Black New England Conference Summary
Friday, October 22, 2021

by Helena h.iaquinta (Southern New Hampshire University)n

Today has been an absolute honor to hear from so many powerful voices. Each one works every day to create an impact in their community. We are so thankful for your authenticity, vulnerability, and energy to share your knowledge and unwavering passion. And so beautifully done through storytelling which all of us will take pieces of your stories with us.

Some key takeaways gathered today include:

  • Bob Bellinger and Chief Wande reminded us to center ourselves
    • Giving us a way to connect, and a way for us to take a step on the journey towards healing, truth-telling, and forgiveness.
  • Chief Wande, Dr. Robert Thompson, and Christopher Cameron brought us back in time through history and song
    • We learned about the first Black Churches
    • And how to find hope in deep despair
  • B, Alan Bean, and Kathleen Anderson shared how reparations remain an emotionally charged and unresolved issue.
    • We have to consider a “realignment of resources.” Breaking (systems) down to build things up.
    • It’s about practicing the way of love.
    • It is each person’s responsibility to keep learning about their role in reparations based on their ancestors
    • And reparations are not a onetime action but a lifestyle
  • M told us that
    • Relationships are human mirrors
    • And that seeing our words through – is accountability – which is the foundation of trust
    • Listen 80% and talk 20% –
    • “Feed the needs of your soul rather than the needs of your ego”
  • Our final presentation today with Imari Paris Jeffries, Liz Wright, and Jerome Meadows, left us with
    • That the topics of poverty, housing, racial equality, and education are still as relevant today as they were in the 1960s.
    • Monuments are representations of culture
      • And the new Dr. and Mrs. King memorial will show – love, inclusion, anti-racism, and coming together
    • Land has memory
    • Important to consider the differences between settler and native perspectives around sacred sites
    • Art should be provocative and interactive as it tells its story
    • Bringing the community out is important in the healing process

 

Thank you for attending the first day of the Black New England Conference and thank you to all of our presenters and moderators for such engaging work. We hope you enjoyed today’s sessions and that they gave you much to think about.

Black New England Conference Summary
Saturday, October 23, 2021

What a moving and emotional first session today with Dr. Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Rev Lauren Smith, and Rev Effie McAvoy – there wasn’t a dry eye in my house!

They each shared that we have to

  • Stand up, have a voice, and speak up about what is truly Christian – Call them out
    • White Supremacy can show up in all people
    • To contemplate the quote from Ibrahim Farajaje “Arrogance of the temporarily able-bodied”
  • Ask questions in your faith
  • God’s love is greater than the hate and bigotry
  • Religion is inundated with harm
    • Striving to live with faith can make us whole people

In our second session, Sheila Wise Rowe and Geneva Ree Taylor spoke towards healing and historical black trauma

  • “We have to hold the tension between the now and the not yet.”
  • We can draw from our faith, our stories, and our family, and the scriptures
    • To help sustain us and help us grow
  • Healing is a process that is not linear
    • Engage in actions that are therapeutic – journaling – breath prayers – activism –
  • You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously.
    • You are a work of art
  • Racism is relentless – journeying is going to take time – sometimes that might just be listening – requires humility
  • there is an opportunity for healing through lamentation
  • Forgiveness is not about other people, it’s about YOU being whole.
  • BLACK JOY IS BEAUTIFUL
  • Healed people heal people.

Our Keynote speaker Yvette Modestine shared with us that In order to guide ourselves to the whispers of the ancestors:

  • we must remove the boundaries and borders that exist through truth and accountability and that we need to reconnect with humanity
  • She challenged white folx to have tough conversations and all of us to stand up and speak on it in order to create healing and raise the vibration of inequities
  • Above all – Be unapologetic

In our final session, Belvie Brooks, Kabir Hippolight, and Loretta Brady shared with us that we can:

  • Use ritual to get unstuck
  • Be mindful of our flight pattern so we can liberate ourselves and others
  • The personal is political
  • Each of us Is our ancestors – speaking to us and through us through awareness and intuition
  • We must know ourselves but we must always know our environment
  • We must understand who we are
  • Honor the legacies and traumas we carry
  • Games provide Windows into other communities as well as action and changes
  • Listening deeply and with an open heart can be so very powerful.

And in true SNHU fashion I want to leave each of you with a closing quote that I saw on Instagram today that echoes what we have heard over the last two days:

“You gotta resurrect the deep pain within you and give it a place to live that’s not within your body. Let it live in art. Let it live in writing. Let it live in music. Let it be devoured by building brighter connections. Your body is not a coffin for the pain to be buried in. Put it somewhere else.” @ehimeora

Thank you all for being an active part of the 2021 Black New England Conference and thank you to all of our presenters and moderators for such engaging work. So many truths to reflect on and put into action.