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Queer Black Facilitators of the Future
Mobile Homecoming Co-creators recognized in The Advocate “top 40 under 40”
March 30, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, 919-827-2702
Mobile Homecoming
Durham, NC – Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Ph.D and Julia Wallace, M.Div. will be recognized in the May issue of the The Advocate – the leading gay magazine in America – on the “top 40 under 40” list for their creation of the nationally known Mobile Homecoming project. Mobile Homecoming is an intergenerational experiential archive project that amplifies generations of Black LGBTQ brilliance.
The Advocate says of it’s honorees, “these budding powerhouses, leaders in media, politics… are facilitating our future.” Alexis and Julia are two of only 4 honorees from the Southeast on the list.
As a self-identified “queer black feminist troublemaker,” Alexis also travels the country facilitating workshops, seminars and lecturing on the legacy of Black feminism. Julia, a self-identified black queer theologian, multimedia artist and consultant, says, “Alexis makes trouble that looks like love and IS love.”
Alexis and Julia travel the country in a 1988 RV they call Sojourner, interviewing Black Lesbian elders and Trans Men, facilitating intergenerational community conversations and hosting replay events. Julia explains, “the replay event is a technology where we not only learn about the history of these visionaries but experience the practices that has sustained them.”
Alexis is not new to this sort of national recognition. She was one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World” in 2009; a Black Women Rising Nominee and a Reproductive Reality Check Shero in 2010; and a recipient of the Too Sexy for 501C-3 trophy in 2011. Alexis has been featured on North Carolina public radio and UNC-TV. She and Julia were also featured on the cover of Durham Magazine – that celebrates the city’s style and creativity – for a feature story suggesting that Durham, NC is the lesbian haven of the south.
Alexis and Julia drove their RV across the country in 2011 taking detours and making stops along the way to honor and listen to elders. They say, “it was like a tour of super heroes… our elders had to develop super powers to survive as black people, as women, let alone as LGBTQ people, 20, 30 plus years ago.”So far, they have been to over 50 cities in over 11 states and interviewed over 50 black queer visionaries. They take a “by every means possible” approach to getting the word out about this history and their intergenerational imperative via tumblr, short Facebook videos, an upcoming documentary film, a web series on Q-Roc.tv, and T-shirts,to name a few.
Next up for Mobile Homecoming is learning about sustainable building and living practices that will allow LGBT communities to take care of their elders as they age. They will also be launching a fundraising campaign to resurrect Sojourner or refit another vehicle with a veggie fuel engine to model their vision of sustainable mobile media making.
These “architects of the next decade,” as The Advocate describes them, both have advanced degrees and are founders of many organizations. The Mobile Homecoming project is affiliated with Southerners on New Ground (SONG), supported by Kitchen Table Giving Circle and has collaborated on events with many groups across the country including AARP, The DC Center in Washington D.C., Audre Lorde Project in NY, and Allied Media Projects (AMP) in Detroit. Alexis and Julia believe that “connecting community across generations is what will give us all access to the future we deserve.”
More information can be found at http://www.mobilehomecoming.org. and videos can be found at http://vimeo.com/user1580195/videos
- Lex interviewing Kenya!
Greetings loved ones and welcome to a new audio series designed to introduce you to the great people we’re meeting and experience we’re having on the road with the MobileHomecoming Project!!!
Audio snapshot one is a piece about the AMAZING Shades Retreat a renewing and inspiring gathering of Black lesbian/queer/same gender loving women in Pine Mountain, Georgia!!!! When we visited and interviewed folks we were So inspired by the love, the community and the awesome work the women who attended are doing year-round all over the US! Find out how you can be part if it here: http://www.shadesretreat.com/
Enjoy!!!
direct link: http://brokenbeautiful.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/shades-retreat-1.mp3
On our journey so far we have found that mothering, parenting and relationships with mothers and parents have had a major impact on the people that we have interviewed for the MobileHomecoming Project. Here are a few videos that give a sampling of the different perspectives we are seeing along the way
(and to find out about out Thicker Than Whatever: Unstoppable Mother/Daughter Relationships Workshop coming up on January 15th in Atlanta click here!)
June and Treva
June and Treva have been loving each other and parenting and (and grandparenting!!!) together in Detroit, MI for 21 years.
Yolanda
Yolanda speaks about how trauma and fear of intimacy impact mother/daughter relationships and powerfully speaks of her experience as a mother and as a daughter.
Max
Max speaks of her mother as a source of inspiration and support, despite her father’s violent homophobia.
Shani
Shani, founder of MixIt Tallahassee considers raising a daughter who is open-minded and a critical thinker one of her great accomplishments.
Monica
Monica is looking for more intergenerational commmunity as she thinks about parenting. She also shares the inspiring growth of her very religious parents as they journey to nurture a supportive relationship with her.
Filmed at Charis Books and More the oldest feminist bookstore in the SouthEast in Atlanta, Geogia this mini-web series is an opportunity for you to participate in the queer black feminist live saving practice of sharing sacred books that have saved and transformed us!
Send your own video (or a request to be filmed with a book you love) to mobilehomecoming@gmail.com!
Support the mobilehomecoming’s bookmobile-of-love project at mobilehomecoming.wordpress.com/donate
and support Charis by buying books at charisbooksandmore.com!
(p.s. if you want to send books directly to us…or buy books from Charis and send them to us to redistribute on our journey email us at mobilehomecoming@gmail.com for details!)
7:00 pm Friday October 29th
Infinity Diamond Life Empowerment Center
1921 North Pointe Drive
Durham, NC
The MobileHomeComing Project, Infinity Diamond Club and the AARP present an interactive poetic evening where we can talk about how to become family by taking care of each other across, age, ability, illness and transition especially for the Black Same Gender Loving, Queer, Lesbian and Trans community.
How do we take tangible responsibility for our elders and chosen family when it comes to the specific logistics of their care and personal documents?
How do we learn to reach out and ask for help from the family we are creating, in partnership with or instead of our families of origin?
How do we start the difficult conversation of “if something were to happen to me/you” without getting shut down by fear?
We believe that this is a crucial conversation for all of us, because we are all interdependent and at any time might need to step up for each other as caretakers, and might need to reach out for care.
Participate with us in an evening of love letters, role playing, visioning and dreaming.
Much love,
Alexis, Julia, Annie, Priscilla and Mandy
Filmed at Charis Books and More the oldest feminist bookstore in the SouthEast in Atlanta, Geogia this mini-web series is an opportunity for you to participate in the queer black feminist live saving practice of sharing sacred books that have saved and transformed us!
Send your own video (or a request to be filmed with a book you love) to mobilehomecoming@gmail.com!
Support the mobilehomecoming’s bookmobile-of-love project at mobilehomecoming.wordpress.com/donate
Send your own video (or a request to be filmed with a book you love) to mobilehomecoming@gmail.com!
Support the mobilehomecoming’s bookmobile-of-love project at mobilehomecoming.wordpress.com/donate
and support Charis by buying books at charisbooksandmore.com!
(p.s. if you want to send books directly to us…or buy books from Charis and send them to us to redistribute on our journey email us at mobilehomecoming@gmail.com for details!)
- Lex interviewing Glo at the 3rd Annual Queerky Black Girls Cookout in the Park! (photo by Moya Bailey)
It is officially Fall and the end of Gay Pride Season! The MobileHomecoming Project has allowed us to relate to PRIDE celebrations in the South with renewed intergenerational intentionality! I feel so present to my love for Black Queer community I hardly know what to do! Oh wait! Yes I do! Create a podcast and a new volume of the Little Black (Feminist) Book Series!
While you are folding laundry or recentering yourself for a revolutionary day take a listen to this podcast dedicated to our Black queer community and all of the complexity of our pride.
http://brokenbeautiful.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/proud-podcast-1.mp3
AND
To order your own copy of the beautiful bright orange booklet FIRE (picture soon!) which includes the poem “ShapeShift”, and the essay “Flamboyance” along with several other works inspired by my love for our brilliant black queer community email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com or paypal 15 bucks (or more you if you can!) to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with the note FIRE! All proceeds benefit the ongoing work of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Educational movement in Durham including the Queer Black Sunday School Series!
*Special thanks to the amazing hip hop producer composers whose work is featured here. I strongly encourage you all to take a listen to Jett I Masstyr’s “Me and Phillis Forever” based on the beautiful voice of Phyllis Hyman and the Idle Warship Mixtape ad the Cali Fire Commission’s beat-tape and the Stuyvesent’s beat masterpiece all featured on this podcast.
We do!!!!!! We are on our way home from Detroit and we are SO in love with the Black Queer Brilliance overflowing in that beautiful inspiring city! Whew! Special shouts out to the visionary sisters of SPICE for allowing us to experience the depth of healing, support, laughter and love of their first Friday discussion group and for dancing it up at the KICK high tea dance party fundraiser on Saturday, and to June and Treva for allowing us to witness their profound love for each other and their family! We love y’all SO much! Thank you for the love and inspiration and thank you especially to Kimberly Jones for organizing both of our visits! Can’t wait to come back!
Here are some videos about the legacy of queer black brilliance in Detroit to get us started. More coming soon!!!!
“I am Detroit,” Kalimah Johnson bursts into poem over dinner. “I love this city so much, you can’t touch me.” MobileHomeComing Interviewee, founder of Women of Color Take Back the Night, Kalimah has been creating space for for women of color survivors of sexual assault to reclaim their destinies. Like all of the MobileHomeComing Participants Kalimah’s poetic brilliance, sincerity and ongoing creativity is an example of queer black intergenerational power to transform the world!
Founder Kofi Adoma and director Laura Hughes talk about the Ruth Ellis Center and the importance of intergenerational dialogue.
To support the MobileHomeComing’s ongoing relationship with Detroit visit mobilehomecoming.wordpress.com/donate
love,
lex and julia
p.s. lookout for the Detroit City podcast coming soon, featuring tracks from Stacey Hotwaxx Hale and thoughts from black queer Detroiters on how they are expressing their purposes!
Join us on Tuesday Sept 7th at 7pm at Charis Books and More 1189 Euclid Ave NE Atlanta, GA 30307 for a nerdy, exuberant and creative MobileHomeComing event!
As part of our queer Black intergenerational lovefest Charis Circle and the MobileHomeComing (an experiential archive project amplifying the brilliance of queer black womyn, gender non-conforming folks and transmen) have invited an age-diverse panel of Black feminist bookworms to gush about the books that got them through.
Come hear about the exuberant booklust of hot MobileHomeComing nerds… Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Julia Wallace, L’erin Asantewaa, Moya Bailey, Mary Anne Adams and MORE!!!!
Bring your favorite book along to share!
Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase the featured books for themselves, and or to donate them to the mobilehomecoming to be given as gifts to our beloved chosen MobileHomeComing interviewee family around the country!
See you there!
love,
Lex and Julia
Mobile Homecoming 