The Davis Women’s Cooperative and Cultural Resource Center
For many African American residents of Birmingham, Alabama, the Historic Smithfield Community is a culturally significant and sacred site widely known for the prominent community leaders that lived and worked in the community despite overwhelming odds instituted by racial oppression.--Carrie A. Tuggle, A.H. Parker. T.C. Windham, the legacy of Arthur Shores, and the Davis Family, whose descendants continue the work in social justice and freedom, are just a few.
The Angela Y. Davis family home features prominently at the top of Historic Center Street in the Smithfield Community at the apex of "Dynamite Hill," the area of many bombings during the Civil Rights Movement, and it will be the site of The Davis Center. In the legacy of Sallye Davis, mother of the Davis Family, and in the spirit of the ongoing social justice and transformative education work of Angela Y. Davis and Fania Davis, The Davis Center will focus on empowering and celebrating black women. The following are major components of The Center:
• Black Women’s Culture, Art, and Herstory Center—library and exhibits focusing on the stories of exceptional black women.
• Cooperative Art Studio, Gallery, and Visitor’s Center—developing the arts in the Smithfield community.
• Black Women Writing Project—giving voice to black women’s important stories that are too often silenced. Sacred stories of self and lived experiences will be created and preserved, to be retold for generations.
• Office for Democratic Economics—run by MCAP to help Western Area communities develop cooperative businesses, community land trusts, and community development financial institutions.
Dynamite Hill-Smithfield Community Land Trust
The Davis Center will be founded in conjunction with the founding of the Dynamite Hill-Smithfield Community Land Trust (Dynamite Hill CLT). Upon purchase, the Davis home and land will go into the CLT. The Dynamite Hill CLT will help the Smithfield Community develop permanently affordable homeownership opportunities for residents and affordable land options for community-based cooperative businesses.
This project is a collaboration between Magic City Agriculture Project (MCAP) and Udja Temple Ministries.
MCAP, a member of the National Community Land Trust Network (NCLTN), is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing racial, economic, food and environmental justice in Birmingham, Alabama.
Udja Temple is a ministry dedicated to teaching the socio-spiritual, cultural and economic uplift and empowerment of black women, their children, and the people who love them. Udja Temple Ministries is the shared life work in practical life applications of the teachings of Susan Diane Mitchell, MA, and Rev. Majadi Baruti.
What You Can Do to Help
We need YOUR help in this important project! Be a permanent part of the Davis Center with your donation! The bricks will become a garden walkway lined with perennial fruit bearing plants, herbs and flowers, and leading to the Davis Center. Design your own or your institution’s brick with the name and image of your choice.
