JOY IKE 

"The depth of subjects she tackles in her poetic lyrics are perfectly complemented by a unique blend of neo-soul, with just the right dash of pop...a truly compelling act to watch in person, with the ability to create an intimate setting in locations big and small."

RACHEL JOY PLETTS

The words and delivery are paramount, so accompanying music is purposefully kept simple and sweet allowing the focus and gaze of the audience to be swept up into the story. 

Versatile guitarist Paul Pieper brings technical and improvisational prowess to every song he plays. As a jazz musician he's toured the world, performing across upwards of twenty countries from Japan to Turkey and from Iceland to Ecuador. Grounded in the melodic traditions of post-Coltrane jazz and the pioneering influence of John Scofield, Paul's distinctive voice shines through his performances and compositions.

The primary goal of many companies is to make profit — but should it be? A new social movement is advocating for a reevaluation of our economic model: encouraging companies to work towards the commongood rather than compete for financial gain. Thousands of companies are already on board, with hundreds implementing its first steps. Can this be the shift our society needs to find sustainability in an economically unstable world? Join Christian Felber, an internationally renowned lecturer at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, as he visits D.C. to discuss this project and his book Change Everything: Creating an Economy for the Common Good.

ON A TRANQUIL SUMMER NIGHT in July 2012, a trio of peace activists infiltrated the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Nicknamed the “Fort Knox of Uranium,” Y-12 was supposedly one of the most secure sites in the world, a bastion of warhead parts and hundreds of tons of highly enriched uranium—enough to power thousands of nuclear bombs. The three activists—a house painter, a Vietnam War veteran, and an 82-year-old Catholic nun—penetrated the complex’s exterior with alarming ease; their strongest tools were two pairs of bolt cutters and three hammers. Once inside, these pacifists hung protest banners, spray-painted biblical messages, and streaked the walls with human blood. Then they waited to be arrested.

Come join the conversation that is intended to increase your awareness of death with a view to helping us make the most of our (finite) lives. The Death Café movement (deathcafe.com) is happening across the U.S. and worldwide. Death Cafés provide a free venue--with food and drink--for people to talk about death openly. Bring your questions, experiences and concerns—big and small—or just come to soak in the rich discussion and enjoy food and refreshments. This free event is sponsored by Community Hospices and the Potter’s House.

Calling is a sense that something greater than you invites you to deeper purpose.

Knowing what invites you is hard.

Knowing the purpose requires discernment.

Saying yes requires trust.

Join others for a time of creative listening, sharing, reflection, and engagement with calling. Come to trust your experiences, gifts, and desires. Come to honor your story, and how sharing it can empower you.  Come to welcome how your sense of call might open you – and others – to something greater.

Phillips Manager of Exhibitions Liza Strelka discusses the upcoming exhibition People on the Move: Beauty and Struggle in Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series, on view at The Phillips Collection beginning Oct. 8, which includes themes relevant to current events surrounding race and immigration.

The event includes a sneak peek of a new interactive website that features Lawrence’s first-hand accounts as well as contemporary responses to migration and a complimentary ticket to the exhibition. This event is free and open to the public.

Fungi (i.e. mushrooms, yeasts, lichens, molds) are everywhere around us, forming symbioses with all plants and animals, and performing critical roles that keep complex ecological webs intact. And yet, most people are completely unaware of the incredible and ubiquitous nature of the Fungal Kingdom. In this part presentation, part mushroom roadshow, author Peter McCoy will present many means for dispelling this paradox. From the ecological importance of mushrooms and other fungi, to their rich history with human cultures around the world, to the increasingly profound potential for mushroom cultivation to address a range of pressing global issues, this special event will take you deep into the fungal realm. The result just may change the way you look at fungi, and the world at large. 

This event is FREE!!

History remembers Robert F. Kennedy as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy’s enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that had its beginnings in the conservative 1950s. In Bobby Kennedy, Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to paint a complete portrait of this singularly fascinating figure.

Mary Helen Washington recovers the vital role of 1950s leftist politics in the works and lives of modern African American writers and artists. While most histories of McCarthyism focus on the devastation of the blacklist and the intersection of leftist politics and American culture, few include the activities of radical writers and artists from the Black Popular Front. Washington's work incorporates these black intellectuals back into our understanding of mid-twentieth-century African American literature and art and expands our understanding of the creative ferment energizing all of America during this period.

Tell Me the Number before Infinity: the story of a girl with a quirky mind, an eccentric family, and oh yes, a disability by Becky Taylor and Dena Taylor is a one-of- a-kind memoir, written from their two perspectives with interwoven chapters about Becky’s life growing up with cerebral palsy. 
 

Black Freak Mosh Heaven is a poetic autobiography about a black youth who rocks and rolls to his own beat and is forced to battle racism, stereotypes and ignorance. It is a thought-provoking tale of a man who struggles against society's intolerance and fights to create a world of acceptance. It is a literal companion to his autobiographical one man show, Dreadlocks, Rock 'n Roll & Human Rights.

What do you want in a president? Curators Natalie Campbell & Saisha Grayson invite the public to join in a writing workshop to adapt, update and engage with a 1992 text by artist and activist Zoe Leonard listing demands for a new U.S. president. The adapted texts from a series of workshops this fall will be archived online and will culminate in a public collective reading on Oct 16 at 5:30 pm in front of the White House. 

“Art Between Us” is the DMV's quarterly all-women’s event for an all-women audience. (All persons who identify as women are welcome!) In an effort to create safe spaces for ladies from marginalized arts communities, “Art Between Us” aims to encourage creativity, develop sisterhood within the arts, and build a support network for women and girls of all backgrounds to connect with each other over artistic expression and celebrate our diverse voices and experiences in a space that's just for us. 

Well before Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke out against nuclear weapons, African Americans were protesting the Bomb. Historians have generally ignored African Americans when studying the anti-nuclear movement, yet they were some of the first citizens to protest Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Now for the first time, African Americans Against the Bomb tells the compelling story of those black activists who fought for nuclear disarmament by connecting the nuclear issue with the fight for racial equality.

Join Embrace Yoga DC teachers on the first Monday of each month at the landmark café/bookstore, Potter’s House, for a free community yoga class. This flowing open level vinyasa yoga class is an expression of love to our community. Dive in, flow and celebrate life with some of the Embrace Your Flow teachers and friends! Open to all levels. Bring a yoga mat, a smile, and a friend. 

Godless Circumcisions is a witty and forceful study of race, sex and politics in contemporary culture. Personal and poetic, these essays, poems and biographical trysts disrobe issues central to the black, queer and working class existences. Wilson speaks fluently—fluctuating between academic authority, queer griot and matter-of-fact honesty—to issues of racial-sexual terror; masculine anxiety; how Black men learn the erotic, sex and vulnerability; the stereotypes of Black and BlaQueer people in the United States. Paying special attention to the costs of assimilation—or cultural circumcisions—Wilson invites the reader on his personal and political journey to a practice of critical love ethics.

In The Poverty Industry, Daniel L. Hatcher shows us how state governments and their private industry partners are profiting from the social safety net, turning America’s most vulnerable populations into sources of revenue. The poverty industry is stealing billions in federal aid and other funds from impoverished families, abused and neglected children, and the disabled and elderly poor. As policy experts across the political spectrum debate how to best structure government assistance programs, a massive siphoning of the safety net is occurring behind the scenes.In the face of these abuses of power, Hatcher offers a road map for reforms to realign the practices of human service agencies with their intended purpose, to prevent the misuse of public taxpayer dollars, and to ensure that government aid truly gets to those in need. 

The capital of the U.S. Empire after World War II was not a city. It was an American suburb. In this innovative and timely history, Andrew Friedman chronicles how the CIA and other national security institutions created a U.S. imperial home front in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. In this covert capital, the suburban landscape provided a cover for the workings of U.S. imperial power, which shaped domestic suburban life. The Pentagon and the CIA built two of the largest office buildings in the country there during and after the war that anchored a new imperial culture and social world. 
 

The first released work of poetry from White, Found Them deals with physical and spiritual place along an arduous but liberating gender and sexuality journey. This chapbook includes seventeen poems which explore transformation and departure as means of survival, as well as ancestral magic as an omnipresent resource.

Francisco-Luis White is an agender, AfroLatinx writer, poet and storyteller currently residing in District of Columbia. They have presented at the Carolina Conference on Queer Youth (2014 and 2015), Fire & Ink Conference for LGBTQ Writers of African Descent (2015), and the United States Conference on AIDS (2014). In 2015, they were recognized by National Black Justice Coalition as an SGL/LGBTQ Emerging Leader to Watch and one of Qnotes Faces of The Future. White is a contributor toTheBody.com and for HIV Equal. 

Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel have touted and promoted Chicago as a "world class city." The skyscrapers kissing the clouds, the billion­dollar Millennium Park, Michelin­rated restaurants, pristine lake views, fabulous shopping, vibrant theater scene, downtown flower beds and stellar architecture tell one story. Yet, swept under the rug is the stench of segregation that compromises Chicago. The Manhattan Institute dubs Chicago as one of the most segregated big cities in the country. Though other cities ­including Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Baltimore ­ can fight over that mantle, it's clear that segregation defines Chicago. And unlike many other major U.S. cities, no one race dominates. Chicago is divided equally into black, white, and Latino, each group clustered in their various turfs. 

The Mask You Live In follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity.

Pressured by the media, their peer group, and even the adults in their lives, our protagonists confront messages encouraging them to disconnect from their emotions, devalue authentic friendships, objectify and degrade women, and resolve conflicts through violence. These gender stereotypes interconnect with race, class, and circumstance, creating a maze of identity issues boys and young men must navigate to become “real” men.

The Mask You Live In ultimately illustrates how we, as a society, can raise a healthier generation of boys and young men.

In this innovative study, Crystal Sanders explores how working-class black women, in collaboration with the federal government, created the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) in 1965, a Head Start program that not only gave poor black children access to early childhood education but also provided black women with greater opportunities for political activism during a crucial time in the unfolding of the civil rights movement. 

Collective Action for Safe Spaces is a grassroots, volunteer-powered organization working to make public spaces safer for everyone. We train community members to respond to street harassment and be active bystanders to help promote a culture where women, LGBTQ, and gender nonconforming folks are treated with respect. Join us for a workshop to learn effective skills for responding to harassment and to intervene if you witness it!

From the front lines of the wrongful conviction capital of the United States—Cook County, Ill.—these stories reveal serious gaps in the criminal justice system. Flowers depicts the collateral damage of wrongful convictions on families and communities, challenging the deeper problem of mass incarceration in the United States. As she tells each exoneree’s powerful story, Flowers vividly shows that release from prison, though sometimes joyous and hopeful, is not a Hollywood ending—or an ending at all. Rather, an exoneree’s first unshackled steps are the beginning of a new journey full of turmoil and triumph.

Chapbook Release Party!
I Wanted Just to Be Soft (April 2016, Anomalous Press)
by Temim Fruchter

Featuring:

Temim Fruchter, author of I Wanted Just to Be Soft (April 2016, Anomalous Press)
Seema Reza, author of When The World Breaks Open (March 2016, Red Hen Press)
Plus, other surprises!

Come join us to celebrate the release of new work by DC writers!

The smartest kid on his block in East Baltimore, D. was certain he would escape the life of drugs, decadence, and violence that had surrounded him since birth. But when his brother Devin is shot-only days after D. receives notice that he's been accepted into Georgetown University—the plans for his life explode, and he takes up the mantel of his brother's crack empire. D. succeeds in cultivating the family business, but when he meets a woman unlike any he's known before, his priorities are once more put into question. Equally terrifying and hilarious, inspiring and heartbreaking, D.'s story offers a rare glimpse into the mentality of a person who has escaped many hells.

D. Watkins is a columnist for Salon; his work has been published in the New York Times, the Guardian, Rolling Stone and other publications. He is also a professor of Creative Writing at the University of Baltimore and founder ofthe BMORE Writers Project. 

Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Miss Representation exposes how mainstream media and culture contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. The film draws back a curtain to reveal a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see – how the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls makes it difficult for women to feel powerful and achieve leadership positions. 
 

"A semi-ethnographic examination of efforts in one U.S. city to curb gentrification by harnessing the paradoxical power of the condominium to mitigate turnover even as it generates it. The Politics of Staying Put is a deeply researched study of tenant empowerment that makes an important contribution to debates in the social sciences about displacement, neighborhood governance, and apartment living, challenging the dominant view of the condo as yuppie. Rich fieldwork and case studies illustrate how communities can — and cannot — successfully challenge the market in an era of rapid urban transformation."—Matthew Gordon Lasner, Assistant Professor, Hunter College, author of High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century

Carolyn Gallaher is Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University. She is the author of On the Fault Line: Race, Class, and the American Patriot Movement, and After the Peace: Loyalist Paramilitaries in Post-accord Northern Ireland.