The Women of Essex

03/27/2024

03/27/2024

01/11/2024

The Women of New Jersey will visit Legends Gala Honoree, Rev. Maria Crompton at Elmwood United Presbyterian Church, 135 Elmwood Ave East Orange NJ on Sunday January 14, 2024 at 9:30am.

Meet us at the Wood!
*x

01/01/2024

Kwanzaa is a time of learning, family and celebration.

Day 6 Kuumba (Creativity)
To do always as much as we can to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Song for reflection: Africa, John Coltrane

Thought for the Day: Jones, Leroi (Amiri Baraka). Blues People: Negro Music in White America. William Morrow, 1963. Introduction, ix-x.
“How did it do this? What was so powerful and desperate in this music that guaranteed its continued existence? This is what pushed me. But as I began to get into the history of the music, I found that this was impossible without, at the same time, getting deeper into the history of the people. That it was the history of the Afro-American people as text, as tale, as story, as exposition, narrative, or what have you, that the music was the score, the actually expressed creative orchestrated, vocalized, hummed, chanted, blown, scatted, corollary confirmation of the history. And that one could go from one to the other, actually, from the inside to the outside, or reverse, and be talking about the same things. That music was explaining the history as the history was explaining the music. And that both were expressions of and reflections of the people.”

Today's Recipe: Molasses Water (Attached)

https://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/downloads/resources/kwanzaa_jh_day_6.pdf

During the week of Kwanzaa, families and communities come together to share a feast, to honor the ancestors, affirm the bonds between them, and to celebrate African and African American culture. Each day they light a candle to highlight the principle of that day and to breathe meaning into the principles with various activities, such as reciting the sayings or writings of great black thinkers and writers, reciting original poetry, African drumming, and sharing a meal of African diaspora-inspired foods. The table is decorated with the essential symbols of Kwanzaa, such as the Kinara (Candle Holder), Mkeka (Mat), Muhindi (corn to represent the children), Mazao (fruit to represent the harvest), and Zawadi (gifts). One might also see the colors of the Pan-African flag, red (the struggle), black (the people), and green (the future), represented throughout the space and in the clothing worn by participants. These colors were first proclaimed to be the colors for all people of the African diaspora by Marcus Garvey.


On each day of Kwanzaa, light a candle for that day’s principle on your candleholder (Kinara).

Please refer to the following suggestions as you plan activities for each day. As we are in a pandemic, we imagine you will be celebrating with immediate family this year. For more information, see the book, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture by Maulana Karenga. (University of Sankore Press. Los Angeles. 1998)

12/30/2023

Kwanzaa is a time of learning, family and celebration.

Day 5 Nia (Purpose)
To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Song for reflection: Higher Ground, Stevie Wonder

Thought for the Day: “Poem About My Rights” by June Jordan
Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can’t
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
s*x the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/or thinking
about children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence:
I could not go and I could not think and I could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own
body and
who in the hell set things up
like this
and in France they say if the guy penetrates
but does not ej*****te then he did not r**e me
and if after stabbing him if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that if he
and his buddies f**k me after that
then I consented and there was
no r**e because finally you understand finally
they f**ked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
which is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ej*****tes what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ej*******on on Blackland
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:
Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
in the hell is everybody being reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition and
before that
it was my father saying I was wrong saying that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a
boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
that I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in other
words
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very
familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
me
I am the history of r**e
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
myself
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my va**na or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heart
I have been r**ed
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong s*x the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of r**e
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
pe*******on with or without the evidence of slime and/
but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent
to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon
idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life

Today's Recipe: Sauteed Pecans (Attached)


https://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/downloads/resources/kwanzaa_jh_day_5.pdf

During the week of Kwanzaa, families and communities come together to share a feast, to honor the ancestors, affirm the bonds between them, and to celebrate African and African American culture. Each day they light a candle to highlight the principle of that day and to breathe meaning into the principles with various activities, such as reciting the sayings or writings of great black thinkers and writers, reciting original poetry, African drumming, and sharing a meal of African diaspora-inspired foods. The table is decorated with the essential symbols of Kwanzaa, such as the Kinara (Candle Holder), Mkeka (Mat), Muhindi (corn to represent the children), Mazao (fruit to represent the harvest), and Zawadi (gifts). One might also see the colors of the Pan-African flag, red (the struggle), black (the people), and green (the future), represented throughout the space and in the clothing worn by participants. These colors were first proclaimed to be the colors for all people of the African diaspora by Marcus Garvey.


On each day of Kwanzaa, light a candle for that day’s principle on your candleholder (Kinara).

Please refer to the following suggestions as you plan activities for each day. As we are in a pandemic, we imagine you will be celebrating with immediate family this year. For more information, see the book, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture by Maulana Karenga. (University of Sankore Press. Los Angeles. 1998)

12/28/2023

Kwanzaa is a time of learning, family and celebration.

Day 3 Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)
To build and maintain our community together and make our community’s problems our problems and to solve them together.

Song for reflection: Optimistic, Sounds of Blackness

Thought for the Day: Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns. Random House, 2010. Pp. 538
"Over the decades, perhaps the wrong questions have been asked about the Great Migration. Perhaps it is not a question of whether the migrants brought good or ill to the cities they fled or were pushed or pulled to their destinations, but a question of how they summoned the courage to leave in the first place or how they found the will to press beyond the forces against them and the faith in a country that had rejected them for so long. By their actions, they did not dream the American Dream, they willed it into being by a definition of their own choosing. They did not ask to be accepted but declared themselves the Americans that perhaps few others recognized but that they had always been deep within their hearts."

Today's Recipe: Caribbean Sorrel (Attached)


http://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/downloads/resources/kwanzaa_jh_day_3.pdf

During the week of Kwanzaa, families and communities come together to share a feast, to honor the ancestors, affirm the bonds between them, and to celebrate African and African American culture. Each day they light a candle to highlight the principle of that day and to breathe meaning into the principles with various activities, such as reciting the sayings or writings of great black thinkers and writers, reciting original poetry, African drumming, and sharing a meal of African diaspora-inspired foods. The table is decorated with the essential symbols of Kwanzaa, such as the Kinara (Candle Holder), Mkeka (Mat), Muhindi (corn to represent the children), Mazao (fruit to represent the harvest), and Zawadi (gifts). One might also see the colors of the Pan-African flag, red (the struggle), black (the people), and green (the future), represented throughout the space and in the clothing worn by participants. These colors were first proclaimed to be the colors for all people of the African diaspora by Marcus Garvey.


On each day of Kwanzaa, light a candle for that day’s principle on your candleholder (Kinara).

Please refer to the following suggestions as you plan activities for each day. As we are in a pandemic, we imagine you will be celebrating with immediate family this year. For more information, see the book, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture by Maulana Karenga. (University of Sankore Press. Los Angeles. 1998)

12/27/2023

Kwanzaa is a time of learning, family and celebration.


Day 2 Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)
To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

During the week of Kwanzaa, families and communities come together to share a feast, to honor the ancestors, affirm the bonds between them, and to celebrate African and African American culture. Each day they light a candle to highlight the principle of that day and to breathe meaning into the principles with various activities, such as reciting the sayings or writings of great black thinkers and writers, reciting original poetry, African drumming, and sharing a meal of African diaspora-inspired foods. The table is decorated with the essential symbols of Kwanzaa, such as the Kinara (Candle Holder), Mkeka (Mat), Muhindi (corn to represent the children), Mazao (fruit to represent the harvest), and Zawadi (gifts). One might also see the colors of the Pan-African flag, red (the struggle), black (the people), and green (the future), represented throughout the space and in the clothing worn by participants. These colors were first proclaimed to be the colors for all people of the African diaspora by Marcus Garvey.


On each day of Kwanzaa, light a candle for that day’s principle on your candleholder (Kinara).

Please refer to the following suggestions as you plan activities for each day. As we are in a pandemic, we imagine you will be celebrating with immediate family this year. For more information, see the book, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture by Maulana Karenga. (University of Sankore Press. Los Angeles. 1998)

Day 2 Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)
To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

Song for reflection: I am the Black Gold of the Sun, Rotary Connection & Minnie Riperton

Thought for the day: Black, Daniel. The Coming. St. Martin’s Press, New York. 2015. pp 9-10.

“We didn’t know we wouldn’t return. We simply believed some terrible calamity had befallen us, that our Gods had let tragedy come because we had not honored them. But we were wrong. We were warriors and hunters, poets and jali, farmers and soothsayers. We were magicians and healers, artisans and thinkers, writers and dancers. We were fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, cousins and kinsmen. We were lovers. And we were home. We loved the land and it loved us. We were black like the land, and kissed by the sun. We knew our strengths and our frailties, and we knew much needed improvement. But we were home.”

Today's Recipe: Seasoned Olives (Attached)
https://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/downloads/resources/kwanzaa_jh_day_2.pd

12/26/2023

Kwanzaa is a time of learning, family and celebration.

During the week of Kwanzaa, families and communities come together to share a feast, to honor the ancestors, affirm the bonds between them, and to celebrate African and African American culture. Each day they light a candle to highlight the principle of that day and to breathe meaning into the principles with various activities, such as reciting the sayings or writings of great black thinkers and writers, reciting original poetry, African drumming, and sharing a meal of African diaspora-inspired foods. The table is decorated with the essential symbols of Kwanzaa, such as the Kinara (Candle Holder), Mkeka (Mat), Muhindi (corn to represent the children), Mazao (fruit to represent the harvest), and Zawadi (gifts). One might also see the colors of the Pan-African flag, red (the struggle), black (the people), and green (the future), represented throughout the space and in the clothing worn by participants. These colors were first proclaimed to be the colors for all people of the African diaspora by Marcus Garvey.


On each day of Kwanzaa, light a candle for that day’s principle on your candleholder (Kinara).

Please refer to the following suggestions as you plan activities for each day. As we are in a pandemic, we imagine you will be celebrating with immediate family this year. For more information, see the book, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture by Maulana Karenga. (University of Sankore Press. Los Angeles. 1998)

Day 1 Umoja (Unity)
To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

Song for reflection: Worth His Weight in Gold (Rally Round the Flag), Steel Pulse

Thought for the Day: Morrison, Toni. Beloved. First Edition. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. pp. 88

Baby Suggs (holy) gives a sermon in the Clearing:
“Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh: flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pluck em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will sn**ch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love our mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And o my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver-love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”

Today's Recipe: Dates, Figs & Milk (Attached)

https://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/downloads/resources/kwanzaa_jh_day_1.pdf

11/16/2023

03/09/2023

03/09/2023

Womenof NJ 2023 Legends Gala
Celebrating Women of Distinction and salute to “Sister Griottes”
Sheila Elaine Anderson
Pat Battle
Candi Carter
Katherine Carter
Keanna Faircloth
Michelle Miller
Cheryl Washington
Naomi Yané’
Toni Yates
Keynote Speaker
Lauren T. Agnew
Committee Chair
Joyce Harley
Founder
Lady Trisha Scipio