ORIGIN STORY
Introducing The Black Mecca Project. Video captured and created by Fatima Amira in 2019.
“If by “Black Mecca” we mean a place to which Black people will always feel the cultural and sometimes political security of large populations and concentrations of other Black people, then Atlanta will endure as a Black Mecca. But if a Black Mecca is made possible by most Black people being able to be economically and socially successful in a place, then Atlanta….is in danger of losing that designation.”
The Black Mecca Project (TBMP) was born from asking ourselves what future is our presence and work in Atlanta contributing to. One possible answer: a Black city free of anti-Black racism, classism, and gender oppression. TBMP was midwifed into being by Mattice Haynes, a Black feminist community builder, coach and facilitator, and Jen Willsea, a white anti-racist facilitator and consultant. Mattice and Jen centered local Black experiences and narratives in their Atlanta-based multiracial social justice consulting work throughout 2018, working especially close with resident activist and researcher Alison Johnson. Alison encouraged and inspired Mattice to continue making the narratives and invisibilized labor of Black women, poor, working-class, people visible. These narratives are too often concealed, erased, or minimized, along with the narratives of gender-expansive, trans, and queer people, in an effort to sustain a patriarchal, elite Black Mecca.
There were many before us and many we were standing alongside in naming the gap between the possibilities of a Black Mecca and the realities of many Black people in Atlanta. In the Spring of 2019, we began sensing into an ongoing way to be in community with more Atlantans around what we were hearing, seeing, learning, questioning, and practicing. What began to emerge was R.I.P.E., a possible pathway for individuals and groups to begin shifting conditions from anti-Blackness, gender oppression, and classism to liberation and healing for ALL Black people. In June, R.I.P.E. became an invitation to Atlantans to engage in a four-part series where we would begin to reckon, imagine, pivot* and embody. TBMP was birthed as a container for bringing Atlantans together in a way that centered Black women and Black experiences.
The Sanctuary at Westview
The scope and possibilities of TBMP quickly expanded in July 2019 when Mattice was invited to rent the (lower) sanctuary space in the Westview Art Studios building thanks to Tamara Jones, then Executive Director of Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network (SAAFON). Mattice knew from her own experience and the experiences of other Black women and femmes that community space was an ongoing need and desire. With a $5,000 commitment from an individual donor, Mattice invited Neith Sankofa, Crystal Monds, and Jalessah Jackson to form a collective that would steward TBmP and the new space. (Dionne Hills joined the collective in October.) On August 30th, we held an open house welcoming over one-hundred Atlantans into the Sanctuary at Westview. In a very short time, the Sanctuary became a space for Black freedom-dreaming, sacred communal healing, political education, and co-working. Hundreds of people visited the space during the first six months for meetups, retreats, training, and other events hosted by local and national organizations.
2019 R.I.P.E. Series
In Fall 2019, TBmP introduced the project through a four-part series entitled R.I.P.E:
RECKON with the gap between common narratives about Atlanta and the reality
IMAGINE a fully-realized Black mecca
*PIVOT using our power in liberatory ways
EMBODY equity, justice, and liberation
Over 100 mostly Black participants of diverse gender identities and class backgrounds attended the series with the majority of people expressing interest in deepening these conversations and practices. Black Atlantans shared that they felt grounded, experienced healing, and were transformed by the glimpses of liberation they experienced during the four-part series.
Throughout the series, participants explored the following four questions:
What truths about Atlanta’s past and present must we reckon with?
What do we imagine a fully-realized Black mecca to be?
What habits do we need to practice to move closer to liberation?
How do we embody what we say we long for?
2020 Residency Program
In January 2020, we launched the Sanctuary at Westview Residency as a shared studio residency for Black cultural workers, healers, and creatives. This two-month pilot offered selected residents a beautiful, shared studio space to work from and host their events. Residents included Mattice Haynes (The Art of Community), Neith Sankofa (The Light Warrior SiStar Hood and The Healing Theater), Crystal Monds (Osatyam), Jalessah Jackson (Jackson and Marshall Consulting), Dionne Hills (Community Roots), Tricia Hersey-Patrick (The Nap Ministry), zahra alabanza (Blue and Green Consulting), Amina Peterson (Atlanta Institute of Tantra and Divine Sexuality), and Nedra Deadwyler (Civil Bikes). Residents created and hosted workshops, dinners, political education series, collective napping experiences, movement sessions, yoga, and more! Examples of residents’ offerings include a workshop on Transforming Culture and Naming Racism in Organizations; Resurrect Rest Sunday School; bike tours centering the legacies of Black women in Atlanta; Westside Affair Dinner; Tantra Yoga for All Bodies; The Healing Theater (An Embodied Self-LOVE Experience for Black Healers); Decolonial Feminist Bookclub, and more!
COVID-19 & Black Uprisings
As the residency pilot came to a close, we began envisioning an extension and expansion of the residency. Instead, the residency was abruptly ended in March 2020 and we temporarily closed our beloved Sanctuary due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Over the summer we held two healing and grieving ritual spaces during the uprisings for Black lives. But given the ongoing health risks of shared space and gatherings, in October 2020 TBmP made the difficult decision to shutter the residency, close out the initial collective, and permanently close the Sanctuary at Westview.
Throughout 2020, as always, Black women and gender-expansive people continued to carry the physical, emotional, and spiritual weight of lifting our communities from the crushing weight of intersecting oppressions. Black women throughout history have contributed significantly to social justice but with very little material support and benefit. 2020 revealed this truth in most extraordinary ways and further exposed a systemic undervaluing of Black women and our labor. TBMP played a small role in supporting the leadership of Black women and gender-expansive people by providing small grants.
What’s Next?
TBMP was always intended to be a prototype and incubator. We knew when we began that we would be learning with and from the project herself. What we didn’t know is that 2020 had many more lessons for us than any of us could have anticipated. We continue to listen deeply and are preparing to pivot the project into a new and different chapter. Learn more about our upcoming Petit Marronage Residency!
*The “P” in R.I.P.E. was initially ‘practice’ and through our learning it was changed to ‘pivot’.