Black History Month

This year’s Black History Month collection celebrates the reverberating power of Black expression. Rhythm is often thought of in the context of music, but it is so much more. The heartbeat is an individual’s first experience of rhythm. The rhythms encoded in our DNA connect us to our ancestors, and eventually, our descendants. The rhythm of our breath helps our mind, body, and spirit feel. Historically, Black rhythm has been disrupted, terrorized, and endangered. And in many ways our rhythm was instrumental to our survival. Black family reunions have roots in the search for family at the end of slavery. Playing drumming patterns on the body was a way of communicating when the British banned drums in the colonies to prevent slaves from building community. Black rhythm has been a means of varying forms of expression tracing back centuries, and now we are in a state of rediscovery. This collection celebrates and explores Black rhythm, in all its forms.

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