Three days. Three movements. One rising chord that refused to fade.
Today, 154 souls gathered at the Florence Douglas Center in Vallejo, and the room did not merely fill—it resonated. Breath became instrument, memory became tempo, and Black history moved among us not as something distant, but as something living, improvising, still composing itself in real time.
This was my final celebration of Black History Month there, and what a luminous crescendo it was.
Color everywhere—fabrics alive with rhythm, dresses and jackets carrying the confidence of ancestors who survived long enough for us to stand in their stead. The room itself felt orchestrated: voices tuning, laughter rising like bright brass, quiet conversations humming beneath it all like cellos holding the foundation.
The host and MC conducted the afternoon with grace and command—guiding us between moments of reflection and triumph, never allowing the music of the gathering to falter. It was my first time attending this extraordinary event, and already I know—it will not be my last.
When I stepped forward to read Looking Back / Moving Forward, I carried with me the weight of history and the fragile hope of tomorrow. I had been revising until 1 a.m., rising again at 8 a.m., still shaping its final notes. Some poems arrive gently. This one arrived like weather.
And afterward—handshakes, warm smiles, words spoken quietly but with unmistakable force. Thumbs raised in affirmation. People did not simply hear the poem—they received it. They held it. They returned it to me transformed by their listening.
I was deeply honored to meet so many extraordinary individuals, including Tara Beasley Stansberry, candidate for Vallejo City Council District 5, and the inspiring owner of Ethnic Notions, Mrs, Rozalind Sinnamon- Johnson whose presence alone felt like a bridge between legacy and future. Each conversation added another layer to the day’s unfolding symphony.
But what I will carry with me most was the energy—impossible to measure, impossible to forget. The speakers, each voice distinct yet unified. And that remarkable MC, whose presence anchored the entire afternoon, ensuring that every note, every word, every silence arrived exactly when it was meant to.
Today was not merely an event.
It was a reminder.
That history is not behind us.
It is still breathing.
Still singing.
Still asking us to listen—and to answer.
an
