A community conversation and storytelling workshop on the meanings of home for LGBTQ people in Harlem, facilitated by Ola Ronke Akinmowo, performer and storyteller of the Free Black Women's Library. The idea of home carries many different meanings, but it is a particularly complex concept for members of the LGBTQ community. In the 50 years since Stonewall, the struggle to make a home, feel safe at home, and build a sense of belonging at home has been ongoing. Not to mention the significant cultural and physical changes that have taken place in Harlem—once the hub of a social, intellectual and artistic innovation for Black Americans in the 1920s and 30s—over the last century. From large scale development and gentrification to loss of affordable housing, small businesses and a widespread thriving artistic scene, Harlem has changed dramatically. Focusing on the LGBTQ experience, Ola Ronke Akinmowo, founder of the Free Black Women’s Library, will lead community members in an exploration of what it means to make home in Harlem.
New York City, NY; NYC