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BLK South

@blksouth

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📍: Durham, NC @grantstdurham
✊🏾: Furthering the Black story in the South through place-based community development projects (Hyperlocal + Regional).

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What can Fannie Lou Hamer’s life teach us about organizing, caring for our neighbors, and building power where we live?

This fall, BLK South is reading For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer by historian Chana Kai Lee. Lee tells the story of Hamer’s fight for voting rights and economic freedom, including the work she built in her own Mississippi community.

We’re gathering readers from across the South, especially people who live in, work in, or serve historic Black neighborhoods. Whether you’re a longtime resident, organizer, pastor, neighbor, or someone learning how to show up with care, we’d love to read with you.

📖 Five virtual conversations
🗓 Thursdays, Oct 15–Nov 12
🕖 7:00–8:30 p.m. EST
🫱🏿‍🫲🏾 Reunion: December 3, 2026
📍 Google Meet

We’ll read the book in five sections, about 20–44 pages per week. A Zoom link will be shared before we begin.

Join us through the link in our bio. Come ready to learn from Hamer’s life and from one another.

#BLKSouth #FannieLouHamer #ForFreedomsSake #BlackHistory #HistoricBlackNeighborhoods #SouthernCommunities #BookClub taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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In the South, our people survived by staying human—by creating, laughing, improvising, and refusing to let the world steal our joy.

Black music was a lifeline. A way of remembering who we are and saying, “You will not crush the sacred in us.”

Born July 10, 1924, Major “Mule” Holley Jr. is a perfect example—turning a bass into a full conversation, letting his whole body speak, humming his soul into the strings. Creativity like this merged in a region where Black folks had to make their own freedom, sound by sound.

At BLK South, we honor this lineage.
We preserve it.
We build from it.

Because the South is sacred—not because of what was done to us, but because of what we created anyway. 🖤✨

_________

Here are three simple ways to support what we’re building in Durham and throughout the South:

1️⃣ Join our email list
Stay connected to reflections, neighborhood updates, and upcoming events.

2️⃣ Join our support team
Make a one-time or monthly donation to sustain our neighborhood programs, youth work, and community development efforts.
(Link in bio)

3️⃣ Share this post
Like, link, repost, or send it to someone who needs to hear it — it truly helps our work reach farther.

#BLKSouth #TheSouthIsSacred #BlackJoy #BlackGenius #CulturalMemory #BlackMusic #DurhamNC #Hayti taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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We ended up in The New York Times... but that's not the story. 📰👀

Back in April, Kendall and I attended our neighborhood's District 4 PAC meeting, where we heard Dr. Lawrence David and members of Duke's Edible Atlas Lab share about their research.

After the meeting, we reached out to introduce ourselves and asked if they would be interested in partnering with our neighborhood and several of our community partners.

We shared that for the last 30 years, the Grant Street Ladies and Bishop Laney of Monument of Faith Church organized for the development of the 21-acre Villages of Hayti affordable housing project.

Now, our neighbors have been advocating for a full-service grocery store in the historic Hayti District, but that there was still a $6 million funding gap preventing the grocery store from opening with the new development.

The question was simple: Can your research help us advocate for what our neighborhood truly needs?

Rather than research existing for over exploitation, we asked what it might look like for it to be used to tell the story of why access to healthy, affordable food matters and why Hayti deserves the same investment as every other neighborhood.

I never imagined that just four months later, that conversation would lead to The New York Times featuring both the Edible Atlas Lab's research and its collaboration at the neighborhood level with the Grant Street Community in the historic Hayti District.

I'm deeply grateful to Dr. Lawrence David and the entire Edible Atlas Lab team, our Grant Street neighbors, Monument of Faith Church, and everyone who has contributed to this work.

The story may be making national headlines, but our hope is that this attention helps move us one step closer to what our neighbors have been asking for all along: a grocery store, healthy food access, and continued investment in the historic Hayti District for the people who never left.

The work continues. 🖤
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#GrantStreetCommunity #Hayti #DurhamNC #FoodJustice #CommunityDevelopment taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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"Every shut eye ain't sleep, and every goodbye ain't gone.”

In our latest reflection, Bishop Clarence Laney, Jr., pastor of Monument of Faith Church and BLK South board member, shares the wisdom passed down by his grandmother Bea, whose theology was shaped not in seminary classrooms, but in kitchens, on front porches, and through everyday life.

Through her words, Bishop Laney invites us to consider the power of discernment, the resilience of overlooked communities, and the hope that reminds us that endings don't always have the final word.

🌱 “What the world buries, God often plants.”

Read his full reflection using the 🔗 in bio.

#BLKSouth #BlackTheology #AncestralWisdom #FaithAndJustice #CommunityResilience taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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Born in Hamlet, NC on September 23, 1926, and raised in High Point, John Coltrane grew up surrounded by music and faith. His father, John R. Coltrane, was a tailor who played violin and ukulele. His mother, Alice Blair Coltrane, was a church pianist. His maternal grandfather, Rev. William Wilson Blair, served as a minister and presiding elder in the AME Zion Church.

His musical foundation grew through community and school bands, including the band at William Penn High School. Listening to Count Basie’s records featuring Lester Young sparked an early love of jazz; Johnny Hodges became a major influence on his alto saxophone playing, followed by Charlie Parker. Behind the extraordinary musician were family members, teachers, neighbors, and other Black artists who helped nurture his gift.
Coltrane moved to Philadelphia in 1943 and went on to become one of jazz’s most influential voices. His Southern roots—the blues, the church, and the spiritual life of his family—helped shape the searching sound we hear in works like Giant Steps and A Love Supreme.

#blksouth #johncoltrane #jazz #thesouth taken in The South by @blksouth

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How do we keep showing up when the work of justice leaves us weary? 🌧️

This week, our dear friend Desireé Lucas shares “Facing the Storm,” a reflection on struggle, faith, and the courage to keep moving toward collective liberation—with room to rest along the way.

Desireé led our Grant Street Community block party, and we’re grateful to share her voice with the BLK South community. 🖤

Read her latest reflection at blksouth.org and subscribe to receive more reflections and updates from our work. Link in bio! taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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What does it mean to “daylight” courage?

In his latest reflection for BLK South, board member, Dr. Chris Townley brings Howard Thurman’s image of an “underground river” into conversation with the practice of uncovering buried streams. A walk beside a recovering creek leads him to ask how we can bring the courage within us into the light—and let it flow into action for justice, mercy, and care for our communities.

Read Daylighting Courage Creek using the 🔗 in bio.

#BLKSouth #HowardThurman #CommunityDevelopment #EnvironmentalJustice #FaithAndJustice taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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What happens when access begins to look like liberation?

In our newest reflection, “When Access Looks Like Liberation,” Dr. Carl W. Kenney II revisits Audre Lorde’s warning that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

Through the cultural and political landscape of 1984, Dr. Kenney challenges us to consider the difference between individual achievement and collective freedom—and whether gaining access to existing systems is enough to transform them.

Dr. Kenney is a professor at UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media and managing editor of The Durham Voice.

Read the full reflection at the link in our bio.

#BLKSouth #CarlKenney #AudreLorde #SisterOutsider #BlackLiberation taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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Born in Harlem to parents whose roots reached back to Georgia, Toni Cade Bambara carried a Southern inheritance into a life of writing, filmmaking, teaching, and organizing. Those roots helped produce a cultural worker who understood that art belonged to the people—and that storytelling could be a tool for building community, strengthening movements, and practicing liberation.

Bambara eventually returned South, making Atlanta home and helping cultivate a generation of Black artists and organizers committed to collective freedom. Her life reminds us that the Great Migration did not sever Black people from the South. We carried its stories, rhythms, wisdom, and organizing traditions wherever we went—and some found their way back home.

For our Boston-area community, the Boston Ujima Project and ICA/Boston are hosting a special screening of TCB – The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing. The film explores Bambara’s life through a series of lessons on cultural organizing shared by her friends, colleagues, and students.

Filmmaker Louis Massiah will join the audience for a post-screening conversation.

🎬 Friday, October 9, 2026, at 7 PM
🎟️ RSVP: www.ujimaboston.com/events
Media Repost: @ujimaboston

#ToniCadeBambara #BlackSouthernLegacy #BlackOrganizing #BlackArtsMovement #CulturalOrganizing BlackWriters TheWayBackHome BLKSouth by @blksouth

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🚨 HAYTI FAMILIES: A new afterschool program is coming to the neighborhood! 📚🌱🏀🎨

Beginning Tuesday, October 13, the 1K Academy Afterschool Program will welcome students every Tuesday and Thursday from 2–6 PM at Russell Memorial CME Church.

And this is about more than homework.

We’re creating a place where our young people can learn, grow, lead, and thrive through tutoring and academic support, culturally responsive enrichment, gardening, arts and crafts, sports, recreation, and relationships with caring adults invested in who they are becoming.

We’ll be reaching out to families and students at nearby schools, including Burton Elementary, C.C. Spaulding Elementary, and other schools surrounding the Hayti community, as we build a program rooted right here in the neighborhood.

🚌 Transportation will be provided for participating students from Burton Elementary and CC Spaulding Elementary.

This is what partnership can look like: Russell Memorial CME Church’s 1K Academy, Grant Street Community, and Monument of Faith Church’s Social Justice and Outreach Team coming together to invest in the next generation.

🎥 Meet some of the people behind the program and hear why we’re excited about what’s coming.

Know a family who should hear about this? Tag them below or share this post with them. If you’re interested in enrolling a student, send us a DM so we can make sure you receive the registration information.

Stronger together. Brighter futures. ✨ taken in Durham, North Carolina by @blksouth

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Help us give a warm BLK South welcome to our new field education intern, Michandra Washington! 👋🏾🎉

Michandra is joining us this school year as a student from Duke Divinity School. Field education gives students the opportunity to connect what they are learning in the classroom with hands-on ministry, community engagement, theological reflection, and vocational formation.

Throughout the year, Michandra will serve alongside BLK South's Hyper-Local work as we build out an after-school program for children and families in our neighborhood in partnership with Grant Street Community, Russell Memorial CME Church, and Monument of Faith Church.

We are honored to have Michandra with us and look forward to a meaningful and formative year of learning, service, and building together.

Drop a warm hello for Michandra in the comments! 👋🏾

#BLKSouth #DukeDivinity #FieldEducation #Hayti #GrantStreetCommunity taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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BLK South co-founder Erin Dooley introduces our newest reflection, “Two Caged Birds”—a play on Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Watch to hear why Erin wrote the piece, then visit our website to read the full reflection and subscribe to the BLK South newsletter.

Link in bio.

#BLKSouth #TwoCagedBirds #CommunityCare #HousingJustice #DurhamNC taken in Durham, NC by @blksouth

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