Sharayna Ashanti

...unbelievable...unexpected..unforgettable..started with a convo w/ @bmoreart founder @caraober about my work + the next issue #Body ...then an opp to be in the issue 🤩...was then interviewed by the sincere budding talented writer @kondwanifidel 💥 talked about History + Black Body + #BALTIMORE + my work with my people by way of @muse360arts @raynfalldance @necessarytomorrows then the icing came when I realized I’d be shooting w/ the incomparable @kelbpics so you kno I had to prep my looks and pull out my #BBW piece by @post_theresa_chromati 🔥‼️ ...all of this was ENOUGH FOR ME🙌🏾 so when the cover popped up and I laid 👁👁 I was speechless ...I am so proud of myself bc I was nervous about a lot of it and don’t like to be put on a pedestal but then I thought 🤔shiiid 😝I’ve been working for 15 years HARD AT THAT!! I deserve this 🥳 ...so thank you to everyone who made it possible and I’m gonna continue to celebrate myself cover or not...ugh so overjoyed ♥️♥️🖤🖤🖤💚💚💚 #mybmore #muse360arts #necessarytomorrows #raynfalldance #blackwomen #blackbody #mybmore

The earth brings fire to memory Water adjusts mends heals feeds us It is deep fullness that I announce my film “back to where we were” was selected to debut at The 2021 Black Femme Supremacy Festival. _____ The festival will take place virtually this year. Back to Where We Were will be featured in the Omi is the First Medicine Short Film Block. Sept 5-11 // grab your tickets @bfsfilmfest ______________ There beholds a desire for us to imagine our present and future in relation to our past. Ancestral beings, the water, and the fertile land offer directives for our collective transcendence and our hopes to remember (again). When we honor our ancestors we honor ourselves. DP: @sheeggo ADP: @liberianjue_ Edited : @gyasimitchell Camera Op : @niceshotkyle @_solomonade Director : Me Costumes : Me Dancers : Me , @itssnaima @niajunepoetry Music: @georgia.muldrow #bfsfilmfest21 #backtowherewewere

Immortalized by the incomparable Monica Ikewgu @monica165 2020 its the good reminder we all need on this mothering journey of self in pursuit of fulfillment ♥️🤲🏾

Caught @Raynqueen In That Vintage Mercedes Leather… Yeah, That Came From Us 😮‍🔥 Illicit Rag Girls Don’t Play About A STATEMENT PIECE!!! The Best Part? This Is Not Even The Half Of It… Our Collection Is Endless, And The Gems Just Keep Coming We’re Open Today @illicitragvintage2.0 1-5pm Fri & Sat 1-6pm Sun 1-4pm Pull Up To The Studio And Find Your Moment 💅🏾 Same Energy, Different Finds Every Time. 📍 Studio Vibes Only 3500 Parkdale Avenue Baltimore Md 21212 #IllicitRagVintage #VintageStyle #VintageLeather #ExplorePage #Ootd

Mama Toni Cade Bambara remembered us for the future. She innately knew what we needed and what we should come back to, she reminded us that it’s already ours. She calls us to move from what we carry: a lineage that is deep, practiced, and enduring, not something given, but something built, sustained, and passed on. Black women have always been developers of life, of systems, of vision. What we hold did not come from any academy and cannot be contained by institutions. It lives in practice, in relationship, in how we continue to build with and for each other. Image Quote from Toni Cade Bambara’s lecture, “Black Women as a Political Force,” University of Iowa, June 7, 1978. 🔲🔲🔲🔲 Join us for What’s The Plan? // Toni Cade Bambara in Praxis Weekend: Lessons in Care, Sisterhood, and Cultural Work April 10–11 RSVP in bio Muse 360 + partners @life_x_code @bwcwarchive @adaglobalstudies @blackfeministfuture present a multi-day gathering honoring the life, work, and political imagination of Toni Cade Bambara grounded in putting the plan to work. #tonicadebambara #tcb #blackfeminism #culturalwork

TCB WEEKEND // Sisterhood is a Verb: Black Women Cultural Worker Discussion Circle Presented by @muse.360 + @bwcwarchive + @blackfeministfuture // Communally, we consider what it means to live into that naming, to “sister” each other building shared forms of care that are accountable and sustaining. What has Mama Toni Cade Bambara taught us about deeply supporting those we hold dear? We are calling on Black women cultural workers—healers, artists, caregivers, educators, mothers—in our community to come into sisterhood, to hold one another with intention, rooted in love and care. Join us at Charm City Cultural Cultivation for an intimate conversation led by Sharayna Ashanti Christmas and Dr. Nadejda Webb of Black Women’s Cultural Worker Archive with poetry offering led by Julia Mallory of Black Mermaids and TEN OH! SIX. Grounded in TCB’s work as a living blueprint, this gathering centers collective practice, care, and movement-building. EVENT DETAILS: Friday, April 10 6 PM - 8 PM Charm City Cultural Cultivation @charmcity_cc CharmCCC headquarters serves as a hub for additional art and cultural programming that engages with the concerns of the general community. Link to register in our bio! Toni Cade Bambara and Spelman Sisters, Mar 25, 1989 : ©Susan J. Ross

What does it mean to sister, and how is sistering practiced? // Toni Cade Bambara was serious about sistering, about mobilizing the heart and spirit to cultivate connection with the women and femmes in her life. These women were her friends, and they leaned on each other to extend beyond the work. The relationships, built in moments of laughter and rage, were with women such as Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Octavia Butler, Gwendolyn Brooks, Pearl Cleage, Ruby Dee, and many others. They were her comrades, fellow healers, artists, and cultural workers. For TCB, sister was so much more than a static identity built by biology or a title capable only of capturing the peripheral layer of a Black woman’s most indelible and immeasurable bond. Instead, sister was a verb, an audacious act of love taken incessantly, no matter the consequences. In looking at TCB’s life, we discover the freedom and accountability that accrues from authentic, activated sistering. This is one of TCB’s many lessons we are engaging with during TCB Weekend. TWO events are grounded in TCB’s Sisterhood is a Verb lesson. EVENT DETAILS: COLLEGE + YOUNG PEOPLE EDITION// Sisterhood is a Verb: Intergenerational Dialogue Presented by @muse.360 , @life_x_code , @africandiasporaalliance // Friday, April 10 12 PM - 2:30 PM The James E. Lewis Museum of Art at @morganstateu Sisterhood is a Verb: Black Women Cultural Worker Discussion Circle Presented by @muse.360 + @bwcwarchive // Friday, April 10 6 PM - 8 PM Charm City Cultural Cultivation @charmcity_cc Registration link in our bio! 📷: cover photo by @thejimalexandercollection "SisterLove" by Jim Alexander, Atlanta, GA, 1988. (For context, this magical moment was captured by Jim during Dr. Cole's inauguration as Spelman president; all of the women pictured made tributes to her during the ceremony.) 4th photo: Toni Cade Bambara and Spelman Sisters, Mar 25, 1989 : ©Susan J. Ross

REGISTRATION IS OPEN! >> What’s The Plan? // Toni Cade Bambara in Praxis Weekend: Lessons in Care, Sisterhood, and Cultural Work April 10–11, Muse 360 and partners @life_x_code @bwcwarchive @africandiasporaalliance @blackfeministfuture will present a multi-day gathering honoring the life, the work, and the political imagination of Toni Cade Bambara seeded in putting the plan to work, just as she so often asked of her comrades and of those who were becoming. Grounded in Bambara’s 16 Lessons explored in TCB — The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing, the weekend will feature programs at Parkway Theatre, Morgan State University, Blue Light Junction, and other community hubs to reach diverse audiences and ensure accessibility. SCHEDULE >> Friday, April 10 // Sisterhood is a Verb: Intergenerational Dialogue at @morganstateu // Sisterhood is a Verb: Black Women Cultural Worker Discussion Circle at @charmcity_cc Saturday, April 11 // Irresistible Revolutions of Cultural Work // The Toni Cade Bambara Zine Lab w/ @jtknoxroxs at @blue.lightjunction // Screening of TCB - The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing @tcb_doc // presented by Muse 360 in partnership with Maryland Film Festival at @mdffparkway // Lor Liberators // Toni Cade Bambara Freedom School Workshop at @impacthub_baltimore Registration is required to attend all TCB events. Sign up via LINK IN OUR BIO! 🌟

TCB – THE TONI CADE BAMBARA SCHOOL OF ORGANIZING @tcb_doc // ❤️‍🔥🚨BALTIMORE PREMIERE 🚨❤️‍🔥// In a continued commitment to storytelling, memory, and cultural preservation, Muse 360 is proud to partner with @mdfilmfest to bring this powerful documentary to Baltimore for its first premiere. EVENT DETAILS// Date> Saturday, April 11 Time> 6:30 PM Where > The Parkway Followed by a conversation with director Louis Massiah and writer and curator Angela N. Carroll @angela_n_carroll , moderated by our founder and cultural worker Sharayna Ashanti Christmas. Tickets available on the @mdfilmfest website. Directed by Louis Massiah & Monica Henriquez, TCB – The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing is a biography of writer, filmmaker, and cultural worker Toni Cade Bambara, told through lessons drawn from her life and carried by those she impacted. Her humor, discipline, and political imagination called generations into community-rooted work, leaving behind a living legacy of cultural workers and dreamers. This film offers a rare and intimate opportunity to witness her voice, her presence, and the communities shaped by her care. Join us & stay tuned for a full weekend of programming building around TCB. #tonicadebambara #tcbdoc

🚨SAVE THE DATE >> Muse 360 is proud to present‼️ What’s The Plan? // Toni Cade Bambara in Praxis Weekend: Lessons in Care, Sisterhood, and Cultural Work // April 10 + 11 Toni Cade Bambara (TCB) gave us the business, gave us the blueprint and we are finna celebrate and honor her legacy by calling ourselves into the charge she wrote to Nikky Finney in 1995: do not leave the arena to the fools. April 10–11, Muse 360 and partners @life_x_code @bwcwarchive @adaglobalstudies will present a multi-day gathering honoring the life, the work, and the political imagination of Toni Cade Bambara seeded in putting the plan to work, just as she so often asked of her comrades and of those who were becoming. Grounded in Bambara’s 16 Lessons explored in the film, the weekend will feature programs at Morgan State University, 360 House, and other community hubs to reach diverse audiences and ensure accessibility. Partnering with Maryland Film Festival, Muse 360 will bring the documentary TCB — The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing to Baltimore @tcb_doc for a screening on Saturday, April 11at 6.30p at the Parkway, followed by a conversation with director Louis Massiah and writer and curator Angela Carroll @angela_n_carroll , moderated by Muse 360 founder and cultural worker Sharayna Ashanti Christmas. Through dialogue, film, collective study, and praise, we center Black feminist praxis, intergenerational exchange, and cultural work as an act of care asking how Bambara’s work continues to guide us through the hardness, the lovings, the comings and goings as we push to commune collectively. Schedule coming soon!‼️ #tonicadebambara #tcbdoc

“We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” — Assata Shakur Black Solidarity IS Black History 🟥⬛️🟩 Grateful for a universe that continues to place comrades, elders, and guides in our path. Deep love to the Qweeeen Shani, and to Joseph Cullier, Lana, Monica, and the entire Black School family, with gratitude to JMJ @jessicamariejohnson_ for helping make the bridge visible. Muse 360 has long studied The Black School as a paradigm of Black self-determination; to now be in relationship and collaboration is a continuation of that study put into practice. Our founder Sharayna Ashanti Christmas recently attended Mardi Gras in Harlem at the APOLLO, standing in support of @theblackschool The Black Schoolhouse, a community art center and resource hub taking shape in New Orleans’ historic Seventh Ward. Built through sustainable, collective labor, the Schoolhouse is not simply a structure it is a refusal and a blueprint, extending Black care, imagination, and autonomy. This is how we remember the future. When Black institutions move in solidarity, we don’t just honor legacy we break ground for what comes next. LETS KEEP ON , KEEPING ON ✊🏾✊🏾❤️‍🔥

here god give me strength, give me grace fix up your soul yall take care #takenothingforgranted