The Black Aura: A Celebration of Black Liberation is set to take place this weekend at The Kehrein Center for the Arts to celebrate Black history, culture and artistry this weekend.
From June 28 to 29, the event will host workshops, panels, a documentary screening, live music, and other events in celebration of Blackness on Chicago’s West side. Local artists, musicians and poets will highlight their contributions all weekend.
Austin native Reesheda Graham-Washington is the founding executive director of The Kehrein Center for the Arts and the force behind The Black Aura. Graham-Washington said that her passion for Black justice and independence in Chicago sparked her idea for a celebration near Juneteenth in the community.
“The Black Aura is the weekend that will happen every year, the last weekend in June. It is specifically and intentionally situated between Juneteenth and the Fourth of July,” Graham-Washington said. “It calls us to get present to what freedom and liberation means for us as individuals, and what does freedom and liberation mean for us in our cultural context.”
Community members can attend the event for free Friday, June 28, and participate in workshops and panels.
“The first day of Aura will always be about teaching, learning, developing, and cultivating the community,” Graham-Washington said. “Those were experiences that we felt would be really important for the Chicago community to have access to, regardless of socioeconomic circumstances, which is why we made the first night a free event.”
Tickets for Saturday, June 29, are priced on a sliding scale. That night concludes with The Black Aura Awards Celebration Gala, an awards ceremony that will honor four community members who are passionate about change and progress in the community, followed by music and revelry.
“To the extent that we will be educating ourselves and developing ourselves as we get present to freedom and liberation on Friday night, we will be celebrating ourselves and being in community with ourselves on Saturday night,” Graham-Washington said.
In the development of The Black Aura, Graham-Washington noted that celebrations for Juneteenth in Chicago varied greatly in how they took place. She looked to other communities for ideas about how to honor Juneteenth and Black heritage in her own community.
She said she drew heavily from the Dallas-Fort Worth area after connecting with Opal Lee, an activist from the area who fought to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday, who will speak this weekend. Seeing another community’s dedication towards Juneteenth inspired her Graham-Washington.
“I knew right away that I wanted to stay connected with the community of Dallas Fort Worth, because the holiday sort of is a manifestation of their vision of Juneteenth,” Graham-Washington said. “I wanted to make sure we were honoring that history and context. And from there, I started to think, Juneteenth is one day we should be carrying out these tenets of liberation and equity and justice and space and growth of humanity all year round.”
The Kehrein Center for the Arts, located at 5628 W, Washington Blvd., opened in 2019 before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Graham-Washington said that she hopes the Black Aura brings even more community members to the Kehrein Center.
“This is the inaugural experience of The Black Aura, and our hope is that the aura will catalyze people’s participation and attendance so that people start to know that we’re here,” Graham-Washington said.
Tickets for The Black Aura: A Celebration of Black Liberation can be purchased on The Kehrein Center for the Arts’ website.
