Three Black Men

This is a time to gather in community and reach beyond what we know. You are warmly invited to join us on a voyage of deep inquiry.

How do we meet the crises of our times? As we reckon with the legacies of historical harms, the normative murder of Black and Brown bodies, climate crises, and surging global inequities, how might we respond in ways we have not yet imagined?

The politics of today doesn’t reach into what is possible. We need something different – fugitive pathways that escape the plantation. To dream our futures into being, we need liberation-spaces of healing, exploration and discovery.

From this place, the Three Black Men: A Journey into the Magical Otherwise was born. This project brings together three visionary leaders – Resmaa Menakem, Bayo Akomolafe and Orland Bishop – for the first time.

In 2023, Resmaa, Bayo and Orland will share space as they visit three cities across three continents, tracing a diasporic route in reverse. “We are at a turning point”, Orland tells us, “towards another reality.”

In their beloved writings and teachings, these explorers investigate community, racial and social justice, individual and collective trauma, ritual and healing, new cultural forms (the promise of the monstrous) and deep interior capacities.

Our theme connects vibrant conversations on matters of embodiment, explorations of the sacred and the ancestral, and visions of other places of power and alternative futures.

Resmaa says “I consider it my job in this moment to make the invisible visible.” The healing that we need invites us into a new shared seeing, anchored in a place beyond conventional culture. The struggle for radical transformation is a soul-struggle, and Bayo invites us to “risk new shapes”.

This traveling village, a space for the not-yet-imagined, will take form as a series of vibrantly festive Black-centering gatherings. Whether in person or by live-stream, we will connect like mycelial threads as our collective life-force convenes.

These three visionary Black men, sharing their leading edges, are inviting us into a radical re/imagination of how we respond to our time. We will sense into emergent possibilities, triangulating toward a synthesis of new forms, new magic, and new directions.

In Orland’s view, this is a portal, a kind of initiation, and a potent invitation extended to us all.

Will you join us?