On March 10, 2026, the Providence City Council hosted a Black History Month celebration at City Hall, featuring presentations by historian Keith Stokes, artist Muhammad Munir, community advocate Rochelle Lee, singer Elite G, and City Archivist Caleb. The program recognized the depth of African American history in Providence, including the origins of the first Black Wall Street in Rhode Island, and urged continued investment in historical preservation, community development, and reparative justice.
A girlfriend last year, brown in the end of school year, so it must have been May or June. Her son came home, a grandson came home and said to her, Have you ever heard of Black Wall Street? And she was like, No, I never heard of Black Wall Street. So he was telling her about it. And she said, Oh, she called me up because they always call me up with something of history. And said, um, I want to know more about Black Wall Street. I said, Well, you do realize that people say Black Wall Street and only mean one thing, and that's Tulsa. But technically, there's numerous Black Wall Streets. Black Wall Streets were just the communities that were thriving, that had made their own way without the help of anybody. The ones that had their own doctors, their own lawyers, their own politicians, I mean, anything you can think of. The teachers, they had them. The banks, they had them. So they didn't need any help from anybody. And we're gonna go deeper into that. But I always like to start any black program, history program, with where we came from. So we're gonna do a little journey. So we want to let everybody know. This is not a new thing. This is not something that was given to us. This is something that we earned. This is something that we need to stand up and make sure that not only people outside our race, but our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren know. And your friends know. Because my friend, I told them, wait a minute, now you're almost seventy-something years old. But I'm glad that we talked about it. And I got her a lot of books, and she read it, and she's just passing it on. And I appreciate that because that's what we have to do. Because we gotta stop letting people tell us our history. You know, we got to stop letting somebody else be the um expert on our history. We need to be telling our own stories. We need to be telling them from our heart, our souls, and we need to make sure that we know so that we can tell. So you're never too old to pick up a book, because now they got the ones that talk to you. You don't even have to look at the page. So please, whatever you do after this, if you hear something that's new to you, go get a book on it, learn a little bit more about it, and then pass our information on. And we're gonna ask mix elite G to come up and sing in the woods. Good evening, everybody. Okay, so uh thank you to the city council for having me. It's an honor to be here, and I sing this song with so much gratitude for my ancestors, my not so distant relatives, and for all of you with whom we are creating history right now, um, because we all have a purpose and a God-given gift of um adding to this legacy of perseverance, of growth and of excellence. Okay, live every voice sing to earth and ring ring with the heart of liberty, let our reties, let it re shine loud as the rolling seas, sing uh song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing usong full of the hope that the present has brought us, facing the rise our new day become, let us march on to victory is one. Thank you. Okay, there's the one. So like I said, we're gonna talk about that thing, but I that's one thing that we have to acknowledge. Another one of our icons died last month, and we were gonna talk about him if we had gotten a chance to. And I know when I say this, we all gonna know who he is. I am somebody. So, who is he? I'm listening. I know you all know who's thank you. I told you, I don't like people just sitting around. This this is give and take.