A Holy Hood :
Black History Month
Creative Direction, Design, Strategy
A Holy Hood - Black History Month Campaign for Grace Midtown.
Created to celebrate the sacred nature of Black History in Atlanta, and the longstanding spiritual and cultural traditions of the city.
This Black History Month Campaign features an original Poem written and performed by Maya Wilson in colllaboration with Grace Midtown. The hero film was created for social, web, and live events.
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*VIDEOGRAPHY + EDITING BY JOHNFRANK DIEGUEZ
POEM AND VOICEOVER BY MAYA
WILSON
‘A Holy Hood’
this here is a holy ground
a sacred space
a burning bush in the Bible Belt
sweet peaches in a desert
living water so sweet you think it’s lemonade
You’ll find tabernacles perched from Ralph David to Auburn Ave
places where minds and bellies get full
big wide tables where everyone is welcome
Food so good you thought your mama was in the back
Crispy chicken, sweet greens,
all the fixings as they say
If you didn’t have a family before, you could say you found one today
Boys and girls play from centennial to the ward
Not a care in the world, heaven is as big as the yard
Mornings at the barber shop
all day at the salon
When you left you felt baptized
whole again, reborn
God’s grace in a place you wouldn’t think you’d find it
on a plate, in the chair, on a front porch rocking in silence
See shrines made in Decatur all the way to Adamsville
Art along the streets screams the names of those who’ve passed on
prayers fill the space for a day where death does not fall
sometimes it feels like we haven’t the time to grieve at all
as soon one body is buried, there is more pain to carry
not to mention how you’ll say my life matters but have no problems with my eviction
Uprooting the flowers I’ve placed on graves that I dug
Then justify this gentrification cause you don’t want your hood filled with thugs
But you can not erase us and the generations we built, the culture that we laced in the place like a quilt
from the slang, to the style to them lemon pepper wings
you can’t silence a psalm, and our story we will sing
we made a temple off Cascade
weaved joy into our worship
from turquoise and pink skates
doing flips, gliding backwards in rhyme
the bass felt like Holy Spirit
The rhythm like a shout
the skating rink so slick you’d thought we were dancing on streets of Gold
from the floor, to the ceiling
from window to wall
we found a Revival when we could be ourselves
dancing like David, unashamed before a God who knows we need Him
we are evidence that heaven hears the southside
see the gospel spit here is one of come up
spoken by prophets that got it out the mud
spoke verses so smooth and sharp
that they cut and healed us at the same time
Made you wanna get up get out and get something
proverbs written in the language of survivors
can you hear the scripture
an atlanta love letter
that’s that down south spirit and you can test if you want to
like the flock when Jesus was flipping tables you get ran through
see the martyrs marching streets with the steps so loud they shook a nation out of its sleep
saying let my people go
facing the plaques of hatred and discrimination
Streets done seen more bloodshed than Red Sea
filling jail cells with spirituals
The church house a place
where we put on the whole armor
To face the battle ahead
but we rose above the tide
a people they would speak of for generations to come
A chosen people, a priesthood
the ones that saw the mountaintop
let the story be told
that here
our revelations started revolutions
When we heard God’s voice
we followed it, bowed to it, obeyed it
let our city be a light
a hood on a hill
In atlanta as it is in heaven
- MAYA WILSON, 2021
hit me up
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