The spoken word performances about the triumphs and traumas of the black American experience in "Black Words, Black Voices, Black Magic, Black Matters" are at times disturbing, heart-breaking, angry and even hopeful. But at all times they are authentic.
Van Walter kicked off the program with her hopeful poem "Love" in which she urged the audience to "return to love," and the insightful "Look in the Mirror" in which she asked the audience to truly define themselves and "question the sources of your lesson plans."
Kellie Donaldson explored "black fear" in her piece "Drag" as she equated taking a drag on a cigarette with "gasping for air." 
In "Young Black Girl," which she termed a personal piece, Donaldson talked about the contradictions she faced growing up poor and black.
"If you dont smile, your teachers worry that your parents are not home," she said.
Young Black Girl
In "Embracing my Melanin," Nasheera Brown asked "is my skin a threat'" while in "In the Dark," Michelle Wilson argued "the dark color of skin shouldnt confine me"
In her painful poem "Black Lives Matter," Zena Goodman said when people counter with "All Lives Matter," it "hits me like bullets," and sends the message "my and my peoples pain is not relevant or real."
Cole-Wilson also addressed the safety concerns for young black men in two pieces she wrote for her my brother.
In "White Supremacy" she asked "will I have to bury my brother with a bullet in his chest'"
In "Giving Him Advice I Never Thought He Would Need," she angrily explained how young black men are taught t"keep your hands up," "do not move," and "never be too loud."
"They see you as black, I see you as brother," she said.
Kristina Haynes lamented shes "so tired of being brave" in "Black Girl" and described "walking too fast with my head down when I walk past a police" in "Black in America."
Corey Riotz touched on accountability in "Ebonys Flaws," as he talked about the problems of drugs, toxic masculinity and ignorance.
"It says a lot about unity when were afraid to raise our kids in our own community," he said.
In "Sober Heart" he used personal experience to show how "addiction cripples black families."
Ashley Sanchez, who is Latina, said in "Unite," "the system not made for people who look like you and me."
"Uniting with each other is only way to win," she concludes.
In "What Have We Lost," Kevelis touched on the dual effects of Covid19 and the death of George Floyd on the black community.
"We are a lost generation," she said.
Darius Foster tapped a searing piece about his experience of spending 28 hours in jail and said incarceration is "built to strip you of who you are."
He ended the show on an uplifting note as he rapped about becoming a father and how he hoped for his daugher to "sing you to sleep until youre 30."
The performance was videotaped by Crowded Kitchen Players and will be available for streaming at www.youtube.com/watch'v=66pu5663S0A.