BYFA

STORYTELLING OPEN HOUSE

27 May 2017, New David Baptist Church of Christ
 

CHARDAE

these boots were made for walking
“It’s very tiring, especially when you have a child that goes in and out of shelters with you, and it’s time to go back in because it’s curfew, and she cries and says ‘I don’t wanna go back today, Mommy. I don’t like that place, Mommy.’ Or when we move to another place, ‘Is this our house now Mommy?’ How can you answer that question when you don’t know if it’s a definite?" 
 

DEN'MARICE

these boots were made for walking
“There’s no right way, no wrong way, no set way to live your life. It’s just to enjoy”

DEVIN

back in the day
“I was about a mile away from my house and I fell asleep behind the wheel and I woke up on the other side of the highway… I learned not to drink and drive.”
 

DEVIN
 

GREG

these boots were made for walking
“In that twenty year process [in jail], I was able to find myself. And I was able to truly become this responsible human being.  And as a result, we’ve been able to impact lives and help people along the way.”

JAY

back in the day
“I wanted to work with cameras and make movies ever since I was a kid. I used to draw and make stories out of my drawings. It’s the only thing that really kept me sane when I was younger.”
 

KENDRICK

lost and found
“Later on in life I found something better: friends”

KEVIN & MICHAEL

back in the day
"One of the most telling issues in our community was the broken homes and the lack of male participation in the homes, in the children’s lives, and the youth.”
 

MIKE

lost and found
“I felt prey to the world.”

SHALA

lost and found
“The first day I’ve ever felt lost was July 27th, 2011. I lost my stepfather, who has been in my life since I was two years. At the time, I was twelve when he was shot and killed in front of our house.”
 

SHARREEN 

I realized the world wasn’t perfect
“As you get older and you realize that doing the right things pushes you further back and it’s a lot harder.  Then I realized the world isn’t as it seems.  It’s more on… promoting the negative.”

SHAWNIKA

I realized the world wasn’t perfect
“People won’t support you because of some people are afraid of what you’ll become. So with that being said, I’ve been an artist, a rap artist, for fifteen years now, and I get more support from strangers than I do friends or family.”
 

SHEMIE

I realized the world wasn’t perfect
“How come I feel so alone?  How come I’m just so, just so miserable?  Why am I lonely?  How come, why, why is this happening?”

SIENELL

back in the day
“The friendships that you had back when I was a toddler, back when I was a kid, won’t be the same now… It’s very pure back in the day, but now it just ain’t the same… I changed over the years.”
 

TAELOR

when I’m the boss
“I’m gonna make sure that my production company, it maintains a culture of building people up and not tearing people down.”

TAHIR

these boots were made for walking
“Being put into this culture transformed me to … be more open, to be more sociable, to be more wanting to connect with other people.  Also, finding something that I’m interested in and connecting it to the world and finding other people that are also interested in the same things.  Just to grow with those people.”

 

ZYKIRA

I realized the world wasn’t perfect
“As I got older I started seeing the imperfection and was like, someone can’t truly be perfect. You know, because it’s life. Making mistakes is life.”

Photographs Courtesy of Aiko Alvarez-Gibson

Video Courtesy of Vonnya Pettigrew, Annette Porter, Gwen Richards, and Marc Unger