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 When 8-year-old Toni Blackman's family moved to an all-white neighborhood, she dealt with loneliness by self-publishing Black Is Gold, a book of poetry. Now 27, the poet, rapper and actress has founded Washington's Freestyle Union, a hip-hop organization that combines artistry and community activism through such programs as gender violence prevention. After Blackman conducted hip-hop workshops with sixth-grade boys in Arlington, Va., the city's health department developed plans to pair a Union facilitator with an AIDS educator to teach local teens about risk reduction. Recently honored as a best emerging artist at the D.C. Mayor's Arts Awards ceremony, Blackman will be the hip-hop ambassador at the Soweto Arts Festival in South Africa this winter. Blackman, who holds a master's degree in organizational communication from Howard University, will soon release a spoken-word CD and host the Smithsonian and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame commemoration "20 Years of Rap & Hip-Hop." "We have been educating our consumers," Blackman says of Union's mentoring purpose, "getting them to see that hip-hop is more than just the groups you see on television."
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