At the start of 2024, like every year, resolutions and bold proclamations are being sprinkled throughout daily conversations. From desires to maintain physical fitness to claims dedicated to creating and implementing boundaries, the start of a new year often allows time for reflection, resolution, and growth.

It was with these words that poet Audre Lorde began her groundbreaking 1982 work “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name”, in the process launching earning a reputation as a master poet and black lesbian literary icon that has endured years after her death.

Last January, I attended Sundance, an acclaimed film festival known to spotlight noteworthy and potentially Oscar-award-winning films. While I was blown away by nearly every movie, one documentary certainly stole the show- Kokomo City.

Like most commencement weekends, the mood was festive and upbeat one weekend last month on the stately campus of Carleton College, a small liberal arts school just south of Minneapolis. The graduates, wearing everything from bright dresses and heels to shorts and sneakers beneath their gowns, filed into seats arranged in a broad, grassy field incongruously called The Bald Spot.

The urgency for unity within the Black community is palpable, but the question of how to unify Black men is elusive.

In the 1984 essay "Brother to Brother: Words from the Heart," Joseph Beam wrote, "Black men loving Black men is an autonomous agenda for the eighties, which is not rooted in any particular sexual, political, or class affiliation, but in our mutual survival."

How do we come together to heal and press forward with love and intentionality?

When Ariel Fristoe and her family moved into the Historic King District in downtown Atlanta, she had no idea how segregated her world was.

The Agnostic child of theater parents, she grew up around and regularly interacted with people from different backgrounds. However, her engagement in investigating and identifying systemic racism and inequality was few and far between. She never had to think much about what was happening with her neighbors.

"My home base has been Charis my entire life."

That is not hyperbole. Since he was 15, ER Anderson has taken up space at the beloved bookstore.

His mother introduced him to Charis. A licensed therapist, she was acutely aware that her child was struggling. He had not yet identified as transgender, but his mother discerned her child needed an outlet.

Growing up in Rome, Georgia, and raised by a United Methodist Church minister, Lama Rod Owens always understood the importance of service and community.

Josh Penny has always been more motivated when seeing how something impacts another person versus how it affects him.

"It's something my therapist has been trying to get me to work on," he said.

In his role as director of social impact for Hinge, he is responsible for figuring out how to help users connect with others. His role is to help users form healthy relationships by providing them with the habits and skills needed to do so.

The more Sophia Hussen, MD, MPH learned about HIV, the more she felt compelled to provide care, support, and understanding about those living with the disease.

An associate professor in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, she doesn't just spin her wheels in the academy's ivory tower. She mixes advocacy with activism, pairing her commitment to research with her practice as a physician in the HIV Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital.

DeMicha Luster's community organizing work began unexpectedly.

"I was doing some work for a local non-profit when someone asked me why they hadn't seen me at any of the NPU [Neighborhood Planning Unit] or civic association meetings," she said. "I took the hint and started attending."

Eventually, people noticed she was the only person under 30 attending the meetings. That made her the ideal candidate to organize a potential field trip.

"Someone donated passes to Six Flags, and so, it was suggested that I take 35 kids from the community," she added.

All she had to do was figure out how to get the kids there. And, of course, get their parents' permission.

Anyone raised in Atlanta understands, to some extent, the magnitude of such a task. First, she had to find the kids willing to go. That's not too hard. For many kids, taking a trip to Six Flags is a treat. But funding and transportation for kids of a certain age and socio-economic background can be challenging. Then there is another issue altogether – trust. Many of the kids didn't know her or their parents. Even though it's been years since the Atlanta Childhood Murders, the scars are still visible for some. She was a stranger and had some convincing to do.

Since 2019, Larry Aldrige, a senior at Morehouse College, along with his best friend, have used the family-oriented nature of Thanksgiving to create something to quell the loneliness of the holiday for their fellow college students at Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, and Morehouse College, three schools under the Atlanta University Center (AUC) umbrella.

Aldrige wasn't planning to attend Morehouse. His first choice was Clark Atlanta University. It was at the urging of someone he'd grown up with that suggested he attend Morehouse. He applied and got in but was still determining if he wanted to leap. A product of the Black Pentecostal church, Aldridge did what he learned to do when faced with a major life choice, he prayed.

"I said [to God], send me where you want me. Tell me what you need me to do," he says. "My apostle was preaching, but after a while, I got in prayer, and I couldn't even hear him anymore. All I heard was Morehouse. And I was like, okay."

Aldridge, who identifies as queer, hadn't told anyone yet, because he didn't even realize it himself.

Sandwiched in an alleyway on the northeast side of Washington D.C., Black queer, gay, and lesbian artists like Wayson Jones cultivated fertile ground in a coffeehouse. What they did in the cramped space is the stuff of legends, yet the coffeehouse is long gone—much like the city of old. A documentary recently released online captures what the coffeehouse meant—and continues to mean—to Washington, D.C. as well as to Black and queer histories.

"Fierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse" has been making its rounds at select screenings. The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse was a performance and rehearsal space for a cohort of artists, a gathering spot; plus a meeting place for political organizations. This was almost hallowed ground for Black artists to share and workshop their craft. Jones, Essex Hemphill, Cheryl Clarke, Audre Lorde, Blackberry, Casselberry-Dupree, and Pomo Afro Homos all stepped foot into the former carriage house-turned-coffeehouse between 8th, 9th, I, and K Streets, NE. The space at 816 Eye Street, NE was brick, the size of a large walk-in closet, but had great acoustics.

"The intimacy lent itself to that feeling of being part of the family," Jones said.

The film "Fierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse," celebrates this time.

Picture it. Atlanta. June 23, 2006. A Black church boy sits in a room awaiting the results of a rapid HIV test. The seconds feel like hours and the hours feel like days. The clock strikes 3 p.m., he is now fifteen minutes away from embodying the stereotype of Black gay men living with HIV as an inevitability. His greatest fear is confirmed. He is HIV-positive. He is also given 90 days to live. But for Morris Singletary, 43, Founder and CEO of Pozitive2Positive, there are no tears, only the beginning of an awakening that would lead him to fight for his life and the lives of other Black same gender loving church boys living with HIV.