TransFormation Alliance members support more funding for Atlanta?s Black Arts organizations

The TransFormation Alliance works to create equitable transit oriented development, which means we concern ourselves with the holistic needs of communities impacted by transit expansion and redevelopment. This is a stance we have held from the start of our work together, when we created an Arts and Culture Issue Champion of equal standing with our Capital, Health, Climate, Racial Equity, Mobility, and Community Organizing Issue Champions. We recognize the vital role that art and cultural expression play in creating vibrant and safe places, and have adopted a full position statement on Art and Place in which we declare ?Artists, arts administrators, and creative entrepreneurs are vital contributors to Atlanta?s thriving communities and must have equitable access to quality of life amenities, including affordable housing, livable wages, sufficient healthcare, quality education, healthy environments, and reliable mobility options.? The fact that Atlanta is known globally for its Black creative culture is a testament to its power.

Recently, we have been following with great interest and concern the release of funding for Atlanta arts organizations from a COVID-19 fund run by the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta which did not include a single Black led arts organization. Let us be clear: the responsibility for the underfunding and non-funding of Black arts organizations in Atlanta lies with the arts funding sector as a whole. This is the nature of structural racism. We are grateful to our Arts and Culture Champion, Heather Infantry, for her swift work in calling out this inequitable outcome. We recognize the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta?s efforts to respond and provide more transparency around their new Equity of Opportunity framework.

The undersigned members of the TransFormation Alliance stand with Metro Atlanta?s Black arts community in demanding that statements of solidarity be followed up with real changes at the institutional and sector levels. The inequitable practices which brought about this specific outcome are long standing and well-known, and should be examined, apologized for, and ended. Black artists, arts administrators, and creative entrepreneurs deserve better, the communities they serve deserve better, and our #BelovedCommunity deserves better. We look forward to continuing this conversation.

Georgia Watch

Georgia STAND UP

Partnership for Southern Equity

Sandy Springs Together

Enterprise Community Partners

? ?Quest Community Development Organization? ?

West Atlanta Watershed Alliance

ULI Atlanta

Andy Schneggenburger

Atlanta Neighborhood
Development Partnership

Generator

ARCHI

Focused Community Strategies

Atlanta Land Trust

Southface

Atlanta Bike Coalition

? ?Fulton Co/City of Atlanta Land Bank Authority? ?

Center for Civic Innovation

Georgia Advancing Communities Together

Georgia Health Policy Center

Vox ATL

The Guild

Soccer in the Streets

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