THE VISION

The most powerful way to shift people’s beliefs is through lived experience.

Alicia Walters conceived of the Black Thought Project as a way to engage Black people on a deep level of what they truly think and believe to be true about themselves and the possibilities for society when their experiences are honored; when the world sees itself in relationship to Blackness. For others, the project provides a concrete way for people to have a lived experience of centering Blackness by protecting and taking in what Black people are sharing without trying to subvert or capitalize on their expression. She believes that in seeing and experiencing the world beyond the dominant narratives and beliefs we’ve been fed will we be able to create the relationships and systems to transform society.

The Team

Alicia M. Walters

  • Alicia M. Walters (she/her) is an artist, writer, facilitator, and a culture creator who Centers Blackness for individual and collective healing and transformation. She is the Centering Blackness Fellow at the Maven Collaborative. As the visionary and creator of the Black Thought Project, she has worked with communities across the U.S. to facilitate and activate over a dozen interactive Black Thought Walls in 4 cities, gathering over 1,000 responses from Black people about love, healing, visions, community, safety, media and more. She created the Black Thought Project to experiment with Centering Blackness in public space, uncovering and generating narratives that uplift Black people in all our complexity. Alicia is passionate about creating sanctuaries for Black expression where multiracial communities learn to protect, witness, and honor Blackness, and where all our bodies learn what it feels like to be free of anti-Blackness.

    Alicia is also the Creative Director of WHOLE, an audiovisual vision for abortion freedom. She has served as the Movement Building Director at Forward Together where she created Echoing Ida to raise Black women and nonbinary writers’ power, influence, presence and storytelling in the media.

    Alicia has spent fifteen years in social justice movements playing many roles -- organizer, policy advocate, strategic communicator, network-builder, community-based researcher, coach and consultant. Clients and collaborations include Maven Collaborative, All Above All, ACLU, Essie Justice Group, MediaJustice, If/When/How, Forward Together, and LightBox Collaborative among others.

    Above all, Alicia creates things people can feel and experience. When not dreaming and manifesting liberated futures, Alicia hosts retreats for folx who are ready to go deep, gardens, rollerskates, laughs, and enjoys time with her family and village.

MAVEN COLLABORATIVE

  • The Maven Collaborative team came together while working at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development. In the wake of 2020, we increasingly realized that what may have once worked was now limiting our ability to lead as women of color — at the exact moment when we needed to be bold and challenge the status quo not just of our economy, but the nonprofit sector as well. Our longtime ally and partner, Community Change, now serves as an incubator for our new organization – one that centers the experience and lives of Black women as a pathway to building an economy that works for everyone.

  • We strive to fully dismantle racial and gender inequality within our economy. We recognize that our current systems and institutions are rooted in anti-blackness, racism and sexism, and we will actively build a society that addresses the needs of those most excluded by our economic structures by unapologetically focusing on Black women. We know that centering the needs of Black women enables us to develop bold solutions to structural problems that transform our social and economic systems so that everyone can live a life of joy, dignity and respect.

    Alicia Walters is a Fellow at Maven Collaborative and has cultivated the relationships and support that make Black Thought Project possible.