Community Interventions, in partnership with California State University, Bakersfield’s Black Student Union, hosted the inaugural Black August celebration on Wednesday, August 27. The event honored Black freedom fighters and the long history of Black resistance against systemic oppression through an art exhibit, spoken word, and powerful speeches that emphasized resilience, faith, and collective action.
One of the evening’s keynote speakers, Pastor Curtis Smith, Executive Director of Faith in the Valley, reminded the audience that Black August is not only about remembering the past but about fueling movements for the present and future.
“Black August is not just a memory, it is about movement,” Smith said. “It is a time when we honor those who resisted, those who organized, those who sacrificed, and those who dreamed of freedom—not just for themselves, but for generations to come.”
He spoke about the role of faith as a tool of resistance throughout Black history, from spirituals sung in fields as coded messages of escape to the organizing power of the Black church during the Civil Rights Movement.
“Faith was never meant to be passive,” he said. “Faith was always fueled with organizing.”
Smith tied those lessons to today’s struggles, pointing to mass incarceration, economic inequality, and political systems that continue to suppress Black voices.
“Black August reminds us that liberation is not an overnight event. It is a long, hard struggle, and that’s why we need faith that can endure,” he said.
The evening also featured remarks from Ucedrah Osby, Executive Director of Community Interventions, who reflected on her own journey into organizing. She admitted that at first, she hesitated when urged to bring advocacy work to Bakersfield.
“You do some stuff in Bakersfield, and I told her I ain’t ready. That’s for somebody else,” Osby recalled. “And fast forward seven years, I got to watching her do it all over the country. I was like, okay, I think I’m ready.”
Her path eventually led her to All of Us or None, a grassroots organization led by formerly incarcerated people.
“I heard people talking about resistance and fighting and advocating. We didn’t talk about that in Bakersfield,” she said. By 2019, Osby became president of the Bakersfield chapter, starting with just ten people gathered in a hotel meeting room to make a plan for something different.
That journey, she said, was deeply inspired by Dorsey Nunn, the co-founder of All of Us or None and a longtime leader in criminal justice reform. Nunn, who was sentenced to life in prison at 19 and went on to build decades of advocacy work after his release, was scheduled to be honored at the event but was unable to attend following an accident.
“Dorsey has been fighting to end slavery when it was only a few people willing to say something,” Osby said. She noted that his recently published book, What Kind of Bird Can’t Fly, written for people inside prison, had just been banned in California state prisons. “We have to keep the storytelling going. We have to keep sharing the knowledge, raising awareness, because of things like this.”
Osby urged attendees to see advocacy as both a responsibility and a collective act of care, pointing out that one in four people are impacted by the carceral system.
“You can’t just say it’s not my family, it’s not my brother, it’s not my sister. One in four people are impacted,” she said. “So there’s something that must be done.”
She closed by calling for bold conversations about reparations, restoration of civil rights, and commitments that look seven generations ahead. “What we talk about, it’s got to make sense,” Osby said. “And how you make it make sense is through advocacy. It don’t take much. Just one step at a time, one breath at a time, reading one word at a time.”
