‘Survival and joy’: AL.com event highlights storytellers across Birmingham
You know that feeling of standing on a front porch in the South? Maybe you were invited to visit a friend. Maybe you spent long afternoons daydreaming. Maybe you were buying a few pieces of candy from the lady down the street.
Porches were an unofficial and unplanned theme of AL.com’s “Birmingham Dreams” storytelling event July 24 at Woodlawn Theatre. Seven neighborhood storytellers talked about growing up in Birmingham, what they see in their neighborhoods today and their hopes for the city’s future.
For the last few months, Birmingham Poet Laureate Salaam Green and I have traveled across the city and held small listening sessions. We wanted to hear residents’ goals for their neighborhoods and their ideas for solving its problems.
We heard lots of great ideas. And we wanted to give residents a way to share their stories directly with an audience. Out of those listening sessions, we identified neighborhood storytellers. We built the “Birmingham Dreams” event to highlight their voices and offer more opportunities for connections and community.
Jamaree Collins and Jeff Collins, a father and son who live in Titusville, shared memories of the historic neighborhood. Jeff spoke about the big mamas who kept kids safe, and Jamaree spoke about learning from his dad’s example as he mentors local students.
“My father wasn’t just my dad, he was the dad to a lot of other Black boys who didn’t have someone like that at home,” Jamaree Collins said. “I stay in Titusville because these kids deserve someone like that, too.”
Other storytellers at the event were Jacquie Fazekas-Varner, of Bama Health; Phaye Wilson, of Manifold Vision and Urban Hope Community Church; Mary Bea Sullivan, of the Threshold Center; Sonya Mitchell; and Sally Allocca, of Eastlake United Methodist Church.
AL.com columnist John Archibald and violence prevention reporter Alaina Bookman talked about living and working in the city. Bookman’s reporting is often featured as part of AL.com and The Birmingham Times’ “Beyond the Violence” project.
“Birmingham is the people,” Archibald said. “It’s the food, wonderful food. It’s the art, the culture. And you may not expect it, but it’s acceptance, too.”
We also wanted our audience to get a chance to hear from wonderful local artists and poets. The Tri City Jazz Trio opened the evening with live music. Arlo Pate and Kevin Tarver shared poems inspired by their neighborhoods.
“’We are driven by survival and by joy,’” Tarver wrote in a poem about the neighborhood of Eastlake. He described favorite memories of his neighborhood and feelings about the challenges local residents currently face.
“I can only imagine the other communities that are impacted by things and want to speak up but don’t have a way to speak out,” Tarver said.
AL.com wants to offer more opportunities for similar connection points and shared experiences.
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