This is the first time in my life that I’ve had the opportunity to work on a project that is truly about me. Not a client. Not a brand I built for someone else. Mine.
I’ve been on Ancestry and other genealogy platforms before. I remember creating a website back in 2004 to upload images for a family reunion in Abbeville, South Carolina. That was the beginning, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Now I’m geeking out over the information I’ve found and relatives I had no idea existed before I started this research. It’s been electric.
Where It Started
Recently, in the middle of my studies, I was able to connect my maternal great-grandparents to Lower Merion history through a census I found on Ancestry. That was the real start of it all. I am a private person by nature, so this is not something I take lightly. But I am just happy, genuinely happy, to be uncovering the truth of where I come from.
Underneath all of it, I’m still that weird gallery and museum artist who happens to love technology development. Creativity as life, in every form it takes. And lately, that has meant publishing stories that have sat dormant for years.
After dealing with a medical scare, something shifted in me. I realized there is no reason to hold back the projects and thoughts I’ve carried for years. My original plan was to pursue double doctorates. But the AI and technology world has moved so fast, and I have found so much joy in the discovery itself, that my goals have evolved. What I really want now is to develop and produce tangible references of my creativity. Things people can see, hold, visit, and use.
Enter Black Manayunk.
One of the fastest projects I have ever developed is Black Manayunk. I’m still a little surprised it only took seven days, and two of those days I did absolutely nothing.
For years, I have built brands for organizations and companies all over the world. But building something this close to home, this close to my own family, hit differently.
So what is Black Manayunk?
I have three generations of family who lived in Manayunk and attended church on Main Street my entire life, even though I never personally lived there myself. Over time, I noticed something. The historical record on Black families in Manayunk is thin. New Umbria Baptist Church, on the Roxborough Manayunk Wissahickon Historical Society’s own materials, gets barely a sentence.
New Umbria was a majority Black congregation, and its families made a real impact on that community. When I started talking to longtime residents, it became clear this project was not optional. It was necessary.
What Seven Days Built
In seven days, I created:
- The website
- The logo
- The social media pages
- Merch
- The podcast
And the trademark has already been submitted.
The next couple of months will go toward building out content to grow the platform, along with the nonprofit portion of the site. Right now, the current structure is for-profit. I built it this way intentionally, as an ecosystem for joint storytelling and history building, an educational foundation rooted in modern technology.
Come to think of it, this whole project could easily become the foundation for a doctoral thesis. If you couldn’t already tell, I am a super nerd.
Stay tuned for the curated digital marketing campaign rolling out around it.
More Than One Project
Black Manayunk is not the only thing in motion. I have others scheduled for the podcast, and I’ll be sharing those as they come together.
Outside of my traditional visual arts work, I love creating large brands with real history behind them. And with this one, I was fortunate that I didn’t have to hire anyone else to bring it to life. I built it myself, start to finish, in seven days.
This is only the beginning.
