2024-12-29T20:43:26-07:00 2023-12-31 Self 1600 Maryland Ave NE 128 Washington DC 20002 990 2023-01-01 454441783 BLACK BELT JUSTICE CENTER BLAC 2024869857 PO Box 2521 Washington DC 20013 Tracy McCurty Executive Director 2024869857 2024-12-23 1 1 Courtney Bryan P01546473 8433036216 2024-12-23 2023 2024-10-15 13:58:12Z Tracy McCurty 4323 F Street SE Washington DC 20019 809148 0 X https://www.acresofancestry.org X Public Charity 2013 DC The BBJC is a legal and advocacy nonprofit that serves Black farmers and landowners in the Black Belt region in efforts to retain and increase land ownership, stewardship, and land-based cooperatives. 5 4 1 10 0 0 886606 809148 0 0 0 0 0 0 886606 809148 0 111117 0 0 10343 159639 0 0 0 588114 366378 598457 637134 288149 172014 417416 589430 0 0 417416 589430 The mission of the organization is to equip, educate and empower black farmer initiatives and preserve the sustainability of the farm land. 0 0 175134 175134 The Black Belt Justice Center worked with ABC News Investigative Series featuring Black legacy farmers from Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, and Arkansas. Video link: https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/cracks-black-farmers-seek-debt-relief-98997655. Additionally, The BBJC worked with an NPR reporter on the numerous problems with the implementation of the debt cancellation program. The 3-part series was published on February 12th, 19th, and 26th, 2023. 252000 252000 Advocated and secured over $6.7M in debt cancellation payments under Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act for Black legacy farmers to receive debt cancellation payments authorized under Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act amounting to over $6.7M. Provided pro bono legal representation, technical assistance, and financial assistance to over 40 Black legacy farmers and heirs property land stewards. Supported over 20 traditional artisans through commissioned artworks for our permanent collection, honorariums, mutual aid, video and audio documentation, print interviews, and digital marketing. BBJC acquired artworks and/or began commissioned artworks from the following fiber artists: Jan Hollins (Atlanta, GA); Alice Beasley (Oakland, CA); Linda Asbury (Atlanta, GA); Henry Leonard (Atlanta, GA); Angela Franklin (Dakar, Senegal); Carolyn Crump (Houston, TX); Ramsess (Los Angeles, CA); Marquetta Johnson (Atlanta, GA); Lillie Singleton (Walterboro, SC); Janette Holland (Stafford, VA); Patricia Montgomery (Oakland, CA); April Anue Shipp (Detroit, MI); Georgette Sanders (McClellanville, SC); Henrietta Snype (Mount Pleasant, SC); Carren Clarke (Richmond, VA); Jimi King (Atlanta, GA); Stephen Hamilton (Boston, MA); Henry Leonard (Atlanta, GA); Antwon Ford (Mount Pleasant, SC); Gasali Adeyemo (Santa Fe, New Mexico); and Uzoma Samuel (Lagos, Nigeria). 210000 210000 Invited Speaker at the Mississippi Minority Farmers Alliance 10th Anniversary Conference in Shannon, MS on January 21, 2023. Invited Speaker for the VIP (Very Impactful People): Social Innovation & the Social Entrepreneur Speaker Series sponsored by SENSA (Stanford Social Entrepreneurial Students Association), Stanford University on November 13, 2023. In 2023, the BBJC launched the Lowcountry Sweetgrass Restoration and Human Sustainability Initiative (LSRHSI). The purpose of the LSRHSI is to develop innovative partnerships across the South Carolina Lowcountry with private landowners, conservationists, and Gullah legacy basket weavers and harvesters to repropagate wild sweetgrass and to acquire land to be held in a community land trust for the Gullah Basket weaving Community. 0 0 0 637134 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 X 5 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 X Tracy McCurty 2024869857 PO Box 2521 Washington DC 20013 Tracy McCurty Executive Director 55 0 X 131894 0 0 Dea Lott Secretary 20 X 0 0 0 Josephine Davis Chair 20 0 X 0 0 0 Stephanie Hall Treasurer 20 X 0 0 0 Taniene Meachem Officer 20 0 X 0 0 0 131894 0 0 1 0 0 0 Tracy McCurty 4323 F Street SE Washington DC 20019 Executive Director of Black Belt Justice. Runs the operations of the organization 131894 0 0 0 0 0 465317 343831 326003 809148 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 809148 0 0 0 X 111117 111117 141008 141008 8175 8175 10456 10456 9330 9330 2200 2200 0 0 0 0 168617 168617 1020 1020 63914 63914 4395 4395 46197 46197 66112 66112 328 328 597 597 3668 3668 637134 637134 0 0 417416 589430 417416 589430 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X 0 0 0 0 417416 589430 417416 589430 417416 589430 172014 0 0 0 0 0 X 0 0 0 X 169446 256807 552871 886605 809148 2674877 0 0 0 0 0 0 169446 256807 552871 886605 809148 2674877 2674877 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2674877 1 1 X RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED 0 0 0 326003 X 0 Schedule D, Part III, Line 4 Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund (AAI/BAF) is a multidisciplinary, cooperative ecosystem rooted in Black ecocultural traditions and textile arts to regenerate custodial land ownership, ecological stewardship, and food and fiber economies in the South. Channeling the collective spirit of the Freedom Quilting Bee (a textile craft cooperative founded by Black women agrarian-artisans in Alberta, Alabama in 1966), AAI re-centers ecocultural traditions in collaboration with rural communities throughout the Black Belt region through narrative storytelling, cooperative e-commerce, heritage and textile arts production, traveling exhibitions, and traditional knowledge apprenticeship programs to support agricultural regeneration and establish a sustainable funding stream to seed BAF. BAF, a community-controlled land and financial cooperative, supports the communal aspirations of securing land for landless returning generation farmers and ecopreneurs; provides non-extractive capital and legal support to heir property land stewards who desire to protect their family lands from partition sales, tax sales, foreclosures, and USDA public auctions; and creates a sustainable financial stream to revivify community wealth-building efforts throughout the Black Belt region. The Black Belt Justice Center (BBJC), a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, is the lead organization for this collective endeavor. The Griots of Cotton, Indigo, & Clay Permanent Fiber Art and Agrarian Material Culture Collection and Traveling Exhibition combines the irresistible power of art and advocacy to amplify the decades-long struggle of Black legacy farmers in their efforts to secure full debt cancellation, the return of their farmlands, and just monetary compensation from USDA. The permanent collection and traveling exhibition showcase over 200 artworks commissioned by Black fiber artists in the South Carolina Lowcountry, the Black Belt South, and African Diaspora at large. Featuring an ecosystem of over 75 master fiber artists, Griots of Cotton, Indigo, & Clay explores the innovations of ecocultural techniques in quilting, printmaking, indigo-dyeing, woodcarving and more, centering themes of reparative land justice, and broader expressions of Black cultural reclamation, including spirituality, mythology, folklore, and ecological harmony. Through reconstituting the traditional framework of the nonprofit structure to commission Black textile artists in the Black Belt South and African Diaspora to create artworks for the perpetual expansion of our permanent collection, AAI resists colonial arrangements where Black material culture and its generative wealth are commodified and severed from community. "As much as Black material culture translates into contemporary and fine art in the permanent collections of mainstream galleries and museums, Black material culture must also be stewarded by our community for our collective flight" says McCurty. Many of our commissioned fiber artworks are from Black women fiber artists-sovereign creatives who work out of their own homes or studios and share a commitment to the preservation of ancestral arts. AAI/BAF is a paradigm shift ascending towards the creation of a sustainable endowment for Black fiber artists who preserve cultural memory. As Creola Bennett Pettway, Founding Member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, instilled in us, "Lot of times, you don't need to go to a book for everything. You need some of the stuff God put in you." At this time, AAI has completed professional photoshoots for most of the 100+ artworks in our permanent collection. AAI has studied various online permanent collections for inspiration including the Studio Museum in Harlem, Souls Grown Deep Foundation, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Currently, we are using Artwork Archive, a dynamic online platform to organize our inventory and update information into an online data system. We anticipate having this work completed by the end of 2025. 1 The funds were provided for direct farmers aid for students for special collegiate projects centered around farming and nutrition. Additionally, funding was provided to students for low income assistance for real estate property projects to promote more farming. 12 31810 0 No non-cash assistance was given. Schedule I, Part I, Line 2 The organization has written documentation of the parameters of the grants and funding given to the organizations in the ways the funds can support the organization. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 11b The return was provided to all board members. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 12c The board would monitor and remain consistent with its policies and practices on a monthly basis. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 15 The process was determined by the board. Form 990, Part VI, Section C, Line 19 Form 990 is available upon request and was made available on additional websites Form 990, Part IX, Line 11g We had outside services consisting of photography, research services, design and illustration services, and quilt exhibition setup services. The organization needed additional time to gather all documentation in order to provide a transparent financial report. Unfortunately, we we unable to gather all necessary documents in time despite being granted an extension. Additionally, the officer became ill and was unable to provide all the documentation to the Accountant in order to timely file.