Harvesting Hope: Funding Black Brilliance

The Harvesting Hope series reconvenes to explore aspects of funding black brilliance. This session will hold a grieving circle specifically for participants to honor and mourn Black-owned small businesses in Denver that have been forced to shutter their doors or relocate. We will explore past and present businesses located in the historic Five Points neighborhood. Participants will also use the art of collage to craft individual maps of our city as they wish to see it, write letters of support to our favorite local businesses, and share the best memories while reviewing alternative funding sources.

The companion book for this month is Black Wall Street, by Hannibal B. Johnson. Read at your own pace or listen to the audio. Find multiple formats available at the library
http://catalog.denverlibrary.org/view.aspx?title=black+wall+street. Ideal for ages 18 and up.

Harvesting Hope is an intentional community for African American older adults to learn new ideas, read books that speak to their experiences, create, heal, and share resources while building an ongoing support network. Facilitated by Confidence Omenai in partnership with the Denver Public Library.

*This program is part of a series. Topics vary from month to month.

• Thursday, April 27, 4-6 pm: Mothering & Unmothered
• Thursday, May 25, 4-6pm: Black Mental Health Matters

Confidence Omenai, is a Nigerian American poet, community organizer, playwright, voice actor, and breaker of chains. Her work explores death, rebirth, and collective healing using the arts, racism, and martyrdom on the altar of motherhood and marriage. For fifteen years she has competed, performed, and curated shows across the nation. Confidence is an activist facilitating writing workshops, performing, and encouraging radical self-interrogation around the country at universities, high schools, middle schools, maximum security prisons, juvenile facilities, and more. Confidence is a Program Coordinator for Collective Healing Through Art, TEDxMileHigh Speaker, Pink Door Fellow, and Oklahoma State University Alum. Her work appears in A La Palabra: The Word is a Woman: Mothers & Daughters. She currently resides in Denver, creating transformative work across genres and clearing the way for her rebellious great-granddaughters, who will defend the earth in her name. Connect with Confidence on Instagram, Facebook, or her website.