Location: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture 515 Malcolm X Blvd New York, NY 10030

Conversation with The Nap Ministry’s Tricia Hersey, author of Rest is Resistance, and Dr. Joan Morgan

What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? is a question Tricia Hersey, founder of the Nap Ministry, confronts in her debut publication Rest as Resistance: A Manifesto.

Join us as Tricia Hersey invites readers to reimagine the foundations for liberation, healing, and justice. Rest as Resistance “casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted.” Hersey will be joined by Dr. Joan Morgan, Program Director of the Center for Black Visual Culture (CBVC) at New York University. This fall the CBVC, inspired by Hersey’s liberatory framework of “rest is resistance,” will launch The Black Rest Project (BRP) to amplify visual narratives of Black rest and leisure. Dr. Karinn Glover will open the program with a meditation.

Signed copies of Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, will be available for purchase from The Schomburg Shop in Harlem.

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. As a courtesy to our participants we ask that you plan to wear your mask for the duration of the program while inside the Langston Hughes Auditorium.

This event is presented in partnership with the Center for Black Visual Culture (CBVC) at New York University.

The program will also be live streamed to our YouTube channel.

PARTICIPANTS

TRICIA HERSEY is a Chicago native who has called Georgia home for the last 12 years. She has over 20 years of experience as a multidisciplinary artist, writer, theologian and community organizer. She is the founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization that examines rest as a form of resistance and reparations by curating spaces for the community to rest via community rest activations, immersive workshops, performance art installations, and social media. Her research interests include Black liberation theology, womanism, somatics, and cultural trauma. She is the author of the upcoming book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto which will be published in October 2022. You can learn more about her work and the book at thenapministry.com

DR. JOAN MORGAN is the Program Director of the Center for Black Visual Culture at New York University. She is an award-winning cultural critic, feminist author, Grammy nominated songwriter and a pioneering hip-hop journalist. Morgan coined the term “hip-hop feminism” in 1999, when she published the groundbreaking book, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks it Down which is taught at universities globally. Regarded internationally as an expert on the topics of hip-hop, race and gender, Morgan has made numerous television, radio and film appearances — among them HBOMax, Netflix, Lifetime, MTV, BET, VH-1, CNN, WBAI’s The Spin and MSNBC. She has written for numerous publications including Vibe, Essence, Ms., The New York Times, and British Vogue.

DR. KARINN GLOVER is a board-certified physician specializing in psychiatry and mind-body health. With a background in marketing and communications gained from working in corporate environments and in print media, Dr. Glover has the lived experience of a person of color in the corporate setting. Over the course of her decade-long career in medicine, she has developed and consulted on wellness programming for employees of color and worked with leadership to address workplace mental health efforts for professionals of all backgrounds. Dr. Glover is committed to teaching mindful change from the inside and improving life for the underserved.

GET THE BOOK

Readers who wish to purchase signed copies of Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, can do so online or in-person from The Schomburg Shop in Harlem (while supplies last). All proceeds benefit The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Disrupt and push back against capitalism and white supremacy. In this book, Tricia Hersey, aka The Nap Bishop, encourages us to connect to the liberating power of rest, daydreaming, and naps as a foundation for healing and justice.

What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine‑level pace –– feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit.

In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted. Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us.

This book is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey’s lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action and manifesto for those who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.

_______________________

#SchomburgLive

PUBLIC NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

IN-PERSON | By registering for this event, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending an in-person program at The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold The New York Public Library, its Trustees, officers, agent and employees liable for any illness or injury. If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.

VIRTUAL | This Program uses a third-party website link. By clicking on the third-party website link, you will leave NYPL’s website and enter a website not operated by NYPL. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of every third-party website or service that you visit or use, including those third parties with whom you interact with through our Library services. For more information about these third-party links, please see the section of NYPL’s Privacy Policy describing “Third-Party Library Services Providers” at https://www.nypl.org/help/about-nypl/legal-notices/privacy-policy. During this Program, you will be using third-party platforms such as livestream.com/schomburgcenter, for the purpose of communication. This service may collect some personally identifying information about you, such as name, username, email address, & password. This service will treat the information it collects about you pursuant to its own privacy policy.

FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested.  Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at leahdrayton@nypl.org.

Please note that professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.