By: Deirra Stevenson
Rooting for Everybody Black, the stirring thematic panel discussion hosted by The Chelsea House restaurant located on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, featured an incredible panel of prominent leaders emotionally, spiritually and commercially involved in the well being of the Black Community Diaspora.
The participants were Nnemoma Chukwumerije, founder of Essence of Freedom wellness enterprise; Kahshanna Evans, founder of Kissing Lions Public Relations; Abdul Tubman, Director of operations for Corners Community of Stamford, Connecticut; Francis Koroma, founder of Francis Koroma Foundation, New Jersey Nikki Adebiyi, founder and director of Bounce Back.
Panelist Kahshanna Evans, founder of Kissing Lions Public Relations, and a highly respected trauma consultant, contributed her insight about what it means to Root for Everybody Black. "It means that we are on this journey to becoming trauma-informed. Trauma-informed awareness and practices will allow us to have the space to acknowledge why auntie such-and-such is like that, why uncle such-and-such act the way that they do," she said.
"I studied wellness and varied modalities of wellness for over a decade,” she said. “Shamanism, voice, dialog, and Reiki are ancestral practices. So, whether or not we're on the land that our ancestors are native to our ancestors, these practices are heart-centered. People are selling this to us, our grandmamas, aunties, uncles, and elders who have it right and have these practices.”
Adebiyi told the assembled audience that the mission of Bounce Back is ”to encourage black people to pursue a holistic legacy and bounce back. I'm in my late 20s now, but growing up, I was surrounded by people that look like me, who didn't talk about mental health or if we did talk about it, we didn't talk about it well.”
Adding, I don't believe that we can kind of silo those aspects of our lives because they effect each other, and I'm very passionate about encouraging the Black community not just to focus on building generational wealth, but also generational well being because that's one thing that threatens whatever empire you're trying to build.”
"The work that I do sits at the intersection of racial equity, mental health and social mobility because I don't believe that we can kind of silo those aspects of our lives because they effect each other, and I'm very passionate about encouraging the black community not just to focus on building generational wealth, but also generational well being.”
Adebiyi told the audience when she first learned how trauma stays in the body long after the events that caused it. She acquired that knowledge after reading the book, The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk. That book plus her being in therapy regularly and listening to podcasts, such as Dr. Joy Harden’s Therapy for Black Girls, “changed my life” she told the audience.
“But yeah, my journey was crazy until I found those resources, and once I did, it felt like things could have been a lot different much sooner had I known what I know now. And so my intent behind creating Bounce Black was to fill in the gaps I fell through and be who I needed to be. And four years later, we are in the Chelsea house in New York."
Panelist Abdul Tubman says he is a descendant of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, and is inspired by her ancestral legacy. Tubman is the Director of Operations for The Corners Community, which serves the underprivileged Black community in Stamford, Connecticut. "We provide different programs where we build community by directly injecting either money or resources into particular areas where you come to us with a problem, and we'll figure out a solution," he told the audience.
Panelist Francis Koroma, founder of The Francis Koroma Foundation I work with many young people from Kenya, Ghana, and different countries, people who are inspired by what they see. I have some volunteers I've never seen them in my life; we connect and share the same vision."
Koroma said he has helped several students gain scholarships, including Asia Pacific University. He also said, "I want to speak more about the issues black people I've witnessed a lot of the time, which are low self-esteem and competition. Many people want to see you do good, but not better than them. From my point of view, regarding sharing resources, I never saw anyone as a competition because I know myself."
”The racism that we will experience is universal. It may take different shapes or forms, but it's all the same in the end. They keep us in a status quo, keeping us uneducated and infertile; there are so many aspects to the problem, right? So, if we realize it, we are quite literally stronger together. When I joined my nonprofit, I made a stipulation in my contract, which said my only job was not to run this organization. My only job is to find my replacement.”
Tubman noted, "I look at the Harlem Renaissance as the first major shift for us, where it was the first time we used our voices to express ourselves globally, to say we're here. Hear our voices. Right? Then we had the civil rights era, which was the first time who, really, as a whole, we stood up and said, you know, we're bodies too. Count us, too. We're here to be seen because we're doing everything."
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