Your petals filled with sorrow, the fertilizer leaves your delicate body and your roots come undone.
The gardener nowhere to be found as your flower bed mourns her absence.
I mourn for you, the bees make bitter honey, and the butterflies lost their wings.
The garden missed her, I miss her too.
-Amaya Washington, RYSE Member
This Black Future’s Month we reflect on Black joy, laughter, healing, togetherness, rage, creativity, community, solidarity, food, fashion…all things past, all things present, and imagined futures. If you strike up a conversation with young people here on campus, you are bound to hear about their dreams: some explain theirs at a whisper, some exclaim theirs loud enough for the area to hear, and regardless of which, this expression is why we’re here. Young people and their futures are unwritten and full of possibility and one unifying sentiment from them is relief of having a space to dream out those possibilities. RYSE youth come from a lot of the same places but have perspectives on life so eclectic that you may not notice until they have the means to express. Over the past month, young people found their avenues of expression through organizing, art, fashion, music, poetry, and much more. At a BBQ celebrating Black Futures, we asked young people what this concept means to them, you can see the results in the attached word cluster.
Scroll below to sample RYSE’s February!
“No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us”
-Marsha P. Johnson
Melanated Monday: Youth Spotlight
We kicked off our Black Future's Month Spirit Week by giving flowers to the AMAZING young people at RYSE that come through and exemplify growth, leadership, healing, talent, and what it means to be in community. Check out the above slides spotlighting Landon, Bintan, Maya, Jailen, Mahogany, and Raniyah!
Palestine Solidarity
Sources: M4BL, eslbuzz.com
RYSE’s Organizing Club decided to explore Black Future’s Month through past mass movements born from Black struggle and the through-line of solidarity with Palestine.
Weaving Black American history stretching as far back as the 1960’s, a mass awakening and pushback against white supremacy-made oppression, through both Palestinian history as a whole and Black Palestinian history in particular, the Organizing Club discussed the figurative linkages in similar pushbacks and more literal linkages of Black American and Palestinian figures collaborating in struggle. And per our histories, RYSE took to the streets and participated in the Chevron Out of Palestine Action: challenging and demanding an end to Chevron’s wealth extraction in occupied Palestine.
“As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”
-Nelson Mandela
RYSING Voices Open Mic
Our program RYSING Voices, in collaboration with Eternity Huppolite of Bay Area Creative, hosted RYSE’s first open mic of the year!! Young people shared music, opinions, and, as you can hear in the audio clip above, poetry!
Tasty Tuesday
During Spirit Week, young people hit the kitchen and experimented with some Black diasporic household favorites: chili, cornbread, and beignets! We then hosted a movie night, featuring Princess and the Frog, followed by a discussion further dissecting Black culture from the American South.
It All Comes From Somewhere
Weekly Kitchen Fun!
Members challenged themselves every Munchie Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Foodie Wednesday, and Food Challenge Friday to make their ideas come to fruition: cooking chicken alfredo, tres leches cakes, tacos, and sopes de asada.
Fashion & Media Pop Up
Every Friday RYSE facilitates a Fashion & Media pop up, wherein members aim to explore diverse style trends, identify optimal methods for integrating these trends into their wardrobes, and construct an aesthetic vision board representing the desired fashion style they seek to attain. Here’s some of the members’ recent creations. RYSE member Zayla created waist beads based on the elements, while Amaya created matching rings and bracelets and Angel started on a draft of her fashion vision board.
And a BIG, HUGE Welcome to Our New Hires!
Clover Marie Alejandro
Youth Power Building Assistant
Collin Edmonds
Media, Arts, & Culture Manager
Nashira Talley
RESTOR Coordinator
Chardonay Thomas
Restorative Practices Specialist
Gemikia Henderson
Health Justice Case Manager
Be a Kid! 2024
If you like what you’re reading and want to support the creativity, care and youth leadership happening at RYSE, join us at our annual Be a Kid! fundraising event on April 26. We’ll have food, drinks, dancing, and activities to share with our 21+ community and adult allies of RYSE. Tickets are now available, so grab yours today! All funds raised support RYSE's Youth Emergency Fund.
“We Are Souls Living a Human Experience”
-Eternity Huppolite at the RYSE open mic