Black Belt Community Foundation
Black Belt Community Foundation
Back to FinalistsBlack Belt Community Foundation
Mission Statement
The mission of the Black Belt Community Foundation is to forge a collective stream of giving that transforms our 12-county region and connects those interested in having an impact in this region with nonprofits that are making a difference today. Founded in 2004, the Black Belt Community Foundation actively puts needed resources into the region that make a lasting impact. The foundation operates in three main areas: giving, receiving, and growing.
Name of Public Space
Riverfront Amphitheater
City, State
Selma, AL
Website
Organization Overview
The Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF), the largest Black-led foundation in West-Central Alabama, was birthed in 2004 by the unofficial ‘Black Belt Regional Foundation Coordinating Committee’, a diverse group of community members from across nine counties of Alabama’s Black Belt committed to helping the impoverished counties thrive. BBCF was founded with the idea that those living and working in the Black Belt best knew the area’s challenges and opportunities. BBCF works to address the need to develop, support, and attract funding to Black Belt-based organizations and manages programs including the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation initiative of Selma (TRHT Selma). TRHT Selma is funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to promote racial equity, inclusion, and speaking truth to power. BBCF joins in partnership with the Selma Center for Nonviolence to offer community-based programming through TRHT Selma, directly impacting the material conditions of Selma residents while also addressing the need to heal hearts and minds. Since 2017, TRHT Selma has hosted a myriad of community-focused events to encourage relationship building, honor Selma’s history, and foster safe places for people to learn, share, and grow together. Through TRHT Selma, BBCF uplifts the truth, hope, and connection.
Proposal Details
How will your town or city benefit from a Levitt AMP [Your City] Music Series and how will the series reflect the three main goals of Levitt AMP: 1) Amplify community pride and the city’s unique character; 2) enrich lives through the power of free, live Music; 3) illustrate the importance of vibrant public Places?
The Levitt AMP Selma Music Series will breathe new life into the community through the responsive utilization of a currently desolate public space. Not only would the music series offer the opportunity for local business owners to be involved (as vendors and sponsors) with ongoing major musical productions, but hope would resonate alongside the melodies. Residents were involved in the planning of the Riverfront Park and Amphitheater over ten years ago. To give those same residents an opportunity to see their vision come to life would be monumental. Through community-focused, equitable placemaking, the Amphitheater could become the vibrant public space residents have longed for. BBCF/TRHT Selma will work with the city’s Planning and Development Department to ignite community pride, assist the Chamber of Commerce in promoting local entrepreneurs and businesses, as well as continue the effort to draw people from all backgrounds into safer, braver spaces where community healing can occur through live music. The Amphitheater would become a prime destination for other festivals and live music events once people are able to experience the public space as a vibrant, community-driven locale.
Explain how the Levitt AMP [Your City] Music Series will play a role in enlivening the selected public space and surrounding areas.
The Levitt AMP Selma Music Series will help to address the need for more culturally-inclusive entertainment opportunities, activate an underutilized public space, attract residents to Selma’s downtown and the riverfront, and advance the effort to encourage residents and visitors to shop local as Series attendees walk by downtown shops or patronize vendors during each week’s event.
Selma’s Riverfront Amphitheater has not been used consistently since its completion in 2014. Although for many cities the location and accommodations would make the venue ideal, challenges with maintenance and the (prior) expense of renting the space have caused events hosted at the amphitheater to be few and far between. With much-needed upgrades to the restrooms, electrical connections, and surrounding grounds being complete, the partnership between BBCF/TRHT Selma, the City of Selma, and the Selma-Dallas County Chamber of Commerce will help to demonstrate to all residents the riverfront is open and available to everyone.
The Levitt AMP Selma Music Series will not only amplify hope, resilience, and equity in Selma, but will also share new and different kinds of music with diverse audiences. Exposing children to live, clean entertainment will help teach them see the importance of music, art, and inclusion for themselves. By crafting the weekly events to draw all races, ages, and socioeconomic experiences, the partners hope to draw increasing crowds to downtown, making downtown Selma “the place to be.”