Student Spotlight
Force of Gravity Sophomore Julian Crosby creates Gravity Magazine to inspire appreciation of Black culture When Julian Crosby met with officers from the National Association of Black Journalists to strategize for what would become Gravity Magazine, the first publication on campus dedicated to celebrating Black creative essence, he envisioned an outlet for Black students to share their personal narratives while also inspiring all students to better appreciate the many contributions of Black culture to society. Gravity, an online publication that debuted in August 2020, surfaced in the wake of the unrest related to the killing of George Floyd and the galvanizing impact of the Black Lives Matter movement. “While this was the timing, I didn’t want it to be a product of BLM or to be a marketing gimmick that the school got behind,” says Crosby, a Hammond Scholar, Foote Fellow, and honors student. “There are huge, huge social crusades at the foundation of what we’re doing, but I was just trying to foment some type of peace.” At its core, he explains, “Gravity is a safe space for Black art to thrive, a space where you come to draw, write, paint, or create in a very tense time. “Ever since I was little, I’ve always used art as a type of escape—like
quitting my basketball team to perform in the school musical,” he continues. “I’ve always been a writer and always been into art as a way of expressing myself and venting frustration.” He grew up in a military family—his dad was an engineer who worked on nuclear submarines— and moved regularly, all over the country before settling for a decade in Jacksonville, Florida, where Crosby went to high school. Four other siblings— one of them a twin brother—provided lots of companionship. Yet always being the “new kid in town” led to a sense of chaos and, in North Florida, being the “new Black kid,” he says, made him a target. “Harassment? Jokes? That’s daily life and just how it is being Black in America,” he says. Because the local school was “not a vibe,” his parents transferred Crosby and his brothers to a private school and drove an hour a day to take them. Things got “really heated” there, too, when Crosby made some “pretty insensitive” comments that prompted calls for his suspension by white parents and students at the school.
“I would have been,” he remembers, “except the one Black professor at the school threatened to quit her job if I was suspended.” His sanction was to write a paper about the incident. Crosby wrote eight pages— he is, after all, a writer and storyteller. “The continual changes of being around so many different types of people and experiencing all different customs and energies definitely composed me into who I am today,” he says. “It’s why I love interacting with all sorts of people and love embracing the qualities that make people different.”
He has infused that energy into Gravity. “Gravity is more of a space, a metaphorical building with blankets and warm food and nice people—a figurative home for people rather than a weapon to end systemic racism,” he explains. For the time being, he’s seeking to secure some new funding to add a printed component to the publication. “My hope is for Gravity to continue to flourish online and in print,” says Crosby. “I hope it extends beyond the campus to reach a Black student growing up in Rhode Island—or anywhere in the world—who doesn’t feel that they fit in,” he adds. “I hope it becomes a catalyzing force within people so they recognize they can write about their own narrative and use art as a form of healing and power.” Read the latest from thegravitymagazine.com.
miami.edu/magazine Spring 2021 MIAMI 15
