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Good Evening Beautiful Humans!
July has been one of those months that leaves me physically exhausted and spiritually filled. We began July in Bushnell Park at Hartford Bonanza giving away water and telling folks about the KCC and Hartford Black Pride, and we just ended the month celebrating Connecticut's first Hartford Black Pride Weekend, where almost a thousand people gathered over 3 days to celebrate Black queer joy, creativity, resilience, and love. It was beautiful, it was necessary and it cost a lot of money.
What NxtThrsdy gave us with Hartford Black Pride was a historic "first," and it didn't happen overnight. It was built upon decades of relationships, trust, and people quietly doing the work of creating spaces where Black queer folks could be fully seen, celebrated, and loved. It's a vision I've held and knew was possible...and it wasn't mine to create. My job has been creating the conditions so that others could create, and I am deeply humbled and appreciative of where and how I get to fit in.
During the Sunday church service, NxtThrsdy spoke about the ten young people who had attended Youth Pride on Saturday evening. I thought, "No...that number isn't right." until I realized why my count was off. I spent that evening under the gazebo with four grown men who will always be "my kids." They may be over 30, but they're the same teenagers many of you have heard me talk about over the years. They're the young people from the CNN special. They're the kids who showed up looking for a place where they could breathe a little easier, discover they weren't alone, and learn that they were worthy of love exactly as they were.
And they aren't kids anymore, still my babies, but not kids.
They're artists, organizers, mentors, and leaders. They're living their lives authentically and loving and supporting each other cuz
"We got We!"
That has always been the philosophy behind my work. When you support the KCC, you're not investing in programs, you're investing in people, especially the people our society has too often overlooked, underestimated, dismissed, or written off. Long before Pride became popular, before corporations wrapped themselves in rainbows every June, and before it was socially acceptable to publicly support Black queer communities, I had the extraordinary privilege of walking alongside young people as they figured out who they were and who they wanted to become.
Today, some of those same young people are raising families. Some are educators. Some are artists. Some are community organizers. Some helped build Hartford Black Pride. All of them are helping create the kind of world we wished existed when they were fourteen years old.
That same philosophy guides everything we do at Kamora's Cultural Corner. The real work has never been about herbs, gardens, meals, or events. Those are simply the events and places where relationships grow. They are the window dressings that allow people to discover their own gifts, connect with one another, and become the people who will someday create space for someone else.
I say that Community is a Verb because community is something we practice together. Hartford Black Pride is one beautiful expression of that practice. Kamora's Cultural Corner is another. Neither exists because of one event or one person. They exist because hundreds of people have chosen, over and over again, to invest in one another.
As wonderful as July has been, it has also been an incredibly expensive month. While Hartford Black Pride celebrates an amazing inaugural year and begins preparing for 2027, Kamora's Cultural Corner continues the everyday work that made moments like Black Pride possible in the first place. The gardens still need tending. The sanctuary still needs caring for. Thinking & Doing Days continue. Cultural humility programming is being planned. Young people continue growing into adults, and adults continue navigating this strange and wonderful world we get to live in.
If you've receiving this email, you're on our mailing list and you're used to our end of the month Patreon ask; May the work we've done speak for us. If you're able to make an ongoing investment in this work, please consider becoming one of our Patreon supporters at www.Patreon.com/KCC1023.
And this month we are asking you to also consider Hartford Black Pride and the work they've done this year. I know that next year will be even better and I am asking you to please support their work as well.
Every gift, no matter the amount, helps us continue investing in humans, and the systems and conditions that affect them.
Thank you for believing that Hartford is already rich with beautiful people. Thank you for believing that Black queer lives are worth investing in every day of the year and thank you for continuing to invest in this IDEA.
Peace,
Kamora Le'Ella Herrington
Founder & Visionary, Kamora's Cultural Corner
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