My mama would often ask me about my thoughts. She always wanted to know what I was thinking. I have a friend now who does that. He asks me often about my thoughts and my feelings. I remember I used to always have an answer for my mama. The answers flowed easily. I'm thinking about clouds, and sunflowers, and ice cream, and my favorite dress. Now when I'm asked about my thoughts and feelings, I'm a bit slower to speak. The concepts aren't as easy to explain in words. That's why I'm thankful that I'm an artist. I have a way to speak my truth without words getting in the way. I can express what I'm feeling in gesture, image, song, dance, silence, presence, thought. Community, what are you thinking?

I am writing this letter from Gloster, Mississippi. Birthplace of Leo Hansberry, and ancestral home of his niece Lorraine Hansberry. Here, I have been serving as a dancer in residence with The Gloster Project. We've had an epic two weeks of workshops, family dinners, public appearances, and major collective building.

This morning, I've been listening to Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. I've been flipping through my favorite passages of The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabelle Wilkerson. I've been meditating on the roots of radical transformation. I've been mediating on the bounty of black community and the beauty of black elders.

I've been thinking my little girl self. A little girl who scribbled poems and made dances and thought about everything outside her window. I've been thinking about her fearlessness and her fierceness. I've thinking about playing the harmonica with my grandpa and making cakes with my grandma. I've been thinking about what was important to her and how her dreams have grown and morphed into the life I'm blessed to live now.

I'm feeling the fullness of black love, black light, black creativity, and black excellence. I'm feeling the seriousness of the Great Migration and the necessity of the reverse migration I perform every year since I moved to NYC, eight years now. Eight years returning to work and serve and remember the soil from which I come. Indeed, I am thankful and honored to be swimming in this Mississippi sunshine.

As I prepare for a full August and an abundant summer and fall season with BDAC, I want to encourage each of us to get out and get sun kissed. Take some time to remember and reflect and sweat. Take sometime to remember, in honor of the freedom fighters and revolutionaries that worked and sacrifice so that we may be a little but further down the road to liberation. Find away to celebrate in the spirit of black creativity, radical imagining, and black joy.
Happy summer, happy journey, and Happy Black August.

Young, gifted, black...
Ebony Noelle Golden, CEO
Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC

MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES: REPORT BACK

UPCOMING EVENTS

Our CEO is headed to Minneapolis!

Join BDAC in "creating radical expressiveness with community"

• Be an intern.
• Be a volunteer.
• Attend a workshop.
• Bring BDAC to your community for a residency or performance.
• Bring BDAC to your community to support a cultural campaign.
• Bring BDAC to your community to facilitate a training with your artists, staff and community partners.

SUPPORT BDACs WORK

We are committed to practicing social entrepreneurship, which isn't solely about gaining monetary capital but also increasing social capital in our communities.

Visit www.bettysdaughterarts.com to learn more about our offerings and how you can bring BDAC to your community or help support a community in need.

BDACs CALL TO ACTION

creative innovation. cultural education. 
       community collaboration.