Black August
Aaron P. Dworkin
This August, Grantmakers in the Arts asks that cultural grantmakers look inward and listen outward, to invest in Black artists and communities, commit to listen, learn, and implement anti-racist practices, more widely amplify voices for change, and connect our work with the racial justice organizing. Throughout the month, GIA will share questions and proposals from our members on how cultural grantmaking can interrupt institutional and structural racism while building a more just funding ecosystem that prioritizes Black communities, organizations, and artists.
For our 2023 series, we invited Black philanthropists and creatives to offer a reflection and a call to action, responding to the expanded question: How can cultural grantmaking develop sustainable anti-racist practices while building a more just funding ecosystem that prioritizes Black communities, organizations, and artists? How do we encompass intersectionality to address the complex identities within Blackness?
Black August
Remnants of languid haze rise
An arid cradle before the harvest
In the stillborn dawn
Parched earth leaks sighs
Of baked clay and iron rust
Lives of color leached by flame
Find strange solace
In the sweltering atmosphere.
Echoes of benevolence
Etched deep within ebony skin
Pooling resources sowing
Seeds of kinship
Tending to the injustice
Done by others
Cede a tangible testament
To a lineage long and storied.
Each act of giving
A hymn of heritage
From the shadowy silence
Of a history hushed
Generations of generosity
Fashioning the tapestry of occasion.
Black Philanthropy
Not charity but a commitment
To ones skin
Reciprocating
Ripples of change
Reverberating
Resonating
Reparations from within.
Gifts that sing of solidarity
Harmony resonant in acts of care
A catalyst in the crucible
Kindling dreams fashioned from despair
The tender touch of generosity
Gently nudging aspirations
Into warm embraces of reality.
August whispers a legacy
The rhythm of Black Philanthropy
Paints portraits of possibility
Infusing life into the skeletal frame
Of a society of inequality
Each gesture shapes futures
And every act bridges divides
In these gifts for survival and sustenance
We rise as philanthropy pens odes of potential.
We are the composers
Of a symphony that seeks no end
Only crescendo
To an affirmation of the power
We justly hold in hands
Wrought by the
Strength of unity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, President Obama’s first appointment to the National Council on the Arts and member of President Biden’s Arts Policy Committee, Aaron P. Dworkin is former dean and current Professor of Arts Leadership & Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. Aaron is a best-selling writer and poetjournalist having authored his poetry collection, They Said I Wasn’t Really Black, along with four other books including his memoir, Uncommon Rhythm: A Black, White, Jewish, Jehovah's Witness, Irish-Catholic Adoptee's Journey to Leadership, and The Entrepreneurial Artist: Lessons from Highly Successful Creatives.
Read more about Aaron here.
