Out in the Wash: Truthtelling About Black Women’s Labor in Early Miami invites us into the world of these women who washed a city clean from 1896 to 1940. As entrepreneurs and philanthropists during the Jim Crow era, they successfully forged a blueprint for resilience and power, often at great personal risk. As they confronted the constraints of gender, race and class, their labor fueled Miami’s economy, anchoring the city’s earliest tourism industry, which today generates $31.1B annually.

Together, we will journey through intimate accounts of Black washerwomen in early Miami as researcher Nadege Green shares these underdocumented narratives and implications for how labor is valued in today’s economy. This research is part of Green’s in-progress installation, “The Power of Her Hands: Black Washerwomen in Early Miami,” debuting at the YoungArts Gallery during Miami Art Week on December 1st. In a collective meditation held by touch-based healing practitioners, we will call these revelations back from the archive and recognize how we carry the weight of labor and history in our bodies. This is an invitation to practice releasing what has been held across generations.

Space is limited for each seating. Guests may only select to attend one seating for this event. Please be advised, by participating in this event, you consent to being photographed and filmed. Regretfully, late arrivals cannot be accommodated.

Out in the Wash is presented by Maven Leadership Collective, Black Miami-Dade, and YoungArts as public programming for YoungArts Artist-in-Residence Nadege Green’s latest exhibit, The Power of Her Hands: Black Washerwomen in Early Miami. The exhibit opens to the public on December 1, 2025 in the YoungArts gallery.

Wednesday, October 23
YoungArts Gallery
Miami, Florida

6:00P – 6:45P | Work-In-Progress Viewing for The Power of Her Hands: Black Washerwomen in Early Miami

YoungArts Jewelbox
Miami, Florida

6:00P – 6:30P | Doors Open for Seating 1 guests

6:30P – 6:50P | Sonic Healing Journey for Seating 1 guests begins | No late entries

6:50P – 8:00P | Doors Open for Seating 2 guests

7:00P – 8:00P | Truthtelling: Nadege Green in conversation with Corey Davis

8:00P – 8:30P | Sonic Healing Journey for Seating 2 guests begins | No late entries

Join us for the release of A Spell to Grow a Garden, a collaborative Zine by poet and cultural worker Maven Arsimmer McCoy and Maven Leadership Collective, powered by EXILE Projects.

Set in the historic home of Dr. Enid Pinkney—a trailblazer in the preservation of Black heritage spaces in Miami—this evening is a call to reflection, remembrance, and radical care. The project reimagines the cultivation and protection of Black communities and their allies as the tending of a garden. The “spell” is the intentional care, resistance, and legacy that sustains us.

Featuring performances by:
– Mikah Amani (Musician & Poet)
– Surayyah Muhammad (Poet)
– Maven Iman Clark (Dancer)
– Gary Allen (Poet & Vice Chair of The Curtis Foundation)

This gathering is not just a celebration of new work—it is a rooted offering in a place where memory and possibility meet. Special thanks to The Green Haven Project Inc. for their support and sponsorship. Light refreshments will be served.

Saturday, May 31
4990 NW 31st Ave, Miami, FL 33142 | The Historic Home of Dr. Enid Pinkney
5:30–7:08pm

A poignant story woven with humor, Consistent Gardeners, explores identity, community, and what it means to truly hold space for liberation. It features new music from Hued Songs and original poem by Arsimmer McCoy.

What happens when a group of Miami musicians has just three days to create a new justice anthem? Follow a preacher’s kid, semi-retired opera singer, and a dreamer as they lead an experiment to find out what it takes for artists’ ideas to flourish in the face of adversity.

Wednesday, April 23, 2025 | 7P

O Cinema

Miami Beach

OUTshine LGBTQ+ Film Festival

Poetry luminary Langston Hughes wrote a poem about Black resistance and resilience in Deep South Jim Crow Miami— “The Ballad of Sam Solomon” is an ode to Sam Solomon, a Miami resident and civil rights activist who defied the klan by encouraging Black voters in segregated Overtown to cast their ballots in the 1930s.

Join us at Books & Books in Coral Gables for this subversive poetry cypher. We invite Miamians to write and share their disruptive poems that resist, that challenge the status quo, that document past or current fights and wins, that tear down all the —isms. This is an invitation to speak up and resist.

Thursday, April 10
Books & Books
Coral Gables, Florida

7:30P – 8:00P | Mingling, Poetry Writing, and Live Music

8P | Welcome Grounding

8:10P | “Ballad of Sam Solomon” Poetry Reading, Open Mic

9:15P | End