Building Black Utopias: Transforming Redlines Into Green Spaces

Helping Professionals To Use Story to Transform Communities

Gathering stories of joy, hope, and prosperity from historically redlined neighborhoods to be featured during the 4th Annual Juneteenth for Joy Festival

Register for the 4th Annual Juneteenth for Joy Festival Day 1: Dwell: Art for A Black Utopia

Register for the 4th Annual Juneteenth for Joy Festival Day 2: Juneteenth for Joy Family Day

We were featured on WLRN, an NPR affiliate. Read and listen here.

This project was made possible with support from the Broward County Cultural Division. We’re also grateful to Happy Homes Florida Real Estate, for their seed investment in this project.

Support has also been provided by the following Funds at the Community Foundation of Broward:
Helen and Frank Stoykov Charitable Endowment Fund, Louise and Rudi Dill Charitable Fund, and the Mary and Alex Mackenzie Community Impact Fund.

We are a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Social Change so your donation is tax-deductible.


Broward poet Epiphany reads her poem ode to Black Broward
Neighborhood poet Epiphany reads from her poetic “playback” of the residents’ joy.

The Story of the Cities On the Beach

During Juneteenth for Joy, to honor the cities whose stories we are collecting, we created an installation on the beach featuring the names of each city. 

Only 3% of graphic designers are black. The first credited black font designer published his first font only in 1995. This lack of diversity in design prompted us to seek out black typeface designers. We used their fonts for our city names. Special thanks to Tré Seals (@vocaltype.co), Schessa Garbutt (@firebrand.house), and Joshua Darden (@dardenstudiofonts) for their designs of the installation pieces. 

 

Photo credits: Orit Ben-Ezzer