My Deeper Why: Lineage & Community

The story of Hope and Just BE

Content Notice: This article includes references to poverty, addiction, abuse, police violence, and depression (without detailed descriptions).

Lineage

My story begins in Sacramento, California, as the child of an eclectic CAMEO-obsessed and Depeche Mode-loving Black mother and white father whose favorite song was My Posse’ On Broadway by Sir Mix-a Lot. Growing up I always wondered what they saw in each other, as they were two very different people. My mother said it was my dad’s pop locking skills, which I was skeptical of until I saw him get down once and was like, “Okay dad, I see you!”

My mother, originally from Philadelphia, attended a newly integrated private school before she migrated to South Sacramento. She was educated and cultured, and her primary intergenerational Black responsibility was to attain at least one college degree, if not more. My dad grew up poor, migrating from Youngstown, Ohio to a majority-Black hood in Sacramento known as Oak Park during the height of the drug war. He grew up in an abusive household rife with drugs and often had to turn to the streets, neighbors, and friends for safety. Eventually he began to struggle with drug addiction himself trapped in cycles of poverty.

So, when my mom became unexpectedly pregnant by my dad at age 22 while still living with her mom and attending community college…it was not well received. My mother got kicked out of the house. My mother tells me that her and my dad tried to make it work for a while. She even helped him get his GED, however, eventually my mom decided to separate from my father as his struggles with addiction and street life became ever-present. And so begins my mother and my journey together.

Fast forward a few years later: my mother marries my white (and later revealed, Apache) stepfather who adopts me into his family. I received my first brother and sister out of this union, whom I love dearly. As the oldest sister, I was the ringleader who broke them out of baby jail (their cribs) regularly to play. Although some of my favorite childhood memories are when my mom and stepdad were married, they eventually got divorced, leading to twice-a-month dad weekends and a single-parent household once again with my mom, brother, and sister.

After the divorce, my mother launched her first business, West Coast Musicians Online, where she promoted local bands, and helped them book venues and shows. She taught herself HTML in the 90s to build her own website after fortuitously winning one of Macintosh’s earliest computers at Sacramento State College. She launched her second business, Yasa Gigs, when we moved to Davis, CA where she hosted local evening shows with live music and art vendors. Her third business focused on her love of writing, as a journalism graduate. It was an alternative hippie arts print publication called the Muse Matrix, covering everything from politics to music, and art.

My mom’s creativity was endless, but her resources were not. Right after publishing her first issue of the Muse Matrix, my mother experienced a police brutality incident in Davis that would change her and our family’s lives forever. The local Black Community felt my mom was targeted due to her writings on local politics in her magazine. The incident plunged my mother into a deep depression, a state of confusion, and fear that led her to stop operating her businesses. She never fully recovered, as she did not have the health, financial, and community resources she needed to move through such a traumatic experience.

Evolution

Growing up, I was a Big Sister Mom, supporting my mom wherever I could. My days ran from sunup to sun down, getting my siblings ready for school, attending school myself, then going to my after-school job, coming home to cook, clean, and do my homework. I was an energetic precocious kid that naturally fell into the role of secondary and sometimes primary caregiver, depending on what my mother was going through.

After high school, I made my way to UC Santa Cruz beginning a life long journey of self-discovery and healing. When I entered college, I had no idea what I was going to study. I ended up double-majoring in Sociology and Feminist Studies - learning from world-renowned professors and scholars about critical race theory, gender theory, and Black feminist thought. After graduating college (as a financial aid student) I essentially re-entered poverty. I moved into my step fathers spare room in South Sacramento with student loans and no clear path forward. With my Feminist Studies and Sociology degrees I decided to embark on a career in youth development and economic justice. I became an after-school program and summer coordinator for six months before moving to the California Bay Area where I completed an Americorps program entitled Public Allies. This led to my first salaried position and full-time nonprofit job at the Mayor’s Youth Employment and Education Program (MYEEP) in San Francisco.

At MYEEP I got to work with over 90 youth of color from all over San Francisco and beyond on leadership skills, entrepreneurship, social justice, and workforce development. Many of the youth came from similar or rougher backgrounds than me - navigating classism, racism, criminalization, gender-based violence, teen pregnancy, and immigration. As I held space for students year after year who were having to make tough choices between helping parents, siblings, or cousins in poverty or going to school - I began to think really deeply about the systems that created these economic traumas in the first place. I became both curious and restless with the nonprofit and education systems that were overwhelmed by the trauma and economic disparities youth were facing. I began to ask myself, how do we tackle the root causes of poverty? How do we become the creators of new equitable economic systems ourselves? Is this even possible!?

justbe founder's story hope henson lehman — *Mayors Youth & Education Program (MYEEP) 2013*

Purpose

In the summer of 2013 I was nursing a deep depression after a break up with my college boyfriend. I decided to attend AfroPunk for the first time with a dear friend to soak up the joy of Black creative alternative community. I ended up in the marketplace section of the festival and became immediately inspired by all the makers, jewelers, artists, and crafters. When I returned to Oakland I was on fire with creativity and began making wood earrings by hand. I decided to sell my creations at the First Friday festival in Oakland and was elated to find out that folks loved my art and were willing to pay for it. I then decided to elevate my craftsmanship with laser cutting classes at the former Tech Shop in San Francisco.

A friend from Public Allies got wind of my artistic entrepreneurial endeavors and invited me to attend his business incubator pilot that culminated in a pitch event with a grand prize of $1000. At the time, I did not consider myself a business owner, but decided to say yes to the opportunity. As I began to think through a viable business strategy for this art business, I felt excited and hopeful for the first time in a long time. I ended up winning the grand prize and decided to invest the funds into making my business official and continuing my business training. I learned how to develop an effective business plan and forecast birthing a social justice accessory brand entitled Fresh to Def Collective.

For the next year or so, I continued to run my business part time, while working full time in nonprofit youth development. After a particularly rough work experience, I was left with a decision to make; to either attend a social justice education graduate program or prioritize my art business (the dream). Through a lot of internal dialogue, journaling, tears, panic, mental gymnastics, planning, and ultimately a powerful call with a mentor - I decided to take the leap to grow Fresh to Def while working part time.

Two years into artrepreneurship, I was really struggling financially. My mom was very supportive at the time of my art business dreams in a way that made me pause. I was like, “why is she supportive of something so risky?” Then I remembered her entrepreneurship journey and how she did not get to see it through. I was struck by the realization that I was a second generation Black Woman entrepreneur. I was continuing my mom’s legacy and our ancestral journey of trying to economically self-determine for ourselves.

This intergenerational depth stayed with me as I continued to vend all over the Bay. I started to notice that the majority of vendors at most of these festivals were Black Women. We would always introduce ourselves, say hello, and chop it up for a bit before returning to our respective tables. A seed began growing in my mind about what could be possible if we all came together to build community and share resources. A dear friend at the time, decided to bring eight of us Black Women Entrepreneurs together - birthing Just BE.

For me, the founding of Just BE felt like, “yaaasss queen this is it! This is where the ancestors have led me to focus my energy, time, and passion.” I thought, damn, if only my mother could have had a community like Just BE, perhaps she could have successfully sustained her music and publication business in service to her dreams and children. I loved the brand and art I had built with Fresh to Def, but it was a stepping stone toward Just BE. When I thought about scaling a product-based business, I was not inspired in the way I was about building a community-based business.

I was deeply isolated, alone, and burned out as a product-based business owner. As an organizer and former youth development professional, I was hungry for community. This is what brought me to Just BE and continues to invigorate me today. There have been so many times I wanted to give up throughout my entrepreneurship journey. Hearing from other Black Women business owners like myself has kept me alive in a lot of ways - reminding me that I am not alone and have support, if I just ask. I have received similar feedback from Just BE members as well. Many of us are rooted in a deep knowing that we are not meant to be on this journey alone. We are not individually made, we are community-made! I am honored and impassioned to go further together for generations to come.