Deborah Moses-Sanks

My community reflects a shared sense of identity, the secrets that link us and sets us apart. The faces of those in my community, their individual experiences and our collective past guarantees as much variety as unity among African descended peoples. My community acknowledges the miracle of our history when we meet and greet one another as sisters and brothers... as survivors, still carrying on. With just a nod of the head, is an affirmation that communicates; I know something about you and you know something about me. As an African American I grow up in the projects in the South Bronx and lived in Harlem. Many years later I became conscious that what was my neighborhood was revered to as the ghetto by those who lived in better neighborhoods and that the word ghetto had a subtext of a place of social, cultural and moral abandonment, decay and that nothing positive could come out of such neighborhoods. The lived experiences of those living in the “block” become visible as they established themselves to become jazz and blues musicians, writers, teachers, singers, dancers, artists, rappers and hip-hoppers, fashion designers, seamstresses, tailors and photographers. These art forms demonstrate that out of individual and shared experiences that something constructively, skillfully and awe-inspiring does evolve.