I didn’t know I was going to leave Columbia University enrolled right on back in school after receiving the word Professor Frank Roberts brought to Broadway For Black Lives Matter.
Sure enough, Professor Roberts had me sitting in the front row with my felt tip marker pen and sketch book, taking notes as he dissected the meaning of the Black Lives Matter movement.
As the co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition and creator of The Black Lives Matter Syllabus, Roberts is giving his best praise at New York University, where he created the first Black Lives Matter college course. #Amen
He stopped by our event leaving us with the nugget that this movement is a” remembrance prayer.”
Black Lives Matter, he explained, is a four part movement.
Human rights. Intersectional. Abolitionist. Artistic.
Let’s stop on artistic.
“There’s a blues ballad with Sandra Bland’s name on it waiting to be sung.”
That hit me hard.
Out of our experience, our sorrow, our pain, we make art. We always have, and I’d dare to say, we always will. Our conversations, our Facebook statuses, our tweets, and our hashtags have the potential to live on.
We must give our words. We must give our orchestrations. We must give our direction.
“This movement is for US,” Roberts rallied, noting the creativity, staging, and theatricality that goes into integral parts of the Black Lives Matter movement.
So many of us are already using the horrors of this world to fuel our arts. Keep going.
Check out the entirety of his talk on the Broadway For Black Lives Matter livestream that is archived on the website.
