Three Black Men Project

About this Journey…

In 2023 the Center for Healing and Liberation brought together three visionary Black leaders—Resmaa Menakem, Bayo Akomolafe and Orland Bishop—for the first time. These men saw the possibility of uniting to investigate the urgent questions of our time. As we reckon with the legacies of historical harms, the normative murder of Black and Brown bodies, climate change, and surging global inequities, how might we respond in ways we have not yet imagined?  

To dream our futures into being, we need emancipatory spaces of healing, exploration and discovery. In 2023, the Three Black Men project traced the Transatlantic slave route in reverse, with public events on each man’s home continent (in the US, Brazil and Ghana).

This project convened community gatherings in which these leaders guided collective inquiry into liberation in our world. The Three Black Men united to sense into emergent possibilities that speak to what we need now, triangulating toward a synthesis of new forms, new magic, and new directions. 

Under the weight of oppression and westernization, Blackness is widely framed as negative and evil—leading over and over to grievous harm. This project celebrates Blackness. As we cultivate healing, we know that we are not separate from each other and this Earth, and our liberation-birthright is here.

The journey…from Los Angeles to Salvador to Accra

Our June 2023 events, held at the beautiful Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles, were potent explorations of healing and possibility. The program included a Black men’s gathering and an open-to-everyone gathering.

One emergent focus was Black men’s tenderness and need for nourishing connection that honors their aliveness. This is a revolutionary conversation on a theme invisible in public discourse. 

In Salvador, Brazil, we also held a Black men’s gathering along with open-to-everyone gathering, plus other small convenings. Honoring Black women is a bright thread in this work. Our Brazilian partners spoke of their grief and frustration over the high level of violence against Black bodies, especially Black women, in Salvador. Men and women spoke of their commitment to peace, unity, women’s rights and women’s well-being. 

Many ideas for ongoing projects arose, which will be led by Brazilians. For example, community leader Tiago Azeviche of Salvador, Bahia (who also went on participate in the Ghana journey) is leading ongoing gatherings of Black men to explore healing and liberatory practices.

In Salvador, our team was spiritually anchored by a historic Candomblé temple—Ilé Àṣẹ Ìyá Nasò Ọka, or CasaBranca—led by three Black women elders, and founded in the 1800s by three free African women. It was clear that the ocean-deep resilience of these Afro-Brazilian communities is sustained by the deep remembering held by these practitioners. This fed into our evolving sense of how cultural containers can carry multigenerational medicine. We saw this as well in a Quilombo community we visited. (Quilombos took shape as groups of enslaved Africans escaped to form free communities in remote forests and mountains. These settlements actively resisted slavery and preserved African traditions, passing them through the generations.)

Arrival in Accra, Ghana

In December 2023, the Three Black Men journey traveled to Accra, Ghana for a profound encounter with the African homeland. Our group of travelers connected with Ghanaian community members and ritual practitioners of African spirituality for this part of the journey. Our time in Ghana included touring the Dubois Center, which evoked deep reflection about Black visionaries. The stunning Asenema waterfall invited cleansing and renewal, with traditional priests leading libations. The group explored the medicinal resources of the land and, at a Vodou shrine, learned from the shrine priest about African spiritual technologies and practices—tools given by our ancestors.

A wrenching and powerful experience in the center of the journey was a ritual ceremony at the Cape Coast slave dungeons, the departure point of so many abducted Africans. After ceremonial washing of our feet, hands and faces, we wore white and walked barefoot through the streets of Cape Coast to the dungeons. There each of us entered into our own unique experience, grieving, praying, visioning, reflecting and connecting with the ancestors.  

As we integrated the raw intensity of this encounter over the following days, our journey was balanced and leavened with drumming, dancing, hugs, delicious Ghanaian food, many rich conversations in community gatherings with Resmaa, Bayo and Orland, and opportunities to both digest the experience and touch joy. 

Reflection

Looking back at the Ghana experience, Victoria reflects that, “Ghana was very much about connecting those of us who traveled from far and wide with the people in Ghana who joined our journey. There is healing in this reconnection. And this journey is also about the earth and the future. How do we collectively deepen our connection to magic, our communities, our strategies, and our resilience, to create a thriving future here on this sacred earth?”