Sanctuary, Stage, and State Archives
When I first started this research, the vision was modest. I thought I was just scratching an itch, trying to document a few stories and write a play.
But history has a way of grabbing you by the shoulders and expanding your eyesight. With every single archive I open, with every city I step into, the work widens—not because I am stretching it, but because I am realizing a profound, humbling truth: I am not building a new foundation. I am simply another link in a very long, unbreakable chain.
This year, I relocated the base of my operations to California’s capital city, Sacramento. I wasn’t initially thrilled about the move—an hour north of the Bay Area felt like a world away. But I needed to sit inside the California State Archives. I needed to track how the paper trail of Black women's labor moves through the legislative halls of power.
My journey began in Albany, New York, where I uncovered the records of the M.C. Lawton Club—a local branch of the Empire State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, which was birthed in Brooklyn. From the East Coast, the trail led me West. In Oakland, alongside the historic Phyllis Wheatley Club of the East Bay, I discovered the Home for the Aged and Infirm Colored People, built right on the grounds of what is now Mills College.
We didn't just organize in one town. We didn't just care for people in one region. We did it everywhere.
Putting the Myth on Trial: Myth & Marrow as a Congressional Hearing
As contemporary artists begin to draw from these deep historical wells—from plays about Black women’s church clubs to new works on the 1881 Atlanta Washerwomen Strike—I am adamant that my artistic output does more than invite polite conversation. I want my audience locked inside the action.
That is why I am revising my script, Myth & Marrow: An American Drama, for a full production premiere in East Oakland during Black August 2027.
In this new iteration of the show, the theater turns into an active Congressional Hearing. The audience will sit onstage, transformed into a special congressional oversight committee, holding actual dossiers of archival evidence in their hands. Together, we will consider a binding legislative resolution: to formally dissolve and dismantle the core myths of American democracy, capitalism, and Black womanhood.
Chief among those lies is the audacious, gaslighting claim that Black women are guilty of "theft of labor"—that we somehow haven't worked hard enough, earned enough, or contributed enough to deserve rest or government protection.
Just like those Atlanta washerwomen who shut down a whole city in 1881 to demand dignity, Myth & Marrow puts the state on notice: Black women have subsidized this economy for nearly 250 years. It is not us who owe a debt—it is the nation that is spiritually and financially bankrupt without our uncompensated labor.
Sacramento Anchors: The WCIC and 10 Quilted Panels
To complete this West Coast archival arc, I needed to connect Oakland’s history to the capital. That search led me straight to Sacramento’s own Women’s Civic Improvement Club (WCIC), founded in 1936 and still standing today.
Connecting with local history also led me to the Sisters Quilting Collective here in Sacramento. My work over the next year is focused on translating these heavy historical realities into tactile, living art:
Archival Integration: Connecting the Sacramento WCIC’s legacy to my foundational research in Albany, Brooklyn, and Oakland (laying the groundwork to complete my final research base in Brooklyn in 2028).
Tactile Scenery: Constructing 10 large, quilted wall-hanging panels that visually map Black women's bodies and archival themes. These panels will frame the stage during the Myth & Marrow Congressional hearing, transforming historical records into physical warmth, evidence, and beauty.
These women's clubs didn't operate in a vacuum. They grounded their radical mutual aid in a sacred baseline. They operated under the ethic of Deuteronomy 24—a mandate that community care, leaving the edges of the harvest for the vulnerable, and protecting the dignity of human life are non-negotiable spiritual duties.
If our current political leaders want to understand how to fix a collapsing nation, they need to stop reading corporate propaganda and start studying the meeting minutes of Black women’s clubs.
💡 A.F.R.O. Actionable Step (Real Experiences & Opportunities)
We are all links in a chain. The work of building community and preserving history doesn't belong solely to academics—it belongs to us in our daily lives.
Active Brains & Real Experiences: Visit a local historic site, Black-owned space, or community organization in your city this week. Ask about their history. Uncovering who laid the foundation before you change how you walk through your city.
Opportunity to Express & Empower: What is an ancestral skill, story, or value that you feel called to link into your children’s lives or your family’s routine?
