Twentynine Palms Black History Month Celebration

Black Cactus Co-Working is a Black-Owned Co-Working space and shared office based in Downtown 29 Palms, California. Our team has a deep connection to the Mojave Desert, whose family contributed to Twentynine Palms and the High Desert history for over 50 years. 

Their story, similar to the many experiences of Black Americans who’ve settled in the communities immediately surrounding the Joshua Tree National Park, offers an opportunity to understand their unique contribution through a local, desert lens. Sharing a rich history with the spirit of the Southwest, The Greater Palms Springs Areas include a rich history impacted by shared identities and cultures impacted by local weather patterns, geography, and the daily challenges and opportunities associated with desert life. 

In addition to contributing to local economies associated with the region's military community, agriculture fields, transportation systems, healthcare network, and historical tourism industry, the Black Americans living in Twentynine Palms, and neighboring communities including Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, and Morongo Valley, offer an opportunity to get a glimpse into historical and present examples of Black Americans living, creating, gathering and celebrating, through the lens of the arts.

Black Cactus is proud to work with local partners in the High Desert region of Southern California to produce month-long programming designed to celebrate Black Art.

Guided by the theme established by the ASALH, we’re proud to offer online and offline programming as part of our Twentynine Palms Black History Month Celebration

The 1960s had a dramatic effect on the study and celebration of black history. Before the decade was over, Negro History Week would be well on its way to becoming Black History Month. 

The shift to a month-long celebration began even before Dr. Woodson death. As early as 1940s, blacks in West Virginia, a state where Woodson often spoke, began to celebrate February as Negro History Month. 

In Chicago, a now forgotten cultural activist, Fredrick H. Hammaurabi, started celebrating Negro History Month in the mid-1960s. Having taken an African name in the 1930s, Hammaurabi used his cultural center, the House of Knowledge, to fuse African consciousness with the study of the black past. 

By the late 1960s, as young blacks on college campuses became increasingly conscious of links with Africa, Black History Month replaced Negro History Week at a quickening pace. 

Within the Association, younger intellectuals, part of the awakening, prodded Woodson’s organization to change with the times. They succeeded. In 1976, fifty years after the first celebration, the Association used its influence to institutionalize the shifts from a week to a month and from Negro history to black history. 

Since the mid-1970s, every American president, Democrat and Republican, has issued proclamations endorsing the Association’s annual theme.

With a focus on initiating a community Arts Walk, Black Cactus Co-Working is proud to facilitate month-long programming in collaboration with a variety of local and regional partners interested in supporting community development initiatives in the High Desert region.

Each week, participants can expect a weekly format, which coincides with our 2024 efforts to empower 100 Desert Artists of Color to "Get to Work." 

The 100 Desert Artists of Color Initiative is an objective of Black Cactus Co-Working to help support and amplify 100 artists of color in the desert communities included in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.

By offering our Information, Communication, and Technologies, Black Cactus Co-Working plans to give away 100 Virtual Memberships over the course of 2024 to help support artists in rural communities.

We anticipate that as a result of achieving this objective we will:

• Launch at least 25 First Time Businesses

• Help 10 First-Time Business Owners Achieve their First $10,000 in Revenue

• Amplify the Art of Local Artists by Connecting them To Museums, Points of Interest and Local Businesses

• Translate Art skills for digital and business purposes

• Help Launch first Products and Services to help establish Product Market Fit and Go-To-Market Strategies

• Leverage 9 total Art Walks Over the Course of 2024 Through the Adobe Mara Arts Walk Initiative