Todd Mack and Trey Carlisle, co-creators of The Black Legacy Project, share about their national project that helps people open up about race relations in their communities and work together to advance solidarity and belonging.

 

The Atlanta-based organization selected seven communities nationwide, including Boise, for a series of intimate roundtable discussions. Created by Music in Common, the project also works with local Black and White musicians in each community to record present-day interpretations of songs central to the Black American experience and compose originals relevant to the pressing calls for change of our time. The community roundtable discussions helped inform how these songs are interpreted and written. 

 

"Hope is like the currency, or the rent that I pay living on this planet," Trey said. "I am able to live in this country now with the rights and the opportunities and the privileges I had because my parents and my grandparents and those who came before us practiced hope and built a better world in a time where it was much easier to feel hopeless and disheartened than it is now. So even in the moments where I do feel discouraged, hope is much less of a feeling to me, but it's more so a way of being and it's a way of life, and it's a responsibility."

 

See which Boise musicians were selected in Boise at www.theblacklegacyproject.org/boise. They performed their compositions before a Boise audience on June 18, and an album including their music will be released in 2024. Boise's roundtable discussion will be featured on The Black Legacy Project docuseries.