Uploaded May 2013 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
On Mother’s Day in Washington, DC, I went to Malcolm X Park expecting to capture beauty, rhythm, and community.
Instead, I witnessed something far more difficult.
In the middle of the Malcolm X Drum Circle, one woman disrupted the space with intense, chaotic energy—provoking, escalating, and testing the limits of everyone around her. It was uncomfortable. Raw. And honestly, not what I wanted to film.
But sometimes the real story isn’t the harmony—it’s how a community responds when that harmony is challenged.
This became a live test of the drum circle’s reputation as a space of healing, grounding, and collective energy. Would people react with anger… or something deeper?
Featuring an interview with Becky Umeh on confronting negative energy and “bad spirits,” this video explores a powerful question:
How do we treat those who seem lost, unstable, or in pain?
A week later, after sitting with the footage, one thing became clear—the Malcolm X Drum Circle is more than music. It’s a reflection of restraint, awareness, and something close to enlightenment.
As Malcolm X once said:
“Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible… Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.”
This is what that looks like in real life.
Keywords: Malcolm X Park DC, drum circle Washington DC, Malcolm X drum circle, DC community events, healing through music, public confrontation, social experiment, human behavior, community response, Washington DC culture
Now it's a week later, and it seems clear after you see the edit that the Malcolm X Drum Circle Community is truly an enlightened force. A Park named after Malcolm X, who said
"Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past. Therefore, we need enlightenment. We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity. Once we have more knowledge (light) about each other, we will stop condemning each other, and a United front will be brought about." (Malcolm X: The Man and his Times, edited by John Henrik Clarke and published by Africa World Press in 1990, p. 304)
DRUM ON!
On Mother’s Day in Washington, DC, I went to Malcolm X Park expecting to capture beauty, rhythm, and community.
Instead, I witnessed something far more difficult.
In the middle of the Malcolm X Drum Circle, one woman disrupted the space with intense, chaotic energy—provoking, escalating, and testing the limits of everyone around her. It was uncomfortable. Raw. And honestly, not what I wanted to film.
But sometimes the real story isn’t the harmony—it’s how a community responds when that harmony is challenged.
This became a live test of the drum circle’s reputation as a space of healing, grounding, and collective energy. Would people react with anger… or something deeper?
Featuring an interview with Becky Umeh on confronting negative energy and “bad spirits,” this video explores a powerful question:
How do we treat those who seem lost, unstable, or in pain?
A week later, after sitting with the footage, one thing became clear—the Malcolm X Drum Circle is more than music. It’s a reflection of restraint, awareness, and something close to enlightenment.
As Malcolm X once said:
“Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible… Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.”
This is what that looks like in real life.
Keywords: Malcolm X Park DC, drum circle Washington DC, Malcolm X drum circle, DC community events, healing through music, public confrontation, social experiment, human behavior, community response, Washington DC culture
Now it's a week later, and it seems clear after you see the edit that the Malcolm X Drum Circle Community is truly an enlightened force. A Park named after Malcolm X, who said
"Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past. Therefore, we need enlightenment. We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity. Once we have more knowledge (light) about each other, we will stop condemning each other, and a United front will be brought about." (Malcolm X: The Man and his Times, edited by John Henrik Clarke and published by Africa World Press in 1990, p. 304)
DRUM ON!
