Straw Into Gold celebrates Rosa ‘Malikia’ Johnson, the woman who braided Stevie Wonder’s hair
by Michaela Ratliff | pg. 10
BUSINESS
PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com
PUBLISHER EMERITUS
Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com
OF COUNSEL
Jonathan Jones
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR
Sayaka Matsuoka sayaka@triad-city-beat.com
CITYBEAT REPORTER
Gale Melcher gale@triad-city-beat.com
Here I am, living the dream.
SALES
KEY ACCOUNTS
Chris Rudd chris@triad-city-beat.com
AD MANAGER
Noah Kirby noah@triad-city-beat.com
CONTRIBUTORS
Carolyn de Berry, John Cole, Owens Daniels, James Douglas, Michelle Everette, Luis H. Garay, Destiniee Jaram, Kaitlynn Havens, Jordan Howse, Matt Jones, Autumn Karen, Michaela Ratliff, Jen Sorensen, Todd Turner
WEBMASTER Sam LeBlanc
ART
ART DIRECTOR Charlie Marion charlie@triad-city-beat.com
COVER:
Rosa Malikia Johnson
Design by Charlie Marion
I’m all alone, in a perfectly adequate hotel room, having just finished a modest dinner (perfectly adequate) in the hotel bar and now sitting at the desk in my room, typing away on whatever subject I see fit to commit to newsprint.
I’ve had since I was very young, the kinds of things that knock you on your ass when you take it in all at once.
by Brian ClareyBut it’s all a lie. I’m not really a writer, not anymore, though I like to think I can still arrange the alphabet in a pleasing enough way that it’s worth reading. The truth is that I don’t write that much anymore; I spend much more of my time planning, pontificating, coaching and doing math than that one thing I wanted to do more than anything else when I was first making my way.
I still write stuff, mind you. I write scripts for presentations and marketing plans and so many emails with so many exclamation points — not too many! But I don’t get to write the kinds of things that scratch the itch
I had it once, you know: I was just a writer, with a weekly column and a bunch of editors who took my pitches, years of knitting stories from string I gathered myself and innumerable hotel-room nights with nothing but me and my laptop and a pot of free coffee, typing my way through to the end.
I would say I didn’t know how good I had it, but that would also be a lie. I had dreamed of being just a writer since I was a kid. It took me 10 years to be able to earn enough through my journalism to quit the restaurant business, and another two to bring my freelance career to life. Professionally, it was everything I had ever wanted. Until I wanted more. And now I dream of less.
Next month I’ll be doing some real reporting — the sports desk, not the consequential stuff, the stuff that forever changes everyone who reads it. But it’s enough, for now.
I would say I didn’t know how good I had it, but that would also be a lie.
THURSDAY Feb. 2
The Need for Speed: Soap Box Derby Racing in High Point exhibition @ High Point Museum (HP) 10 a.m.
Explore the history of soap box derby racing in High Point by viewing objects and photographs from the 1950s. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.
Just Mercy @ Elberson Fine Arts Center (W-S) 7 p.m.
by MICHAELA RATLIFF
2023 Triad Go Red for Women Luncheon @ High Point Country Club (HP) 11:30 a.m. On National Wear Red Day, dress in your best red outfit and join the American Heart Association for the 2023 Triad Go Red for Women Luncheon. The event will include a silent purse-onalities auction, a heart-healthy lunch and learning opportunities about the risks of heart disease and preventing it. Reserve your table at triadgored.heart.org
Doggy Date Night @ Bull City Ciderworks (GSO) 5 p.m.
BK Market (Local Vendor Pop-Up) @ The Brewer’s Kettle (HP) 2 p.m.
The Brewer’s Kettle is back with another local vendor pop-up. Shop for handcrafted gifts from local artisans before enjoying a variety of beer, wine and cigars. Find more information on the event page on Facebook.
Love Notes @ Greensboro Project Space (GSO) 6 p.m.
RiverRun International Film Festival, in partnership with Wake Forest University’s Face to Face Speaker Forum, presents a free screening of Just Mercy The film, based on the book by Bryan Stevenson, stars Jamie Foxx as Walter McMillian and Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson, a young defense attorney representing poor people on death row in the South. Visit riverrunfilm.com/just-mercy for more information.
FRIDAY Feb. 3
Black Business Summit @ Enterprise Conference and Event Center (W-S) 8:30 a.m.
Bull City Ciderworks and All Pets Considered are hosting a Doggy Date Night for you to show love to your pet. Mocktail tastings of Nulo bone broth will be available for your dog, with giveaways and chances to win subscription boxes for you. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.
SATURDAY Feb. 4
Wristband @ Joymongers Brewing Co. (GSO) 7:30 p.m.
JOYEMOVEMENT is excited to premiere their newest live dance performance project Love Notes. Love Notes, choreographed by JOYEMOVEMENT founder Alexandra Joye Warren in collaboration with poet Lavinia Jackson and others, explores human connection through movement. Purchase tickets on Eventbrite
Book Lovers Social @ Greensboro Public Library (GSO) 6:30 p.m.
Wristband invites you to dance along to their covers of classic rock and roll songs from the 60s and 70s.
Join the Greensboro Public Library, fellow book lovers and Jamila Minnicks, author of fiction novel Moonrise Over New Jessup, for the 14th Annual Book Lovers Social. Enjoy refreshments while learning more about the library’s top reads of 2022. Register to attend in person by emailing Beth.Sheffield@greensboro-nc.gov or livestream from the library’s Facebook page
Black entrepreneurs working from the Enterprise Center will partner with the Winston-Salem Black Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Center of Forsyth Technical Community College and others for networking opportunities and panel discussions about funding for small businesses. Register on Eventbrite
In the Air Tonight @ R.J. Reynolds Memorial Auditorium (W-S) 7:30 p.m.
As part of its Music That Pops concert series, the Winston-Salem Symphony presents In The Air Tonight, performances of music by rock icons Genesis and Phil Collins led by guest conductor Stuart Chafetz. Purchase tickets at wssymphony. org
Every year on the last Wednesday of January, volunteers from across the country take to the streets to conduct a count of people who sleep outside.
City with Dwellings hosted this year’s Point-In-Time count for Forsyth County. Other organizations involved included Bethesda Center for the Homeless, United Way of Forsyth County, Samaritan Ministries, Veterans Affairs, City of Winston-Salem, Partners Behavioral Health Management and the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission.
The Point-In-Time count is a required activity at least every other year in order for Continuums of Care to receive federal homelessness funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Andrea Kurtz, executive director of Strategic Housing Initiatives for United Way of Forsyth County, explained this process to the crowd of volunteers gathered that evening.
“We report this data to HUD, HUD then uses this data from the whole country and reports it to Congress, and Congress uses this information to help plan how much money they’re going to invest in homeless services,” she said.
Kurtz added that across the country, homeless services have been very “helpful and meticulous” about how they invest money into programs that are best-practice oriented.
“We’ve seen Congress really respond to that,” she said.
In an interview with TCB, Kurtz said that they’re trying to get a picture of not just how many people are sleeping outside, but who they are.
“We know that’s changed a lot since COVID started,” she said.
Kurtz explained that before the pandemic, the population of people sleeping outside was mostly single adults, the number hovering between 50-80 individuals. Now
they estimate that around 250 people are sleeping outside, just from what they’ve learned through street outreach services.
John Mack, director of Outreach Services: Housing Matters for United Way, gave a quick presentation on how to respectfully interact with people sleeping outside.
“When you’re going into people’s camps, these are their homes,” Mack said.
“When someone comes to your house, what do they normally do?” he asked, raising his fist as if to tap on a door. “They knock; “Can I come in?’”
Mack instructed volunteers to approach people respectfully and announce their presence loudly. “When you go to the camps, you want to say ‘Outreach!’” Mack boomed. The respect in his voice resonated as much as his volume as he asked, “Can I have permission to come into your camp?”
If the person feels comfortable answering a few questions, volunteers can collect some information about them. As a data system administrator for the city, Laura Lama designs the survey according to HUD’s guidelines.
“Describe what you saw,” Lama said. “Describe where you saw them, what they were wearing, if they have a dog with them, just something that will help the outreach folks later this week…[who are] trying to find that person to follow up.”
Volunteers were also encouraged to ask people if they wanted to sleep somewhere warm that night.
“If you encounter somebody that wants to come in for shelter… we will make arrangements to go pick them up,” Kathleen Wiener said. Wiener is the grants and projects manager for United Way of Forsyth County.
“Just let us know where you are; we’ll come and get the person,” she said.
Volunteers were split up into groups of four to six, grabbing bags full of essentials
to pass on to people experiencing homelessness. Provided and packed by Partners Behavioral Health Management, these bright orange water-resistant bags included an aluminum blanket, socks, snacks and pop-up food cans, a first-aid kit, hand warmers, sunscreen, oral hygiene products, deodorant and more.
The night was brisk and drizzly as the group piled into Shereka Floyd’s car. Floyd is the Continuum of Care program manager for the City of Winston-Salem. Her work includes applying for funds as well as managing the programs that receive funding. Floyd said that the entire county is mapped, including hotspots where they know people might be resting. People who may be sleeping in cars are also included in the count.
“Anything that’s a place not for habitation,” Floyd said.
Volunteers’ shoes squelched up and down the muddy hills around a hotspot. One of the volunteers, Dennis Lambert, pointed out slippery spots to avoid. While driving around to other locations, volunteers encountered a parked car with what appeared to be tiny fingerprints peppering the bottom of a foggy backseat window.
Some campsites included only a few items such as a table and chairs, others had tents. Further on down the road the group came across a tent.
“Would you like to stay somewhere warm tonight?” Lambert called out, but no one responded. He dropped a bag outside the campsite for the resident to find later.
Before returning to City with Dwellings around midnight, the group encountered two more people. After one of the volunteers asked if they’d like some bags, one of the men told them that he had just gotten an apartment after previously being homeless, but that his friend Richard Beck is still unhoused.
Gesturing toward his buddy, Beck said that he had a warm place to sleep that night and until the first of February.
After that, he wasn’t so sure.
Beck seemed a bit more at ease after connecting with Floyd, who offered to send him information that could help connect him to housing. Afterwards, he and his friend followed the volunteers back to where they had parked, continuing their conversation along the way.
This piece is part of our new CityBeat that covers Greensboro and Winston-Salem city council business. CityBeat reporting content is made possible by a grant from the NC Local News Lab Fund, available to republish for free by any news outlet who cares to use it. To learn how, visit triad-citybeat.com/republish.
STUART CHAFETZ CONDUCTOR
Aaron Finley & Brook Wood Vocals / Brian Kushmaul Drums
Relive the greatest hits, including “Follow You, Follow Me,” “No Reply at All,” “One More Night,” “Two Hearts,” “Another Day in Paradise,” and the epic “In the Air Tonight.”
Sat, Feb 4 | 7:30 PM Reynolds Auditorium
Editor’s note: Interviews with individuals in this story took place in October 2022.
The conversation begins with a notable omission of “good.” The temperature hovers at about 50 degrees and Tara Roberson is starting the day with all the insulation and warmth a frayed moving blanket can provide.
“I’ve been out here for about eight months,” Roberson says. If she had the ability to charge a phone she would know the sun wouldn’t begin to warm her for many hours, that the week ahead would bring dropping temperatures at night.
She checks her appearance in the reflection of an abandoned restaurant window, cars passing by in the background, and decides against allowing a photo.
Roberson is one of roughly 500 to 700 individuals without a home at any given time in Forsyth County, which is roughly what it was pre-pandemic, according to Andrea Kurtz, executive director of strategic housing initiatives at United Way.
Prior to the pandemic, most of the unhoused found temporary sanctuary in one of the eight shelters throughout the city. As of Jan. 23 there are 468 homeless individuals — 301 sheltered, 167 unsheltered — per Jessica Lunnemann, director of Community Intake Center.
Roberson recollects that she was kicked out of her home due to mutual infidelity in her relationship and that her 3-year-old child still lives in the home in Mt. Airy.
“I just want to go home and tell him I’m sorry,” she says.
For many like Roberson, navigating life without a home is a maze of complicated municipal resources, local nonprofits and welcoming churches. One such organization is City With Dwellings, a nonprofit that supports the homeless community in Winston-Salem.
“City with Dwellings has helped me out with using computers trying to keep in contact with everybody,” Roberson says as she wipes sidewalk pebbles off her sweater sleeve. Her main goal is to find help getting out of town to be with her dad. She only has to make it to him, which happens to be over a thousand miles away in Mexico.
“A lot of folks are relying on their personal network of friends and family to take
In Winston-Salem, the cycle to getting off the streets and into a home is long and windingL-R: Sisco King, Ray Gentry, Danny Dailey sit together PHOTO BY JP POWELL
them in,” Kurtz explains.
However, when people move back in with their family, Kurtz says sometimes there needs to be mediation as there isn’t clarity of roles in a new mixed household. Currently there aren’t enough mediators in the city and the Winston-Salem Continuum of Care is working to try to increase their numbers. Furthermore, landlords aren’t often amenable to overcrowding or having people not on the lease living in the home for indeterminate amounts of time. This can push people to live in hotels which are more expensive and use resources faster as reported previously by Triad City Beat
Five blocks away, Ray Gentry is waking up on a concrete bench near the bus station and, although he has family nearby, he feels alone.
“I ain’t got nowhere to go, my back against the wall, I’m not gonna lay up on my daughters or my children,” he said.
Gentry speaks in a kindhearted tone, telling the group around him about his two daughters and six granddaughters. He grins when he says his granddaughters love their Paw Paw. He admits he’s made both good and bad choices throughout his life. Without a stable place to stay he says he can’t work if he can’t sleep. Like others experiencing homelessness, Gentry is someone whom the safety net has failed to catch.
Since 2006, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County has adopted a housing-first approach, at least on paper, through its Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness and again in 2018 with its Strategic Plan to End Homelessness. These two plans form an overarching framework within Forsyth County, meant to guide the initiatives that help when people find themselves in a housing crisis.
“Housing first” is noted by many advocates to be a more effective approach to helping people experiencing homelessness. Andrea Kurtz notes that research shows whether a person has substance use, mental health, or financial problems, anything that is done for a person is more cost effective when services are delivered to someone who is housed when compared to someone who is homeless.
Gentry puts on a balaclava and his voice softens as he reminisces.
“I slept out here last night, and this lady saw me shivering and she came out here and brought me a blanket and a pillow,” he says. “You know what that means to me?”
“We’re sleeping out here on concrete,” said Danny Dailey, who had been homeless for a year back in October. “We’re out here; we’re people too.”
Dailey knows intimately the difficult process of finding housing. He told TCB that he moved here from Wilmington for a change.
“I’ve done everything I need to do to get housing and right now I’m on a waiting list,” he said. “Talking about housing, but wintertime [is] about to come up. I’m tired of this concrete. If I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do, meet all your criteria, why can’t
The process for Dailey to get off the street begins like any governmental process: by finding a specific person at a precise location to fill out a form with a complex acronym title. In this case it is the five-page VI-SPDAT form. The “Vulnerability Index-Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool’’ turns a person into a number among a prioritized list for housing. It asks personal questions that often don’t get answered until someone has been in a shelter or been followed by an outreach member for a few weeks so rapport can be built. This includes topics such as substance use, sexual assault, suicide, encounters with law enforcement, being assaulted and health conditions.
Instead, City with Dwellings takes a trauma-informed approach.
“They ask all of the same questions; to me it’s dredging that up again,” says Lea Thullberry, director of diversion and outreach for City with Dwellings. Their approach recognizes that people have traumatic events in their life and that those events affect their behaviors and responses. This understanding helps prevent from kicking someone while they are down, by assuming, more often than not, that a
person has a history of trauma. The continuum of care is in the process of training more individuals to implement this trauma informed approach.
While the lack of shelter space is an issue for those needing roofs over their heads, so much of houselessness can be attributed to the lack of affordable housing.
“Some of it is our shelter capacity has changed over the course of the pandemic and we’re just not able to meet people’s need for emergency shelter in the way that we had before the pandemic,” Kurtz said. “But the other thing that we’re seeing is because of the housing, how tight the housing market is, we’re just not able to find housing.”
Evictions have been noted as being a primary cause for anywhere from 14-33 percent of homelessness, and roughly half of those living in shelters have been evicted in the prior five years, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
Kurtz notes that an eviction done correctly can take a couple months, involving notice served in a variety of ways, potential court appearances and legal representation or appeals. However, volunteers with Housing Justice Now say that illegal evictions are on the rise and can range from changing the locks to residents being strong-armed out of their homes, often hotels. Though eviction data is public record, a request for evictions filed in Forsyth was not received as of press time. Virginia as a comparison has had 3,031 evictions filed in the last reported week ending Jan. 1, compared to 489 in 2022 and 191 in 2021 with data from Eviction Lab.
Dan Rose, a volunteer with Housing Justice Now, notes the difficulty of tracking illegal evictions is because there is no formalized paperwork, and often those who are illegally evicted do not have the resources to put up a challenge. Even if they did make it to court, less than 10 percent of individuals who are evicted are able to have legal representation in Forsyth County according to Displaced in America. That’s compared to landlords who have more ready access to attorneys.
According to Thullbery, there was a lot of confusion around rent freezes during the pandemic.
Initially, the federal government enacted a national freeze on evictions. Then, when the order expired, it was up to individual states to continue freezes. In North Carolina, an order by former NC Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley put a halt on evictions through June 2020. Then, in Sept. 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the unprecedented move of temporarily halting evictions from Sept 2020 through Dec 31, 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19. This was later extended separately by congress and President Biden, however, those who wanted to use the CDC eviction moratorium were required to fill out confusing paperwork that still left some people without housing. Others believed they wouldn’t have to pay rent during the moratoriums resulting in an uptick in evictions after the moratorium was lifted.
“People didn’t do well with that, and now they’re just being evicted, evicted, evicted,” Thullbery says.
Ray Gentry sits on the wall by the bus station as he asks a passing friend for his cigarette lighter. Gentry, who was evicted two weeks prior, is all too familiar with a negative roommate situation.
Gentry says he didn’t know his roommate was taking his money because he was working 11 hours a day.
“[H]e wouldn’t pay his part of the bill, but I would give him my money,” Gentry explained.
Later on, Gentry found out his roommate used his portion of the rent to purchase drugs, which he holds in great disdain.
“At my age I can’t afford to [use drugs],” he said, “cause the wrong batch of ice will kill me, the wrong batch of meth will kill me.”
His explanation did not hold sway with the property owner.
“The landlord showed up and told me to kick rocks,” he says.
Acommunal sandwich is passed between the small gathering of friends.
“The homeless do not do for themselves, they will give you the shirt off they back, because we don’t have nothing, but we will give you what we got,” Dailey said.
“I’m looking out for my boy,” adds Gentry as he continues to pass the sandwich down the line.
Gentry continues, “That’s my family right here, out here on the street, that’s my family all these, we eat together, sleep together.”
Dailey points to the surrounding high-rises while Gentry chews the sandwich.
“Same way you build these $1,500 condos, build something for us too,” he says.
Difficulty in finding affordable housing is not unique to Winston-Salem. According to the housing dashboard presented to Winston-Salem City Council in August 2022, there were 215 affordable units approved for building with an additional 91 affordable units approved by the end of the year, aiming for an annual goal of 750.
Dan Rose from Housing Justice Now says the approvals are just a “drop in the bucket” in terms of needs. According to a 2018 study, Winston-Salem/Forsyth county lacked 16,244 affordable lower-income housing units.
Kurtz said that “many of the apartment complexes are turning over, because they’re being used as investment properties.”
She explains how out-of-town investors extract rent from residents, then resell properties up to three or four times in a year. Sometimes the new owners no longer take vouchers, and established long-term stable people who use them become stripped of their ability to stay.
On Sept. 19 2022, the sale of city-owned lots in the Happy Hills neighborhood to the Arts Based School was postponed after pushback from the community. Ultimately the school withdrew their request after the community expressed desire for affordable housing to be built on those lots.
About a month earlier, city council members debated whether or not to fund yet another housing study for the city.
During an Aug. 8 council meeting, Councilmember Robert Clark posed the question: “How many housing studies does it take to build an apartment?”
Gentry chimes in as he finishes his bite of the egg sandwich. He shares Councilmember Clark’s sentiments of the juxtaposition of words and actions when it comes to a lack of affordable housing being built.
“That’s not what they’re doing, they’re just talking,” he said in a frustrated tone.
Charlotte – The public is invited to a meeting with the N.C. Department of Transportation this month to discuss the proposed extension of Clanton Road from Donald Ross Road to Wilkinson Boulevard in Charlotte.
The proposed project, State Transportation Improvement Program Project No. P-5730, would construct a grade separation over the Norfolk Southern rail line, and close the existing at-grade crossing on Donald Ross Road. It’s intended to address traffic and safety concerns and improve road and multimodal connections throughout the area.
Project details, including maps of the proposal, can be found on the NCDOT project web page at https://publicinput.com/ clantonrd-ext.
The meeting will be held 5-7 p.m. February 16th at the American Legion at 1940 Donald Ross Road, Charlotte, NC 28208. Interested residents can drop in any time to learn more about the proposal, have questions answered and talk with NCDOT representatives. There will not be a formal presentation.
People may also submit comments by phone, email or mail by March 3rd.
For more information, contact NCDOT Rail Division Project Engineer Greg Blakeney at 919-707-4717; gmblakeney@ ncdot.gov; or 1553 Mail Service Center in Raleigh
NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled people who wish to participate in this workshop. Anyone requiring special services should contact Simone Robinson, Environmental Analysis Unit, at 1598 Mail Service Center in Raleigh; 919-707-6062; or strobinson1@ncdot.gov as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.
Those who do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior by calling 1-800-481-6494.
Aquellas personas no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan llamando al 1-800-481-6494.
Here we go again.
One cannot be blamed for avoiding the footage of the murderous beating issued to Memphis barber Tyre Nichols by members of that city’s elite police unit. His own mother couldn’t. It’s brutal and unforgiving, one of the worst examples of Death by Cop to arise in the body-camera era.
We’ve seen it so many times before. But this go-round, a couple things are different.
For one, the cops who murdered Nichols are Black. This is not as significant as it seems on the surface. As the Nichols’ family lawyer Benjamin Crump said, the race of the police officers does not matter as much as the race of the victim, which is invariably Black — or, at least, not-white.
In this case, police body-camera footage of the murder came out relatively quickly: three full weeks after it happened, which is outrageous, but a quicker turnaround than we usually get at times like this. It took almost three months for us to see footage of Marcus Smith’s death at the hands of Greensboro police. And we didn’t know about the killing of John Neville at the Forsyth County Jail until six months after it happened; footage came months after that.
And while the initial police press release about the abduction of Nichols is most noteworthy for its sensational omission of the twostage beating that officers laid on him, release of the video was not prefaced by a police spokesmodel
framing the footage in a way favorable to the department at a press conference. Off the bat, it seems, Memphis officials knew just how bad this looked, if not necessarily how bad it actually is. What the people heard in advance was less public relations and more of a plea not to burn the whole city down, and to mitigate the anticipated demonstrations which came, this time, as surely as the rain.
Also: Every cop on the scene that night has been taken off the street for now. Six from the Memphis Police Department were suspended and charged with second-degree murder; two officers with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department were “relieved of duty” on Monday after their involvement that night was revealed.
Here the race of the officers does seem relevant. Would they have been charged with murder if they were white?
When the smoke clears, we will see if they become wandering cops, staying in law enforcement to terrorize people in a new location, or if their crimes will follow them like they would anyone else. We have not yet heard from the Blue Lives Matter folks in this case. Care to take a guess as to why that is?
We gather from all this that the Memphis PD is working hard to make it seem like this time is different. That, we suppose, is something. But whether any real change results from the violent, excruciating death of Tyre Nichols remains to be seen.
The race of the police officers does not matter as much as the race of the victim.
If Stevie Wonder’s hair appointment was at 5 p.m., Rosa “Malikia” Johnson wouldn’t see him until midnight.
“He was always late; bless his heart,” Johnson says while fondly remembering Wonder’s quirky habits.
He also kept a keyboard in tow, constantly working on new music while Johnson braided his hair.
Her work is seen on the cover of Wonder’s 1980 album Hotter Than July, where he dons collarbone-length braids, the ends of which are decorated with beads of various shapes in many tones of red and yellow, reminiscent of the summer heat.
“You’ve seen her work, now, know her name,” is what Matema Hadi says about her mother, known as the “Queen Mother of Braids.”
Johnson, in partnership with Hadi’s event company Forever Nubian Productions, is hosting Straw Into Gold, an exhibition currently on display at Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts in Winston-Salem featuring more than 100 photographs, artifacts and three-dimensional objects created or collected throughout Johnson’s career from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Despite the grand braiding designs seen in the photographs, Johnson couldn’t do those elaborate twists at first.
“I didn’t grow up doing it [braids],” she says. “My family did my hair until I was about 14.”
Fast forward to the 1970s, when Johnson and her four children were living in Hollywood with singer Abbey Lincoln. Superstars, including comedian Redd Foxx, were in and out, with Johnson braiding their hair to pass the time when they visited. She’d travel to Oakland to show her friends her improving work. Eventually her braids got smaller, her styles became neater and her parts became crisper. With some encouragement from Lincoln, Johnson turned her passion into a paycheck.
“Braiding became a way to raise my children,” Johnson says.
Her star-studded social circle included actress Beah Richards, who convinced her to teach braiding classes for even more income. In the exhibit, hand-drawn diagrams from her time teaching classes at Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center are on display, with Johnson showing her students how to plan a design on paper before physically practicing it. She favored balance and form in hairstyles.
“If they could draw a design, they could part it. If they could part it, they could braid it,” Johnson says.
hairstyles. She realized the checkerboard scores and other patterns seen in the hair of ancient African art paralleled braids and tried to duplicate the designs she saw. Miriam Makeba, a South African singer, showed her how to elevate her designs by adding extensions made of human hair, fibers and other materials. Johnson is recognized for her detailed beadwork seen on Cicely Tyson and Nina Simone, but there was one singer she really yearned to style.
“If anybody knows Stevie Wonder, tell him Malikia will braid his hair for free,” she told anyone who would listen.
Word spread to Milton Hardaway, Wonder’s older brother, who gave Johnson a call. Wonder was seeking a braider whose work would last through traveling, sweating on stage and other factors important to him. After an initial consultation, Wonder returned the following Saturday for an appointment.
According to Johnson, Wonder would spend close to $400 on the beads for his hair alone.
“We used the most precious beads for Stevie, of course,” Johnson blushes.
Delighted with her work, Wonder invited Johnson to join his travel crew, attending the 1983 Grammy Awards, Wonder’s 1984 European tour and other events. These passes are also seen in the exhibit. She traveled to his home in New Jersey where she met his daughter Aisha Morris, the inspiration for his single, “Isn’t She Lovely,” and braided her hair, too.
According to Hadi, a standout piece by Johnson is “Skyed Boat to Freedom,” which juxtaposes parts of African and Black-American culture. The base of the piece is the Golden Stool, used by Ashanti royalty and is a symbol of power. On top of the stool rests a boat, representative of the vehicles used during the Transatlantic slave trade. In the center sits the Adrinkra symbol Gye Nyame, meaning “omnipotence and supremacy of God.” From each end of the boat dangles strings of gorgeous crystal beads and jewels like raw jade and amber, serving as the spirits of those who refused enslavement by jumping or died during transport. On top of the boat are four glasses, the outside of which are decorated with antebellum-era blackface images; however, from each cup extends a fancily-dressed Black Barbie doll with an elaborate, twisted hairstyle decorated with colorful thread. The dolls represent symbols of perseverance, literally standing tall despite the sordid history from which they emerge.
“Those dolls represent the resilience of Black women by wearing our hair and embracing our beauty and will to survive,” Hadi says.
Hadi recollects growing up and spending time with her mother at the hair salons she owned, one being the Pickaninny Cornrowing Company in LA. Johnson purposely chose the name to combat negative stereotypes associated with the word pickaninny, a racial slur for Black children. Despite how they arrived, each customer left the shop beaded, braided and beautiful. Laughter filled the air as customers and stylists shared stories. Local artisans brought fabric, jewelry and food to sell. Pine-scented incense smoke wafted through the air as blues and soul music played on the radio.
“It was definitely a whole vibe,” Hadi says.
Johnson relocated to Winston-Salem nearly 20 years ago at the request of her aunt, poet Maya Angelou. Hadi joined her a decade later. Together, the two collaborate on hosting what Hadi calls “Afro-chic events that highlight Black people from the African diaspora in film, music and art,” explaining how African history has and continues to inspire Black-American culture. Johnson takes pride in her collection, and she’s especially grateful to be able to tell her own story and share it with the public.
“I’m happy I’m able to share photographs, diagrams and slides of the work I’ve done from the 70’s until now,” Johnson says.
Aspider delicately taps the open air, sending vibrations instantly understood by a human lingering close by. In response, the ribcage releases a series of vibrations, and a meaningful exchange unfolds.
This is the dream that inspired interdisciplinary artist Matt Marble to write a track on his most recent album, The Living Mirror, where he plays the guitar by tapping on it, just to “dwell in that communicative texture.”
“I went to art school and music school, though I was drawn to mystery,” Marble says.“Intuition was my guide, but nobody talks about intuition in school. So I was hungry for that discourse, and the more I searched for it, the more I found it in these esoteric traditions.”
Marble can claim many accomplishments, including the Wondering Stars exhibition at Greensboro Project Space and the book Buddhist Bubblegum: Esotericism in the Creative Process of Arthur Russell, which was hailed by the New York Times as “groundbreaking work.” A five-year resident of
being “intuitive, introverted, and sensitive” in environments that hardly nurture emotions informs his artistic practices.
Greensboro with a PhD in music composition from Princeton University, Marble’s experience being “intuitive, introverted, and sensitive” in environments that hardly nurture emotions informs his artistic practices.
Eso being Greek for “within,” esotericism categorizes a broad range of movements and ideas developed over many centuries which focus on accessing truths of the mind and spirit. The teachings were global secrets that only a select few had access to for far too long. Now, with recent data showing about 5 billion people around the world use the internet, information that was once hidden has made its way into all aspects of popular culture. “These are the most developed, advanced, intelligent, experiential methods and language for talking about intuitive experience,” Marble says. “They’re how meditation and all these practices to hone intuitive presence and awareness developed.”
Intuition is highly present in dreams, where scenarios that do not follow a linear, coherent pattern often play out. Marble believes that the universal
act of interpreting ambiguous dreams can strengthen a person’s intuition and insight, and even lead to creative revelations.
“Dreams are the connecting link,” Marble says. “And the symbols associated with those dreams provide ways of translating them into different media.”
Shortly before the pandemic, a depressed Marble had a dream that changed his life: He was bitten by a black rattlesnake and told by a nurse that he needed to take care of himself. Then at sunrise the next morning, he rose full of energy and went outside for a walk, where he met an older man who asked Marble to pray with him in the middle of the street.
“Though I normally wouldn’t, I said okay,” Marble recalls. “It’s almost like that act sealed the dream, and it made me feel like I needed to pay attention to it. I struggled for another month or two and then snapped out of it. I quit smoking and drinking on the same day and then decided to make art with alcohol instead of drinking it.”
The ensuing collection of alcohol ink eggs, which look like vibrant, textured teardrops, is called Starseeds and is featured on Marble’s website. Exploring his relationship to “color and form through meditations,” each egg is a distilled union of intense thought and emotion.
These Starseeds inspired his 2021 Wondering Stars exhibition which explored visual art, music, and poetry and introduced his dream system to the public. In the beginning of the pandemic, Marble created 81 symbols based on what he had been experiencing in his dreams for years. Everyday he meditates on one of the symbols, and that system is where all of his music, art and poetry flows from.
Ultimately, Marble’s dreamwork is a tool, or a vehicle he hopes will get him closer to an unburdened moment where something powerful can bloom, an ideal known as the Mystery.
“A lot of what I do in my life and in my art is try to offer the alternative that’s deprivileged in our society, so to me that includes celebrating the Mystery, nurturing the Mystery, leaving a space for something unknow-
able,” he says. Like the language of the spider or the intentions of the rattlesnake, sometimes not knowing allows feeling to take over.
Matt Marble’s visual work can be found on his website, but his book is available to buy through Coolgrove Press and his recent album of instrumental guitar music, The Living Mirror, can be purchased via Echodelick Records or Ramble Records.
BY CAROLYN DE BERRY
LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS:
1. “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” singer
12. Headquarters of an intelligence agency, perhaps
14. Wax philosophical, say
16. Sagrada Familia architect Gaudi
17. Vote of support
18. Genre for which “Poverty’s Paradise” won the first best album category
19. Piles in the yard, perhaps
22. Bust makers
24. Mondelez International snack
25. It’s positive when it’s up
28. “Just say ___ drugs!”
29. Like a conversation with your typical five-year-old
32. Convenience store convenience
35. One sent out for information
36. Yearbook div.
37. Where jazz organist Jimmy Smith is “Back at”, according to the classic 1963 album
40. “___ Magnifique” (Cole Porter tune)
41. Get the picture
42. University that’s a lock?
46. British war vessel of WWII
48. Hero with a weak spot
50. “Anon ___” (2022 debut novel from @ DeuxMoi)
51. MSNBC legal correspondent Melber
54. Govt. securities
55. Professional equipment
59. Video games (like Street Fighter) that
require fast fingers and little nuance
60. Dampens, as many towelettes
1. Phrase on a sign for storage units or moving vans
2. Straddling
3. Pool worker
4. Military truces
5. Bit of rest
6. North American indoor sports org. claiming among its total players about 10% Iroquois
7. Web marketplace
8. Meet-___ (rom-com trope)
9. “You ___ Airplane” (of Montreal song)
10. French seasoning
11. Flexible curlers for some perms
12. Bright Eyes frontman Oberst
13. “Heat transfer coefficient” in window insulation (its inverse uses R--and its letter doesn’t seem to stand for anything)
14. Prefix before “demon” (as seen in games like Doom Eternal)
15. Some salts
20. Royal resting place
21. Separator of the Philippines and Malaysia
23. Leslie’s friend on “Parks & Rec”
26. Legendary
27. One can be used to detect asthma (nitric oxide) or lactose intolerance (hydrogen)
30. Get inquisitive
31. Pendulum path
32. Take as true
33. 1958 sci-fi movie starring Steve McQueen
34. Sushi bar order
38. Windy City public transit inits.
39. “Star Wars” villain
43. Sacrificial sites
44. Yorkshire County Cricket Club’s locale
45. “To be” in Latin
47. Sampling
49. Words before “Mood” or “Heights”
52. Word after control or escape
53. “Dance as ___ one is watching”
56. 8.5” x 11” paper size, briefly
57. “Spare me the details”
58. Owns
‘Free Spin’ — moving around with some vocab.
