​A Joyful Farewell

     Well, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. As I write this BIBA blog post, I have come to the end of my term as the 2022-2023 Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative-in-Residence. This last year has been amazing in so many ways, and working alongside Castle of Our Skins on poetry, music, Black history, and arts programming has been incredibly rewarding.
     I had the opportunity to close out my time as Creative-in-Residence in the best way possible: with a Harlem Renaissance-inspired rent party fundraiser on Friday June 30th. In my previous BIBA blog, I talked about my research on Harlem Renaissance literature and culture and how I have specifically focused on the underground culture of house-rent parties in the 1920s for the last six years. Rent parties were Black Harlem dwellers’ response to exorbitantly high rents and low wages during the Great Migration at the turn of the 20th century. They’d host strangers and friends in their apartments, charging each person a small entry fee to enjoy music, food, and dancing for the night. The money raised would go towards the host or hosts living expenses for the month. In that same spirit of community economics and joy, Castle of Our Skins and I had the idea to host an event to raise funds for a Boston-based organization, and that organization was the League of Women for Community Service. The League has been around since 1920 hosting Black women boarders affected by segregation and prominent Black women such as Marian Anderson and Coretta Scott (eventually -King) on their visits to Boston. Their headquarters at 558 Massachusetts Avenue is currently undergoing renovations, and we wanted to support their efforts to preserve this historic space that houses a treasure trove of archival materials from photos to correspondences to art.

     Last Friday night at Black Market Nubian in Roxbury, Castle of Our Skins and I brought together a two-piece band featuring musicians Kevin Harris (piano) and Ivana Cuesta Gonzalez (drummer) of the Kevin Harris Project, dancer Aysha Upchurch, VLA Dance, orator Regie O’Hare Gibson, and yours truly sharing poetry. It was a beautiful night of community, food, mocktails, music, dancing, and raising funds for a wonderful cause. What I felt in that space had to have been similar to what those 1920s Harlemites felt within the walls of their small apartments and rooms—sociality, joy, inhibition, freedom, and pride. I saw people laughing and moving their feet and hips and enjoying the improvisational vibes offered by the band and the dancers. I saw them savoring delicious food and drinks. I saw them being moved by the words shared onstage, and I saw them having carefree fun with our step-and-repeat photobooth. We captured the essence of the rent party tradition in those few hours by simply honoring history and honoring one another, and we were able to put our resources together to aid the League in its ongoing work.
     I’d like to end by saying that I couldn’t have imagined when I was selected as the Creative-in-Residence last summer I would help make something as magical and beautiful as this rent party was manifest in this way. I have to give a sincere thanks to Ashe Gordon, Kelley Hollis, Anthony Green, and the entire Castle of Our Skins crew for their care and attention to every idea I offered to them and to every part of me as an artist and researcher. This year with COOS has been an absolute dream. I am walking away from this residency with so much joy for what we accomplished together and with abundant hope for the future of COOS, for all of the artists I have connected with in Boston, and for my own continued research and meditation on Harlem and black life.

​--Angel C. Dye