Wrapping up a year of celebrations, we hosted our final 20th anniversary event, Walking the Path to Liberation, to spotlight our Open Road Fund. It warmed our hearts to connect with our Nexus family, see awardees share their stories, and welcome back poet Tish Jones for another powerful reading of the Open Road poem.
Watch the recording above to meet our team, learn about our work over the last few years, and hear how awardees MeMe and Keith are creating generational wealth and giving back to their communities!
Highlights from Our Speakers
“We have been incredibly honored and blessed by the opportunity—and humbled by the responsibility—of carrying on the work of Black wealth. The strength of our work is rooted in the strength of our ancestors. And it’s not often, not often at all, that we get to engage in Black wealth defined by Black people in the context of Black culture, Black history, and Black love. That’s a gift: to embrace Black economic power, not by comparing ourselves, but by claiming and reclaiming the power and the potential that exists with and within us, and building from there… To be able to say ‘yes’ to the dreams, the aspirations, and the visions of 100 Black people a year is a gift. That don’t happen often.”
— Repa Mekha, Nexus Founder & CEO
“I know I wouldn’t be where I am at this point without that gift. Because it helped me really ground myself into my passions, what I want in my life, and set me on the right path. I really feel like with the Open Road Fund, it is an amazing program for Black people and people like us to really put our best foot forward when you have that type of support, that type of leg up in a world that is usually used to pushing us down.”
— MeMe Simpson, Open Road Fund recipient
“I coach college football, and I always have tried to give back, especially to my community and to folks that look like me. To be able to receive this fund was truly life-changing. [Giving back is] something that I want to continue to do until I’m no longer on this Earth, because I just feel like that’s the only way we’re going to help our people move forward, is to keep giving and to teach our children to keep giving.”
— Keith Turner, Open Road Fund recipient
“The future of Nexus and the Open Road Fund looks like resistance and reclamation. It looks like a shared vision of self-determination, collective care, and economic liberation. It looks like new systems created by us that work for all of us. It looks like people and communities reclaiming what’s been denied for so long: land, wealth, leadership, wellness, and power. It looks like justice, interdependence, and abundance.”
— Danielle Mkali, VP of Programs & Strategies
Excerpt from “Open Road” by Tish Jones
Hear the full poem in the recording above!
“Our story begins before chains.
Before ‘Boy’ was ever misused as a name,
Before centuries of maltreatment, abuse, and pain,
Before being captured, tortured, seasoned, and enslaved,
Before someone else’s monetary gain.
Imagine with me: Once, we reigned.
Imagine this as our path back to that place.
An Open Road, a first seed sown in sovereignty,
A true stair step out of poverty,
A chance to build wealth in our community,
A chance to work toward collective liberation and unity.
Imagine cooperative economics, self-determination,
Building, supporting, and further developing ourselves as a Black Nation.
Imagine with me.
…
We are a tribal people: communal, connected,
Always have been better together and through collective visioning,
So dream.
Dream past any indoctrination,
Anti-Blackness placed in your subconscious imagination,
Dream past doubt.
Dream anew,
Dream housing, ownership, education, and financial freedom.
Dream yourself into this possibility,
Self-actualization and solidarity.
Journey with us on this Open Road of possibilities,
As stewards and seed sowers,
Leaders investing in ourselves,
Because we were destined to do this good.”
Our Definition of Black Wealth
Black wealth, to us, includes healing from over five centuries of labor and livelihood stolen from us on this stolen land. Black wealth is owning what we produce. Black wealth is building and inventing for our families and community. Black wealth is a creative and sovereign practice of restoration that reaffirms the excellence that has always been in us. The goal of Black wealth has never been to amass fortunes for a few, but to build collective care, community resilience, and shared abundance for the many.