Cultural & Economic Self-Determination in Memphis
From the President’s Blog
Eddie Torres
Photo courtesy of April Freeman
Grantmakers in the Arts relocated our headquarters to the South Bronx to bring national attention to communities that are culturally rich but funding poor. This is also why for our most recent board meetings were in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Memphis, Tennessee, the homes of our two most recent board recruits, Glenisse Pagán Ortiz (Filantropía Puerto Rico), and Amber Hamilton (Memphis Music Initiative).
It is essential that we celebrate the culture of people in funding-poor communities. The GIA board was treated to a presentation by Rychetta Watkins, Director of Grantmaking at Partnerships at Memphis Music Initiative, on More for Memphis, a community-driven plan to increase resources and improve the long-term quality of life for residents in Memphis and Shelby County. Dr. Watkins and her team’s research reveals that public funding in Tennessee is largely skewed to white organizations, even in majority Black areas such as Shelby County (in which Memphis is located), which is over 50% Black, and Memphis itself, which is over 60% Black. Despite being a majority Black area, Shelby County’s nonprofit cultural organizations appear to receive just over a quarter of public funding, which comes to under two million dollars a year.
“Despite being a majority Black area, Shelby County’s nonprofit cultural organizations appear to receive just over a quarter of public funding, which comes to under two million dollars a year.”
Shelby County residents’ advocacy has resulted in the first public official explicitly tasked with supporting the cultural ecosystem – Nykesha Cole, Liaison for Arts and Culture at the Office of Community Engagement and Outreach, Shelby County Government. This is a temporary position that requires continued advocacy for its continuation.
Black people in Memphis are making their own cultural ecosystems. Our Memphis Music Initiative colleagues started by bringing the GIA board to the Soulsville neighborhood, home to Stax Records, now the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Soulsville is an important American cultural site, which is also a food desert. We visited Tonya Dyson, Executive Director of the Memphis Slim Collaboratory, which opened in 2014. The iconic building sits on the site that was once the residence of blues singer and pianist John “Peter” Chatman, better known as Memphis Slim. The Collaboratory is a place where musicians publicly perform, rehearse and record demos, and perform for free or reduced rates. The Collaboratory also offers education on the music industry, and guidance from industry professionals.
Photo courtesy of April Freeman
Memphis Music Initiative also brought the GIA board to speak to Marcellus Harper, Executive Director of Collage Dance Collective, a ballet company and conservatory with a mission to inspire growth and diversity of ballet. Collage Dance’s co-founders established the dance company in NYC in response to the ballet industry’s lack of racial diversity on stage. Collage moved to Memphis in 2009 and opened its dance conservatory to expand access to classical training to communities of color and prepare them for collegial and professional dance appointments.
The GIA board also got to hear from Victoria Jones, Executive Director at TONE Memphis, an arts & culture nonprofit elevating the full spectrum of Black communities in Memphis. TONE is another great example of Black cultural self-determination for Black economic self-determination. We also heard the story of how Hyde Family Foundation has supported TONE and other efforts for Black self-determination from Rachel Knox , their Senior Program Officer for Thriving Arts and Culture.
In Memphis, the murder of Tyre Nicols by the police is part of a larger pattern of the dehumanization of people of color. GIA believes that the establishment and financing of a cultural hierarchy with BIPOC at the bottom is another part of this dehumanization. As we state in our Racial Equity Theory of Transformation, these forms of dehumanization facilitate economic exploitation. The economic exploitation in Memphis manifests in a deliberate strategy of cultivating low-wage jobs not worth having, resulting in a poverty rate that is almost twice the national average.
“In Memphis, the murder of Tyre Nicols by the police is part of a larger pattern of the dehumanization of people of color. GIA believes that the establishment and financing of a cultural hierarchy with BIPOC at the bottom is another part of this dehumanization. As we state in our Racial Equity Theory of Transformation, these forms of dehumanization facilitate economic exploitation.”
Photo courtesy of April Freeman
This racialized poverty forms a vicious circle, in which middle class white families opt out of public schools with large numbers of BIPOC students, concentrating poverty in these schools. In the white communities surrounding Memphis, residents went so far as to pass a bill allowing them to bypass a law that would have consolidated the administration and governance of their majority white schools with the majority Black schools of Memphis. Concentrated poverty in one’s school is the greatest predictor of adverse educational and life outcomes. The GIA board was treated to a presentation on this history by Dr. Charles McKinney, Neville Frierson Bryan Chair of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of History, Rhodes College.
It is no surprise that our home base for this learning was provided by Orpheum Memphis President & CEO Brett Batterson, one of the co-founders (along with GIA board alum Angelique Power) of Enrich Chicago, an effort to change racist systems in the arts so that African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American arts, arts organizations, and people thrive.
GIA is so inspired by these examples of BIPOC self-determination and know that inspiration is not enough. We must support communities’ self-determination with money. We look forward to continuing to work with you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eddie Torres is President & CEO of Grantmakers in the Arts.
