Word On The Street Now More Than Words For Asheville Youth Of Color

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BPR Arts and Performance

Arts


It's a Saturday afternoon at Asheville's Arthur Edington Center, inside what was once an elementary school classroom converted into the well-lived-in home for the black and brown teens of Word on the Street . Keitra Black-Warfield, a 15-year-old who attends Erwin High School, is among eight others at tables or on the floor, are painting, drawing and adding textiles destined for murals to hang from the walls here. "It changed me for real," Black-Warfield said of the program. "It taught me about your community, about your family, about your connections you build with people." Since its founding eight years ago, Word on the Street has fostered writing, photography, artwork and multimedia work from local middle and high schoolers and published it online. Partly because of the pandemic, and more so the ascent of new online outlets for expression, the program is evolving away from a magazine and the demands of deadlines. Now, students--or, squad members, as they're called--focus on projects