Inspired by Healing City Baltimore’s mission, this Baltimore Butterfly Session will highlight what is necessary to build a united movement of Baltimore’s communities focused on healing from trauma, violence and racial inequity. As a kickoff to the 2022 Healing City Summit, this art + civic dialogue event will help us understand our part in creating the conditions needed to make Baltimore a trauma-informed city. Featuring music by Be Steadwell, poetry by Meccamorphosis, a keynote by Baltimore City Councilmember Zeke Cohen and more, we’ll leave energized to join the Healing City movement and inspired to commit to creating a racially, socially, and economically just and thriving Baltimore for all.
This event is free, please reserve your seat by clicking book tickets above.
The event is full at 200 attendees, so please arrive early to guarantee admission. RSVP alone does not guarantee admission to the event, there is a limited capacity – first come, first served.
Be Steadwell, Musician
Be Steadwell is a musician, filmmaker, storyteller from Washington DC. In her live performances, she utilizes looping, vocal layering and beat boxing to compose her songs on stage. Be’s original music features earnest lyricism and affirming LGBTQ content. Be’s goal as a musician is to make other black girls, queers, introverts and generally marginalized weirdos feel seen.
Meccamorphosis, Poet
Meccamorphosis is an author, actress, teaching artist and poet. Mecca first garnished national attention after winning Brave New Voices, the largest international youth poetry slam in the world. Since then, Mecca has won many awards and received many honors including becoming a poet ambassador for Baltimore City and being ranked 4th slam poet in the world 2019. Mecca spends her time traveling the country performing, teaching and building upon the intersection of activism and art. Mecca is an incredible voice for Black women everywhere.
Zeke Cohen, Keynote Speaker
Councilmember Zeke Cohen has represented the First District on the Baltimore City Council since 2016.
He grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts, the son of a social worker and a psychiatrist. Zeke’s belief that “community comes first” was inspired by his mother’s stories of marching for Civil Rights and registering voters during the Mississippi Freedom Summer. After graduating from Goucher College, Zeke taught in West Baltimore and, as a teacher, was awarded the Elizabeth Lawrence Prize for Excellence. He attained a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University. Zeke started his nonprofit, The Intersection, to help young people learn community organizing and civic leadership. He ran for office with the belief that democracy only works when everyone has a voice in the process.
Since entering office in 2016, his office has resolved over 2800 separate constituent requests for assistance. These include requests for help resolving water billing disputes, removing abandoned boats from vacant lots, and expediting the repair of broken streetlights. Zeke believes in the power of organized communities and in the past two years, his office created community-driven task forces on the topics of transportation and public safety.
The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions: A civic dialogue series at BCS
Inspired by Citizen University’s Civic Saturdays, The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions will bring together music, poetry, literary excerpts and thought-provoking keynote addresses to catalyze conversation and build awareness around today’s most pressing issues. Tapping into some of the brightest voices around the nation and in Baltimore, each Butterfly Session will convene artists, activists, organizers and thinkers to unpack a civically resonant topic. Through the Baltimore Butterfly Sessions, BCS aims to create a space for civic dialogue & fellowship across differences and stay firmly rooted in our local community. Come for the music, come for the poetry, come for the conversation.
Why “The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions”?
A symbol of growth and emergence, transformation and borderless migration, butterflies remind us that tiny shifts in one place can set profound change in motion. Butterflies also have a special resonance in Baltimore. You may or may not know that the city of Baltimore is sometimes referred to as a “Black Butterfly and White L.” According to Dr. Lawrence Brown of Morgan State University, “Baltimore’s hypersegregated neighborhoods experience radically different realities.” Typically, Black neighborhoods fan out to the east and west resembling the shape of a butterfly while white neighborhoods run down the center of the city in the shape of an “L.”
Through the Baltimore Butterfly Sessions, BCS aims to create a space for civic dialogue & fellowship across difference and stay firmly rooted in our local community.
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