Greensboro HIVE

by Sue Edelberg | Go Triad

To strengthen relationships and community power in Greensboro, a new community space called The HIVE opened on Grove Street in the Glenwood neighborhood this past fall.

The not-for-profit center was created as a space where communities in and around Greensboro could come together to build strong relationships, share resources and participate in events that help educate and unite communities.

A group of community organizers persevered for more than a year to bring this idea of the HIVE to life. Since the HIVE first opened, they’ve held events such as grant-writing workshops, support groups, film screenings, youth poetry nights, and discussion forums.

The Vision

The birth of the HIVE began in fall 2006, when the now defunct music venue The Flying Anvil offered to the Greensboro community a small space rent free that they could mold.

Excited by the news, an all-ages racially diverse group of about 50 people, many of them artists and activists, came together to brainstorm ideas and eventually agreed that the space would have no rules and would be shaped over time by the people who would use it.

Though the Flying Anvil shut down not long after, a light bulb had already gone off in the minds of a highly-motivated group of community organizers. By October 2007, seven of those organizers found a location to execute their vision, a brick business strip on Grove Street in the Glenwood Neighborhood. They named the space the HIVE, which stands for the principles that the HIVE is built on: History, Information, Vision, Exchange. Jonathan Henderson, a HIVE organizer, likes to use the phrase “a world in which many worlds fit” to describe their vision for the space.

“[The organizers] came together because we felt it would be useful to have a space where communities can come together and organize and interface with each other and learn from each others’ work,” Henderson said.

The HIVE consists of one main room open to the community, while the remainder of the space is occupied by offices and workspaces rented by organizations and businesses.

In the main room, members of the community can use computers or browse the HIVE’s library, consisting of primarily donated fiction books as well as nonfiction, poetry, history books and even zines. There are also couches for lounging and a stage at the back of the room, where musical and dance performances have taken place. The room can also be used by the community for public or private events. The organizers’ hope is that through these events and the community’s participation, the public will mold the HIVE into what they would like it to be.

“We’re open to listening and incorporating individuals’ ideas about what the space is about and how it’s used. It’s different than a library or church or even a school in that these are all institutionally related,” said Susan Burkholder, HIVE organizer and Glenwood resident. “The HIVE is different because it’s the people’s place. It has the flexibility for the community to make it their own.”

The HIVE is part of what Burkholder describes as a positive shift toward change in the Glenwood neighborhood. A sculpture and community garden, a coffee shop, and an artisans craft store were added to Grove Street over this past year.

“In the Grove Street area there is this shift happening and we’re a part of this shift, but we’re not driving that shift,” Burkholder said. “We’ve stepped into the current and are helping it along.”

Ricky Bratz sees the HIVE as one of the answers to organizing locally and building strong communities.

“I think the HIVE comes at a time when downtown Greensboro is getting revitalized and a lot of people are getting displaced,” said HIVE organizer Ricky Bratz. “… What we need to do in the face of big battles like this is to organize locally… We’re providing a place for people to come together.”

Partners of the HIVE

Opening the doors to the HIVE in October was the first step in making their vision of a diverse, yet unifying, community space come true.

In order to keep the space running, The HIVE rents out offices to grassroots organizations as well as independent businesses (see sidebar for a complete list) including a massage therapist and holistic health counselor.

Not only do the groups represent diversity coming together under one roof, but the work these groups and individuals carry out helps to encourage democracy, relationship building, individual and community empowerment, and further outreach to foster participation in the community.

“The people in the offices are actively out there organizing communities,” Bratz said. “There’s that connection they make that brings people in. They play a key role in how the HIVE is used and what people come through.”

Miriam Biber, a holistic health counselor who shares an office at the HIVE with massage therapist Kammaleathahh Livingstone , sees her work as “strengthening activist and progressive communities.”

The HIVE has allowed for both Livingstone and Biber to work in a setting with like-minded individuals and groups from different backgrounds. It also allows them to reach a diverse clientele.

For the community, by the community

Events are an important aspect of the HIVE in that it keeps the community in charge of what events are held in the space. Anyone is able to submit an event to the organizing committee to take place there as long as it falls in line with the HIVE’s mission.

Past events cover the gamut of live music, art classes, poetry for kids, forums, community workshops and film screenings, including “Bastards of the Party,” a documentary about gang violence, which was a standing room only event. Similarly successful was the two-night series on Palestinian Culture and Nonviolence Resistance presented by the Greensboro-Palestinian Solidarity Network in February.

The event included dancing, food and film screenings.

“The goal was to educate the public about Palestinian culture, the effects of the Israeli occupation on the Palestinian people, and the joint Israeli/Palestinian nonviolent resistance that has a long and rich history, but is often ignored in this country,” said David Reed, one of the organizers of the event. “We wanted it to be educational and build solidarity, which I think it did. We hope that these events sparked interest in the community about the Israeli occupation and that these will translate into more events.”

Change in the community

As a resident of Glenwood for the past 15 years, Brenda Torres has watched her neighborhood decline when many of the properties turned into rental homes. It had gotten to the point where she was afraid to walk her dog even during the day. Now, with positive things like the HIVE in the neighborhood, there is communication among residents and Torres feels more comfortable leaving her house.

“People want to regroup the community which was lost for the longest time,” said Torres, 41, who also volunteers at the HIVE. “It’s moving along which is great. African Americans, Hispanics, you name it, they all live [in Glenwood]. It’s cool to have these people come in, trying to get more involved, fixing things and helping out.”

Although the HIVE has only been open for five months, small differences have already been made in the lives of people who have attended events at the HIVE.

“So far we have had so many people come through and so many events, and I think that speaks to the need in the community,” Bratz said.

The organizations and businesses housed in the HIVE are seeing the effects as well.

“Collaboration is happening,” Livingstone said. “And there’s lots of potential for it to keep on happening, which is necessary to strengthen our communities in Greensboro. And I think there’s lots of great potential for the older generations and the younger generations to merge and collaborate more at the HIVE. I’ve already seen it happen a lot.”

Contact Sue Edelberg at suethatswho@gmail.com.

By Jeri Rowe | News & Record

Pat Callair wants us to learn a thing — or two — from a gangbanger named Bone.

She’s brought his words and work to places across Greensboro because she knows we can’t arrest ourselves out of the gang problem worrying our city.

In South Carolina, she’s worked with death row inmates as a social worker. Today in Greensboro, she works with at-risk kids and teenagers as a therapist. She knows the terrain.

But she also knows the possibilities. And she wants something done.

“The problem is bigger than a bunch of kids acting bad,” Callair, who teaches at Bennett College, told me Monday. “It’s about social justice and race and poverty. There’s a lot going on, and it’s affecting the kids in our community. It’s affecting everyone in our community.”

You see that in Bone’s documentary, “Bastards of the Party.” It’s a strong piece of work.

Bone is Cle Sloan, a longtime gang member turned filmmaker from Los Angeles. He joined the Athens Park Bloods at age 12. He’s now 38. He’s been shot at four times, spent time in jail and buried, by his estimation, at least 100 friends.

He talks about all that in “Bastards of the Party,” an award-winning documentary he produced with Antoine Fuqua, the director of “Training Day,” and spent nine years putting together.

He digs into the historical roots of L.A. gangs and shows how these groups arose after World War II to combat white racists and corrupt cops before they fought for black empowerment and community rights.

Out of L.A.’s black activism sprouted two gangs that have struck sadness, anger and downright fear among many in Greensboro: Bloods and Crips.

Maybe you’ve seen the graffiti. Or maybe you’ve been to a community forum, talked to your kids, or attended a funeral last year where someone not even 20 was shot down for some gang-related thing.

I’ve been to two. I don’t want to go any more.

In late August, at Greensboro’s Piedmont Cemetery, I watched a woman — really a girl, no older than 18 — bring her baby boy to see the father he’ll never know.

Like Callair, Bone offers no solutions. But he brings to the table the voices we need to hear and the problems we need to understand.

He gives the gangbangers a human face, and through interviews and historical footage, he shows how the lack of jobs, the breakdown of families and the alienation felt by people of color lead to gang violence in L.A.

Sound familiar? That’s what I heard Thursday night at the community space on Grove Street known as the HIVE.

At least 130 people came. Black and white, young and old, working class and middle class, even a church youth group and the History Club from N.C. A&T. They stood close and sat everywhere to watch “Bastards of the Party.”

Afterward, the comments flew.

A young African American woman talked about having seven of her friends killed by gangbanging, and a young African American man, a single father of two, quoted his grandmother who raised him in Hampton Homes:

“I’m going to break you of who you want to be, so you can be who you need to be.”

Our city leaders have begun to tackle our gang problem with a new gang unit, new recreation programs and a task force that will involve a constellation of churches.

But Thursday night’s discussion offered other tangible possibilities. Even if it’s simply bringing more people to the table, those conversations can help find potential solutions that can repair the lives of young men before they lie 6 feet below ground.

Consider last year’s numbers: Six teenagers — ages 16 to 19 — were killed by someone with a gun, and two teenagers — 17 and 16 — and two juveniles have been charged in connection with three unrelated homicides.

Callier will continue screening the documentary for whoever is interested. She sees the information as too important. As Bone says in his documentary, “Do something … if you only spit.”

by Staff Reporters | News & Record

A new private foundation aimed at helping neighborhood groups promote democracy will launch next week.

The Fund for Democratic Communities will open its first grant-making cycle with a news conference at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at its office at the HIVE at 1214 Grove St., Greensboro. The fund will hold a 90-minute information session for prospective grantees starting at 10 a.m. Jan. 19 at the HIVE.

The fund intends to support community-based initiatives and institutions that foster authentic democracy to make communities better places to live. Its focus areas are education, recreation, arts, housing, community health and safety, justice, humans’ relationship with the natural environment, relationships between different communities, and sustainable economic development. It will make grants, provide direct technical assistance, conduct research, and eventually produce training and community building materials to support this agenda. It is placing a special emphasis on developing non-traditional and youth leaders.

The fund, founded by local activists Marnie Thompson and Ed Whitfield, is seeking applications for $20,000 in grants the organization hopes to award in May. The fund is financed by a bequest from the estate of Thompson’s father, the late W. Hayden Thompson of Cleveland, Ohio, and organizers hope its assets will grow to $5 million by 2013. If successful, that would give the fund about $400,000 to award each year. For its first grant cycle, the fund plans to make awards ranging from a few hundred dollars to up to $10,000.

Thompson is a consultant in educational research and educational change who previously was a senior research scientist at Educational Testing Service. Whitfield, a social critic, writer and activist who works closely with the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, is the fund’s part-time executive director.

The fund’s board of directors are: Sabrina Abney, Marilyn Baird, Erica “Ricky” Bratz, Jonathan Henderson, Stephen Johnson, Muktha Jost, Kyle Lambelet, Nicole Lambelet, Logie Meachum, Isabell Moore, Steve Sumerford and Joya Wesley.

More information: 336-617-5329 or http://www.f4dc.org.

by Jordon Green for Yes! Weekly

The punks, anarchists, opt-outers and scenesters are jammed into the Hive community center, a nondescript room with inside walls of brick and cinderblock painted white – an address that once housed the infamous Game Time Lounge, a club reputed to accommodate open drug use and discrete prostitution.

Mike Welch, a 20-year-old Greensboro resident with a shock of dirty blond hair and an open, boyish smile, stands about a head above the rest of the crowd. Tonight will be his first time seeing Zegota, an activist hardcore band founded in Greensboro in 1997 whose conscientiously non-commercial approach and trans-Atlantic residency has limited its appearances and commensurately driven up its appeal.

Welch ordered the band’s 2001 release, Namasté, from CrimethInc., a label known as much for its shadowy manifestoes on lifestyle anarchism as its discography. Not until much later did he realize that the band was from Greensboro.

A handwritten “no alcohol” sign on lined notebook paper is placed on the table near the door for this all-ages show. The clack of a skateboard sounds behind the venue in the parking lot, which is nearly full from Glenwood Avenue to McCormick Street. Out front on Grove Street, another skateboarder squats in front of a nearby storefront with his board and his dog. Clots of people spill into the narrow street visiting and carrying on animated conversations. It’s the biggest turnout for a do-it-yourself punk show in Greensboro anybody can remember in recent years.

Later, as des_ark wraps up a searing, soul-funneling set of loud blues-inflected punk, singer and guitarist Aimee Argote exhorts the crowd: “Zegota is an amazing, fantastic band, but when you are dancing think about the violence that happens to women every second of every day. When you are dancing, please do not hit women.”

Jon Ridenour straps on his guitar. He has a fine, noble face, and wavy blond hair that gives him a slight resemblance to Jerry Lee Lewis and turns into a mass of wet curls when he goes into full sweat. His brother, Will, with shoulder-length blond hair, a light beard and glasses, settles in behind the drum kit. Bass player Mark Dixon and the singer, who goes by the name Moe, set up equipment and chat on stage left.

Will Ridenour is a familiar figure in the Greensboro scene as the drummer for indie rock band Dawn Chorus [YES! Weekly staff writer Amy Kingsley is also a member] and a player of the African stringed instrument the kora. His brother joined Catharsis, a band with similar politics and sonic density, on tour in Europe in 1999, fathered a child and subsequently relocated to Sweden for good. The last time Zegota played in Greensboro, the band members concur, was 2001, the year al-Qaida flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and George W. Bush launched the Global War On Terror. In 2004, they played in Winston-Salem and Carrboro.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to say this,” Jon Ridenour says. “Our band’s called Zegota. We come from Greensboro, North Carolina.” He and his bandmates smile, happy to be surrounded by friends. Their ease and relaxation between songs contrasts sharply with the intensity of their songs.

The first song builds like a reawakening volcano with molten rock slowly but surely liquefying. The bass and drums are locked into a repeated groove that suggests the funk-inflected hardcore of the late 1980s Dischord scene in Washington, DC. The guitar begins subtly with just a couple muted notes and grows with layers of sonic energy. Moe thrashes his body and knocks the mic off its stand. Then he screams in a manner so primal that joy and agony merge into each other in a cathartic release. The crowd surges forward, rocking. The song drops back down into a tightly controlled funk and explodes again. The pungent smell of sweat pervades the room and Moe bends over, almost horizontal and thrusts his hands toward the floor as if to shoot lightning from his fingertips.

This is the final night of an East Coast tour that has featured 10 performances in as many days. They’ve played in a church and a beer-soaked basement with insulation falling out of the ceiling, never in a bar or commercial nightclub.

Dixon has remarked in an interview earlier in the evening that the Hive is a significant place to end this particular run. Several of the band members’ friends have had a hand in getting it organized.

“Greensboro has this incredible space,” he says. “This is a special event. To me, I feel especially embraced by Greensboro. To have a show in a place that doesn’t ordinarily do shows and has been doing some really rad work is something else.”

To comment on this story, e-mail Jordan Green at jordan@yesweekly.com.

by Melde Rutledge | Carolina Peacemaker

A key component in revitalizing the Glenwood Neighborhood centers around a two-block corridor on Grove Street, members of the Greater Glenwood Neighborhood Association (GGNA) told Greensboro City Council on Nov. 27.

“Grove Street was a little eye sore that we felt like was a part that we needed to start and get some activity going there, and kind of turn the neighborhood around,” said Cheryl Small, co-chairwoman of the Grove Street Revitalization Task Force.

Grove Street is located within the Glenwood Neighborhood. The road stretches from Coliseum Boulevard and ends eastward at Lexington Avenue.

The task force is a subcommittee of the GGNA, which in 2006 began creating a vision for Grove Street with technical assistance from the Institute of Cultural Affairs.

Their vision process incorporated several meetings and workshops–culminating in Spring 2007 with the presentation of the “Groove on Grove” concept that was presented to the neighborhood. City Council members had the opportunity to view the presentation Tuesday morning during their Nov. 27 briefing.

The main goals for the “Groove on Grove” concept is to thwart crime, refurbish its image and “invite new exciting businesses” to Grove Street, according to the current draft of the Glenwood Neighborhood Plan.

“It is a gateway to downtown,” said Early Scarbrough, who also co-chairs the Grove Street task force.

Scarbrough said that the biggest concern for Grove Street was promoting safety in the area. She noted that more lighting could be used in the vicinity. A police substation in the locale was also put on the table.

The Glenwood Neighborhood has approximately twice the per capita crime rate compared to the entire city’s crime rate average.

“We desperately, desperately need something in that area,” Small said. “We have business owners or people that own the buildings that are willing to donate the space for a substation.”

Scarbrough suggested that police officers could come and park their patrol vehicles in the area while doing their paperwork to increase police visibility.

This past October, residents walked a peaceful march down Grove and McCormick Streets in response to a shooting on Oct. 11 that resulted in the death of a man who was leaving the Andy’s Pantry Food Mart at 1301 Grove St.

Small said that the GGNA sees the convenience store as a serious dilemma in the community.

“As a neighborhood association, we don’t want to point fingers and say this person needs to go or this person doesn’t need to go,” she said, “but I just want to say they have enough nuisances and abatement on that property to close them down.

“I mean, its been going on for 15 years. We desperately need help closing that place down.”

So far, improvements to sidewalks have been made, and a section of road on Grove Street has been changed from a one-way street to two-way traffic.

The Hive community center and Square One musical venue has opened, and a new martial arts studio and print shop are scheduled to open.

In addition, students from UNC Greensboro have been involved in drawing murals on area buildings, and every other Saturday the GGNA holds a people’s market on Grove Street where they sell their own goods.

“I want to encourage you to keep this going,” said City Council member Goldie Wells. Wells was the only City Council member present during the presentation who will be on the new City Council that will be sworn in on Dec. 4.

“This will improve our city,” she added about the work being done in the Glenwood Neighborhood. “We’re trying to do the same thing in Northeast Greensboro, in our community.”

by Amy Kingsley in Yes! Weekly

For years now a motley tribe of progressives has been scouring Greensboro’s supply of industrial buildings, looking for one that might jibe with their plans for a space where activists could share ideas and resources.

They looked at the old Rose Spa, which was too big and expensive. For a while the group settled above the Flying Anvil, but it closed when the club folded.

Now, after drifting for nearly a year, the community space – newly christened the Hive – has found a home in a Glenwood business district struggling to revitalize.

“That was actually a really valuable time,” Jonathan Henderson said. “We spent those months trying to get really clear about a theme for the space.”

The Hive will be an amalgam of private offices, organizations and performance space. From a glass door on Grove Street, you enter a wide common area of white walls and neutral carpet with a small stage in the back. Turn left down a hallway and you’ll find a series of wood-paneled offices, most of which are already earmarked. A nutritionist, massage therapist and a couple nonprofit organizations have already committed to the Hive, and they will move in as soon as renovations are complete.

The founders of the space set market rates for the offices, and then determined how much each renter could pay. Those willing to subsidize their poorer neighbors have volunteered to have a few extra dollars tacked onto their monthly rent, said Liz Seymour. Organizers decided to focus on finding the right mix of renters, not necessarily ones able to pay the most money.

“The space will be kind of an incubator environment,” Henderson said. “It will be a place where people who are working for community empowerment can learn together and work together.”

It will also be a venue for performances, film screenings, lectures, meetings and other events that might otherwise struggle to find a site.

“Right now if someone comes into town to speak on, say, the political situation in Mexico,” Seymour said, “it’s always a scramble to find a space. This will be that space.”

During the day, the doors will be open to anyone who wants to take advantage of a small library or use the internet. Rotating Hive volunteers will staff a small office in the back, keeping an eye on the front and steering newcomers toward resources and information. The Hive itself is meant to be a resource for progressive groups – particularly the smaller ones.

“This won’t be sort of a punk show space,” Seymour said. “It won’t be a commercial space. It’s not the place to set up your Amway distributorship. It’s not a place for political party politics, and it’s not a place for larger nonprofits – not that they don’t do a lot of good – but we’re really encouraging a grassroots kind of participation.”

Bike Me, a bicycle collective that’s been floating around Greensboro for years, is one of the organizations eager to utilize the new space. The Fund for Democratic Communities, a brand new group, and a Greensboro chapter of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee are renting offices in the Hive.

The last tenant moved out during the first weekend in October, and since he left, the Hive volunteers have spruced up the joint with some intensive cleaning and a new coat of paint. On Oct. 13, the Hive hosted its first big event, a fundraising banquet for Food Not Bombs, a charity that cooks meals for the homeless from donated food. Two volunteers swept out the main space last Tuesday in preparation for the weekend’s event.

In keeping with the Hive’s focus on community, Seymour and others have reached out to the Glenwood Neighborhood Association and the other businesses on the block. Several collaborations are in different stages of development, and the end result of all these nascent alliances may look very different than the white-walled space the Hive is today.

“It is probably worth making clear that this is a building process,” Henderson said. “Today we’re really working on the offices, but once those are finished, we can really focus in the rest of the space.”