Poetry reading and workshop on race at South Church

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By Laura Mazza-Dixon

First Congregational Church and the South Congregational Church announce Words That Matter: Courageous Conversations on Race, a poetry reading and workshop to be led by poet Kate Rushin on Sunday, May 1, at 4 p.m.
The invitation follows several months of study and discussion within South Church and First Church about the role of race in American life today. The wider community of poets and concerned members of the public are invited to this event.
Kate Rushin, author of The Black Back-Ups, earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University. She has held fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the Cave Canem Foundation, an organization in support of black poets. She has taught African American Studies and poetry writing workshops at Wesleyan University and the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts.
Rushin is currently working as a teaching artist with the Amistad Committee and the Connecticut Office of the Arts to help take the story of the Amistad captives and their subsequent trials at the Old State House in Hartford into the public schools.
The idea of fostering a Sacred Conversation on Race originated with the National Conference of United Church of Christ. South Church and First Church are UCC churches and in the fall of 2015 they began the Compassionate Conversations on Race series. As the UCC has stated: “These conversations are never easy, especially when honest talk confronts our nation’s painful past and speaks directly to the injustices of the present day. The goal is to help people understand that this conversation is not a one-time event, but a continuing journey.”
The Words That Matter: Courageous Conversations on Race event is free and open to the public. It will be held on Sunday, May 1, at 4 p.m., in the Fellowship Hall at South Congregational Church, 242 Salmon Brook Street. The building is wheelchair accessible. Parking behind the church. For more information call 860-653-7289.

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Kate Rushin