? You bet.14 There was five tables!
“Culture Share”?
I saved that for last ’cause15 it was the dessert
The end of a delicious meal
The icing on a cake.
We had a large selection of talent but I’ll share just two:
A gold-coated haunting voice of an angel’s song
Evoking mysterious memories of the past
Sung in sounds, in no known language, and
The belting out of a passionate, heartfelt, completely vulnerable rendition of an old tune
Letting us know that there’s an army rising up on the horizon
Breaking every chain of oppression along the way
An army that sheds no blood
Shares the earth with all that live
Respects and protects the planet
Uplifts, recognizes and nurtures the rights and intelligence of every human being.
That’s how I saw BLCD 2014 and
I can tell you 2 things about BLCD 2015 and that is—
It will be international and
You should be there!
Patricia Leola Ayoka Thandiwe Mallory-Oduba
(inspired by and modeled after the works of Paul Laurence
Dunbar, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neal Hurston)
Brooklyn, New York, USA
1 Should have
2 University of Connecticut
3 USA
4 Rudy Nickens is the Regional Reference Person for Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, USA, and was the leader of the workshop.
5 Barbara Love is the International Liberation Reference Person for People of African Heritage.
6 “Catch up with” means get the latest information about.
7 “Goings on” means events.
8 Their
9 The Black Liberation and Community Development Workshop
10 Fundamentals
11 Demonstrations
12 Goal 1 of the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities, adopted by the 2001 World Conference of the RC Communities and reaffirmed by subsequent World Conferences: That the elimination of racism, in particular the racism aimed at people of African heritage, be actively made an ongoing, central piece of the work of the Re-evaluation Counseling Community
13 Themselves
14 “You bet” means definitely.
15 Because