Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday #8: Diaspora from Alexis Pauline Gumbs on Vimeo.
Captioned version here: http://www.amara.org/en/
In January 1985 Audre Lorde went to Cuba as part of a National Black Writers exchange along with other writers and artists including Alexis DeVeaux, Toni Cade Bambara, Jayne Cortez, Gloria Joseph, Mari Evans and Rosa Guy.
This January Lorde scholar/disciple Alexis Pauline Gumbs will be following in Lorde's footsteps when she goes to Cuba on a people to people license with visionaries Zachari Curtis, Ajamu Dillahunt, Rukia Dillahunt, Ed Whitfield and Laxmi Haynes to learn about Afro-Cuban culture and religion, sustainable agricultural practices and cooperative structures at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Havana.
This is an exciting moment in contemporary black transnational feminism and an opportunity for the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind and the School of Our Lorde to deepen the transnational accountability of our work.
In celebration of this historic moment and this intergenerational communion we are collecting donations to support Witness for Peace (the organization that is making this trip possible), to recoup travel expenses and to support buying educational materials to add to the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Lending and Reference Library in Durham, NC.
You can make a tax deductible donation to Witness for Peace here
and where it say "would you like to leave a message" please be sure to put the name Alexis Pauline Gumbs and send an email to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com notifying us of the amount of your donation so we can add it to the total on this page and you can get your School of Our Lorde perks!!
Perks: (everyone gets a cartoon thank you from Lex!)
$10-50
Donors of $10-50 and up will get a special audio archival treat. Years ago an Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Audio project in honor of ancestors lost to cancer and also to cancer survivors featured cancer survivor and activist Mary Anne Adams reading an excerpt of Lorde biographer Alexis DeVeaux's essay "Searching for Audre Lorde" about meeting Audre Lorde during that 1985 trip to Cuba and working with her spirit to write her biography.
$51-100 (or monthly sustainers of $5-10)
Donors of $51-100 or monthly sustainers of $5-10 will get the audio archival treat described above AND an emailed personalized alphabetized poem blessing from Audre Lorde's poem "Diaspora" which was published in her 1986 collection of poems "Our Dead Behind Us." Just include a note with your favorite letter of the alphabet and if you like share some information about who or what in your life you would like the poem to bless. (And make sure your current email address is linked to your donation!)
$101+ (or monthly sustainers of $15-$20 or more)
Donors of over $100 will receive the audio treat, and emailed poem blessing and a one-on-one 30 minute phone or video chat conversation with Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs interpreting your custom poem and providing advice based on the context of the poem in Audre Lorde's life and in our contemporary moment.
$500+ (or monthly sustainers of $25+)
Donations of $500 and up (or monthly sustainers of $25+) get a Cuba report back from Alexis Pauline Gumbs for your organization, class or group in person (if you are within one hour of Durham, NC or are in a city that she happens to be traveling through already in 2014 (e.g. Grand Rapids, NYC, Houston) or via video conferencing anywhere in the world!
