WELCOME TO
THE CELEBRATION
The "Spreading the Black Joy Virus"campaign was first envisioned in Portland (OR), in 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It celebrates the fact that, for centuries, the Black community has always made a way out of no way. And when challenging moments arise, the Sankofa bird reminds us to reach back and fetch our ancestral resilience, creativity, sense of community and Black JOY.
Radical Black Joy is our ancestral inheritance!
PROJECT VISIONARY
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Photo Credit: Jacobsen Valentine
"She basically embodies everything I learned over four years of writing this book ("How to Know A Person"). She builds strength in people who have been wounded by injustices of society. And, she's everything I'm not."
~ NY Times columnist & author David Brooks
Multimedia artist, author, speaker/trainer, poet, Black youth advocate and an award-winning, former newspaper journalist, Dr. Renee is best described as a Creative Revolutionist™ because she is difficult to define & too multifaceted to compartmentalize.
Dr. Renee is also the visionary behind The Soul Restoration Center, a unique Black cultural gathering space in one of the whitest urban cities in the United States, according to the The New York Times. And she is the founding director of I Am MORE, a nationally award-winning program that supports Black youth - which research says are THE MOST prodigiously traumatized adolescent group - heal from racial and other types of trauma. Motivated by intention and heART, Renee's deepest desire is to use her creativity to help others let go, gather up and move on. ASHE!
I Am MORE's COMMUNITY PARTNERS INCLUDE:
(Please click logos to learn more about our partners!)
Interested in promoting Black Joy & Resilience? Reach out and let's partner!
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JOIN THE
BLACK JOY
MOVEMENT
