Last night, I made my first trip to WNYC's Greene Space for a World AIDS Day event featuring performances by the pioneering poet Sonia Sanchez and acclaimed dancer-choreographer Ronald K. Brown as well as a conversation among Sanchez and health advocates. Greene Space's intimate setting created a special feeling of welcome quite appropriate to the artists' theme of acceptance, truthful dialogue and reconciliation within the Black family and within the larger family that is the Black community.

Warmly accompanied by jazz musicians Odean Pope (saxophone), Kenny Gates (piano) and Lee Smith (bass), Sanchez performed her award-winning Does Your House Have Lions?--a rhythmic conjure-work in book form. The poem...