Issue 1: Chicago
Week 9 - BLE Magazine
Bless By E'mon Lauren
Check out our final installment from Black Life Everywhere’s upcoming freedom mixtape.
Chicago, a crafty caucus, we cocooned in. a kid’s folded cot and cubby. we the poster childs. the classes, the pastels and pastillage. we be born here. we burn the bridges, the borders. the blues, crossing and cutting, our lines, a Van Gogh. our skyline, a Monet we walk through. we paint the sky. our businesses, a bristled brush. a wave check in our back pockets. bless the waters. bless the running blocks and bodies. bless this city, this midwest spill, a tarp on the plains.
BLE Chicago Music Collective
Week 8 - BLE Magazine
BLE Chicago Music Collective’s “Luv U Like, U Were Me” (Mixtape Coming Soon)
Check out a chant and second single from Black Life Everywhere’s upcoming freedom mixtape. Special shoutout to Studio Shapes for hosting this creative and liberating space.
by Alicia Kamil
“I wrote this piece around gentrification in Chicago. This then trigged the idea to start a series documenting/commentating on the racist institutional devices that tragically are imbedded within our city. Words hold power, and I want to use mine to further the foundational conversations about what we can do to heal our city, take it back from our oppressors & exist in our Black liberated & abolitionist based future.”
Gentrify Series: A Home for a Home.
Week 7 - BLE Magazine
Black Things Today: Proof Of Concept
By Johnae Strong
“Black Things Today” documents the story of the Betty Shabazz International Charter School "Village" through the eyes of three recent alum who are on a mission to carry on the legacy of their Pan African upbringing in Chicago.
Qurissy is the creative for creatives
Hailing from the Westside of Chicago, and guided by compassion, Qurissy is the creative for creatives.
Through her photography she often documents music artists, writers, and food makers, she aims to evoke familiarity and authenticity in her work.
Qurissy’s goal is to direct her subjects to be their own storytellers. As an image maker, her work is abundant in texture, deep tone, and richness.
Week 6 - BLE Magazine
Short Films about Chicago
by Sarah Oberholtzer
Memory, an animated short
"Memory," a rotoscope animation short, asks how small moments in our lives have lasting impacts that shape our sense of self and how we interact with the world. In the ways that a point in time can reach far beyond itself into the present day, this film catches a glimpse of that phenomenon.
A Love Letter to Chicago’s Black Womxn
This love letter demands a softness and beauty for the Black womxn of Chicago. After an inhumane Chicago Police Department raid of a Black woman's home, Sarah Oberholtzer created this piece as a salve for the Black womxn in their life, most of whom seemed widely heartbroken & traumatized by the viral video shared of the raid. The piece also offers a call to action to donate to the Black Girl Freedom Fund, which is a campaign to mobilize $1 billion of investments in the leadership, wellbeing, joy, artistic genius, and power of Black girls and gender-expansive youth. Learn more about the find at 1billion4blackgirls.org.
Alive, a film made made during the interim of counting votes
A visual poem of resiliency and reminders, "Alive" reminds audiences of the grace and beauty inherent in life despite the potential chaos of the world around them. Sarah Oberholtzer created this piece during the interim of waiting to hear the official announcement of the United States presidency in 2020. In the waiting, they created a reminder to themselves and a reminder to those around them that, no matter what we can still celebrate moments of joy.
We were Transformed, but was the World?
Reflecting on a Decade of Black-led Movement
By Asha Ransby-Sporn
The Black Lives Matter era re-shaped a generation’s understanding of Black identity and politics, but it was also deeply disappointing. Now, a new chapter of Black political organization is needed to win the transformative change we envisioned.
Week 5 - BLE Magazine
Hear from our local co-editor Damon Williams and the BLE Chicago Music Collective lead a liberation chant that has been used as an affirmation in many local Chicago direct actions, organizing meetings and community building spaces. The chant titled “Beautiful” uses rhythmic tones that are dedicated to the praise of liberation, justice, and freedom, especially from institutional and systematic oppression. Freedom songs and liberation chants are inherently political. Many local chicago organizers encourage their members to sing and chant at every protest, gathering, and demonstration. They center ourselves in a turn-up styled, rhythmic, call and response griot tradition that allows them to bring their voice, bodies and entire beings into the space. In other words, freedom songs are how we tap into the healing, joy and spirit work of our time. Look out for more freedom songs and liberation chants to be released by the BLE Chicago Music Collective.
Chicago based artist Dwight White straddles the line between fine art, sociology and experiential design. In this piece, Dwight collaborated with the Chicago community to honor and celebrate Juneteenth. It was created during the Something I Can Feel art gala in Chicago as a way to immerse everyone in the arts regardless of their level of expertise in the practice.
To hear more about Dwight’s practice, process and what went into creating this mural, check out this personal video from the artist.
Introducing: Black Life Everywhere Chicago Music Collective
Week 4 - BLE Magazine
Afrofuturist Animations
by Bryson Scott
BLE Chicago Music Collective’s First Single
“Black Magic” (Mixtape Coming Soon)
Check out the first single “Black Magic” from Black Life Everywhere’s upcoming freedom mixtape. For those of you nostalgic about the history of Chicago’s Step Music, here is a new offering straight from BLE Chicago’s Music Collective. Shoutout to Studio Shapes for hosting this creative and liberating space. More to come for all the lovers of freedom music.
Week 3 - BLE Magazine
Every Other Day Occurrence
by Desmond King
The rose sat so beautifully.
As if it knew its purpose for being there.
I think it’s beautiful. Almost poetic. To know your purpose.
I gargle, jagged teeth and sweet blood in my mouth.
Slowly I let it flow out. A sharp pressure arrives as my arms are positioned against my back.
My body is lifted away from the ground.
Target practice.
Trina Reynolds Tyler is a journalist and a data analyst who leads Beneath the Surface, an investigation into gender-based violence buried in police complaints in Chicago. Trina sifts through misconduct data to identify patterns of abuse that are misclassified, present findings to the public, and expand the discourse around police misconduct.
Across the United States, community leaders of different ages, backgrounds, and geographies are fighting for criminal justice reform. Their work has tangible impacts on the lives of those around them and together they look to a future where no one is left behind. Independent Lens Bridge Builders is a series of short documentaries highlighting these changemakers and their communities, collectively crafting a picture of the reform landscape nationwide.
Week 2 - BLE Magazine
Almost There
by Desmond King
I have built a dam between
Work and Self
What does it mean to be almost be there?
Those words imply an end, a destination
What destination gets me out of this hell?
Sick is for the weekends, schedule to be sick then
Practiced words:
Health insurance.
Rent.
Change the Name
by Cai Thomas
Change the Name, by Queen Collective director and producer Cai Thomas, produced by Donald Conley. (United States). Student activists and educators from Village Leadership Academy campaigned to change the name of a park from a slaveholder to abolitionists Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood.
Beneath the Surface
by Cai Thomas
Chicago is the city where I grew my abolitionist politics. Where struggle and celebration live within the same sentence, same block, can happen in the same week. They live side by side here as siblings. When summer comes, we all sit in the sun a little longer, drinking in that we’re here, we’re alive. We can breathe today.
Hope for the Future of Black Life Everywhere
The overall goal of BLE Magazine is to show the nuance, beauty, challenges, and joy that constitute Black Life Everywhere, today. Watch as BLE co-creators discuss their hope for the future of the magazine.
Struggle and Celebration
by Miranda Goosby
Week 1 - BLE Magazine
Organizers in Conversation
Dr. Eve Ewing & Damon Williams
Black Life Everywhere launches with our conversation series spotlighting local cultural and political organizers. This is a prolific and timely discussion between Damon Williams and Dr. Eve Ewing. Listen in as they cover the nuances and celebration of Black Life in Chicago.
Three Ways to Love Black
Benji Hart