Greetings Brilliant Transformative Flowers in Bloom!!!!
It is SPRING at the Inspiration Station and we are discovering surprise perennials, witnessing the birth of dreams planted long ago and preparing the soil of our interconnected communities for the future. This update is to let you know how you can participate in the ecology of Broken Beautiful Press and our two major projects. The Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Eduational Series and the Queer Black MobileHomeComing Project. Bloom baby! BLOOM!
The Itinerant Professor: Sista Docta Lex
After 25 years of schooling with no breaks (whew!) Lex and her committee have affirmed her dissertation on the Queer Survival of Black Feminism (click to read the prologue)!!!! Hooray it is SUMMERTIME from now on! Lex is excited to bring her skills, knowledge, reverence, confidence and new swag to support the intellectual visions of educational institutions of all kinds, and community organizations and initiatives. Go to: http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/lexicon/ to learn about the residencies, workshops and lectures Lex is available for and set up a transformative educational tryst, longer term affair, repeated divine encounter etc with Dr. Lex!
(All proceeds from paid engagements go to support Lex's work on the MobileHomeComing Project and the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind.)
Lex and the MobileHomeComing Project are grateful for the support of Queers for Economic Justice, the Disabled Young People's Collective, Public Allies of Cincinnati, the SpiritHouse Choosing Sides Program at New Horizons Academy of Excellence, the American Studies Program at University of Texas-San Antonio, the Women in Learning and Living Program at University of Richmond, the Sexual Assault Task Force at Reed College, the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, the Women's Center and Multicultural Center at Duke University, Holton Community Center for hosting Lex as a speaker/workshop leader and for donating honoraria to the MobileHomeComing Project.
The Inspiration Station: Community Education in Action
- Loving the June Jordan Saturday Survival School!
This year so far the community educational experiences at the Inspiration Station have been over the top!
Queer Families in Durham played danced, created hallway murals and their own all-ages illustrated intergenerational stories based on the unpublished speeches and out-of-print children's books by June Jordan at the June Jordan Saturday Survival School!
Devoted Durhamites gathered on Sunday mornings to sing the praises and celebrate the words of Audre Lorde, Joseph Beam and Toni Cade Bambara during Queer Black Sunday School.
- School of Our Lorde Poets at the Audre Lorde B-day Celebration and Poetry Performance
And Durham's poets and educators (joined by distance learning crews from Chicago, Western Mass, Tuscaloosa, Cairo, Rio Grande Valley, and NYC) deepened the meaning of life with interactive exercises and engagement with the archival and published work of Audre Lorde in the Poetics and Pedagogy units of the School of Our Lorde!
- Chicago Participants participate on the School of Our Lorde Social Network!
AND our beautiful local community gathered for potlucks to discuss the work of the Salsa Soul Sisters... Here is the audio documentary we created over brunch (Carolyn and Harriet drop knowledge!)the short non-fiction of Maia Williams on the complexity of transnational solidary (with a special guest skype appearance from the esteemed author live and direct fromCairo) and the poetry of asha bandele (deepened by our visiting guest expert on women in prison and resistance: Vikki Law!)
Actualizing Abundance!
Participants in the educational programs and readers of the RAGE Edition of the Little Black (Feminist) Book Series from as far as Berlin, raised and donated $1, 531 towards the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Community School in just 2 months proving that our Beloved Community in Creation VALUES community accountable education.
Become a part of our community sustained educational movement in any of the following ways:
Get Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Educational Materials!!!!
1979: Transforming the Meaning of Survival
What does it take to survive a year like 1979?
This first podcast is about the year 1979 and how the world, and black feminism began and ended in some crucial ways that year. With the election of Ronald Reagan, the Boston Murders, the Atlanta Child Murders and the Greensboro Massacre all attacking the the lives, minds and spirits of black women 1979 was a crucial year. This podcast focuses on how Audre Lorde, Alexis DeVeaux, June Jordan and Barbara Smith reach(ed) across time and space to transform the meaning of survival. (And there is some good period appropriate and anachronistic music too!)
Be sure to put "1979 podcast and study guide" in the subject line with your donation
Meditate on the Rainbow: The Poetry of Sapphire
Filled with great music…rare and priceless poetry from Sapphire all presented in that quirky, interactive, meditative, writing workshop-esque Eternal Summer style! Based on Sapphire's out of print seven movement poem "Meditations on the Rainbow" this podcast moves us through the colors of resistance and trasnformation.
This podcast is dedicated to all of us, but especially to Tyli’a Nana Boo Mack, a black transwoman made early ancestor in a brutal act of violence in Washington DC. Get your pen and or your paintbrush and listen.
The study-guide brings Sapphire's poetic work into conversation with her book PUSH and the recent film Precious.
Be sure to write "Meditate on the Rainbow Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation!
In Your Hands: Mothering Ourselves
Because it takes a whole month to prepare for the day of the dead. Because some of us have to create eclectic Sunday morning rituals to hear our own truth. Because I want you to have this for when you need it. This podcast is based on letters from my black feminist ancestors, and the study guide will lead you through a process of communicating with and remembering insight from your own ancestors, spirit-guides and sheroes. For more about the “In Your Hands” project check out www.motherourselves.wordpress.com.
Be sure to put "In Your Hands Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation!
Be Bold Be Red: Legacies of Response to Gendered Violence
In October 2007 women of color came together and transformed terror on Halloween, declaring October 31st Be Bold Be Red Day, a day for women of color and allies to speak out against violence against women. And 30 years ago women of color came together to respond to violence in the same critical and poetic spirit.
Towards the world the we all deserve, fully transformed from the misogyny and internalized racism we face in popular music to the frightening expendability of the lives and bodies of women of color this podcast places the brave voices of women telling the truth about gendered violence over the remixed sounds of Miles Davis by Apple Juice Kid. With this piece which includes critical work on the work of the Combahee River Collective, and Toni Morrison's Sula we take every sound back, starting with our own voices and the background that seeks to silence them.
Listen with your community, your class, your friends, your study group, your church, your crew, pass the link on or listen by yourself and see, hear and wear red.
Be sure to put "Be Bold Be Red" podcast in the subject line with your donation of $15 or more :)
A Revolutionary Act...: On the Legacy of Joseph Beam
In honor of this brilliant Black Gay literary genius ancestor and and the fact that both In the Life and Brother to Brother are back in print thanks to RedBone Press this podcast includes readings and reflections from Lisa Moore of RedBone Press, La Marr Jurelle, Darnell Moore, Justin Smith and a round the kitchen table conversation with some of Durham’s most inspiring Black queer visionary men: Ashon Crawley, Sendolo Diaminah, Thaddeaus Edwards and Justin Robinson. (Plus music, love and archival goodies from an ancestor obsessed devotee who you know much too well 
Informed by archival research in the Schomburg Black Gay and Lesbian Archive, this conversation will be particularly useful as you honor Black Gay History Herstory and discuss the transformative possibility of LOVE in queer community across gender.
Be sure to put "Joseph Beam Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line of your donation of $15 or more!
Anger is Useful!: On the Poetics of Rage
Who’s afraid of the Angry Black Woman? Well BE AFRAID because Angry Black Women are speaking our minds and transforming the world in the service of our vision. Oppression beware the well-directed rage of Black feminism!
Enter the ANGRY BLACK WOMAN edition of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Podcast Series! As always, we start with the brilliance of our ancestors…informed by Audre Lorde's essay "Uses of Anger," meditating on the poetic of rage in June Jordan’s angry letters to racist editors and including reflections from Nia Wilson, Mai’a Williams, Moya Bailey, Daria Bannerman and the young visionaries at New Horizon’s Alternative School…plus as always music that rocks (including a track from the genuis Jon Anonymous project by Durham’s own Shirlette Ammons!)
Be sure to write "Angry Black Woman Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation of $15 or more!
"Coming Home": The Legacy of the Salsa Soul Sisters
“because they were coming home.”-Carolyn Grey
On Saturday January 30th Harriet Alston and Carolyn Grey brought decades of memories and a Linda Tillery album that Harriet had spent days digitizing through the rare (and unplowed) North Carolina Snow to have a conversation with eager listeners at the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Potluck about their time in the Salsa Soul Sisters and the lessons they learned about building community. Use this podcast as a precedent to your own community building projects or to recontextualize the history of Black feminist, 3rd World Women's and lesbian feminist organizations in the 1970's.
Be sure to write "Salsa Soul Audio Documentary and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation of $15 or more!
On Cancer and Survival: In Honor of June Jordan, Audre Lorde and Andria Hall
Cancer is a major factor in the lived experience of Black Feminist herstory and legacies. How do we understand survival, the body, love and relationships as we survive and lose our loved ones to cancer? This podcast includes the voices of survivors of cancer, and those who have survived their loved ones. Investigating how life continues and how we can center our wellness, this podcast is memorial and salve, and a call of communication across every boundary, even our understandings of life and death.
Be sure to write "Cancer and Survival Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation of $15 or more.
"The Best Way to Do it is to Do it": The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara
In honor of Toni Cade Bambara’s 71st Birthday we present a podcast full of reflections, laughter, poetry, music and LOVE for the brilliant sister warrior mother writer, dancer, filmmaker, screenplay transformer, community organizer Toni Cade Bambara! I created this podcast with much inspiration from Cheryll Y. Greene and with the priceless collaboration and words of Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Cara Page, Linda Janet Holmes, Kai Lumumba Barrow and Nikky Finney. Contextualize your day with the brilliant insights of these women and listen to music from Sarah Vaughn, King Pleasure, Erykah Badu, Amel Laurrieux, Cassandra Wilson, Abbey Lincoln and some of my favorite producers and learn and teach about the work of this crucial Black feminist warrior!
Be sure to write "Toni Cade Bambara Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation of 15 or more :)
The Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind DVD
For your classroom, living room, workshops etc. get your own DVD of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Video Series (link for previews) for a donation of 20 bucks or more to the Eternal Summer Educational program. Remember to put a note on your transaction that you want the DVD and be sure that your address is current!!!
Become an Eternal Summerian by joining the Inspiration Station EasyPass Club! Monthly sustainers will get special juicy audio/video/poetic content sent directly to your inboxes every single month for ETERNITY!!!!!!!!
SPECIAL INCENTIVE!!!! Everyone who becomes a monthly sustainer in April will get an audio experiential piece about responding to police brutality in queer communities of color written and performed by Lex and sonically designed and transformed by the dashing Julia R. Wallace that is not available on the web!
Push the button to sign up to be a monthly sustainer (the big blue number is how much you'll be donating each month automatically)!
************Durham Locals!!! You can also support by bringing food, paper (in any form from toilet paper, to butcher paper, to paper plates) and art supplies or dv tapes... to the inspiration station any time. Or rides to the airport so Dr. Lex can keep hustling to bring insight and resources back to the Bull City (you know how we do!!) Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to set it up!!!!
Rejuvenating Revolutionary Retreats at the Inspiration Station:
- Living Room Ancestor entryway @ the Inspiration Station
Are you getting excited and lustful from all of this shameless bragging on the beautiful city of Durham, NC? Want to see for yourself and help support the Inspiration Station? Durham devotees...want to help with Lex's long-lived and blatant recruitment strategy to get the rest of our tribe of brilliant artists, thinkers, and organizers to move to the center of the universe? We GOT you! Introducing Artist/Intellectual/Organizer retreats @ the Inspiration Station.
This is what we call sustainable community transformation!!!! Tell your friends or avail yourself of an immersion in the magical energy of Durham, NC and the special light of the Inspiration Station...fortified by so many beautiful thoughts and brave moments. Help us create a sustainable use of the space over the summer or for the 10 days a month that Lex and Julia are off on the MobileHomeComing Tour. You'll get a set of Durham local edible goodies (from the Tierra Negra Farm and the Bread Uprising Bakery) a list of inspiring walks and journeys to take in Durham, the use of a beautiful wrap around front porch with a hammock and a table and chairs and beautiful honeysuckle and crepe myrtle trees....
AND even though you may think that the most fun thing about Durham is the chance to hang out with Lex...the truth is that Durham is full of brilliant visionary ambassadors who love to show off our cities transformative glow...so if you want you can even get assigned a buddy to show you the Durham ropes and share their lovely talents and experiences with you as part of the welcoming committee!
So email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com if you might want to spend a week (or the month of July) in the center of love, inspiration and transformation. We are hoping that folks can offer $100-200 a week for residencies...but everything you have to offer is valuable and the conversation is always open!
OKAY!!!! Congrats on reading this content-filled message. Take home: Summer is Eternal and Spring is NOW!
We love growing with you!!!!!
Infinite love,
Lex
Our journey focuses on the social organizing strategies of non-conforming black women in the 1980’s and earlier. This means that we are interested in how these elders socialized, how they intervened in and created social institutions for themselves and for us. This means we are not only interested in how these black feminist radicals attempted to smash the state. We are also interested in how they made strides towards REPLACING the state by creating their own methods of childcare, health and wellness, spiritual eclecticism. We are interested in how they fed each other, loved each other, raised children together, created publications, created jobs for each other, supported each other’s endeavors. We want to know how they created the societies they needed, because we believe that their inventiveness holds the seeds to the society we ALL need. This means that while we are very interested in working with elders who were involved in radical and feminist political organizations, we will want to know what happened between meetings, how people celebrated each other, what the culture of their organizing was in addition to their explicit political campaigns and interventions.
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