What are the opening hours?

Monday 10am - 5pm Tuesday 10am - 5pm Wednesday 10am - 5pm Thursday 10am - 5pm Friday 10am - 5pm

Alternate ROOTS

Home
United States
Atlanta, GA
Alternate ROOTS

Arts * Community * Activism

10/12/2026

ROOTS After Dark is the special sauce of ROOTS Week. It’s our late night open mic cabaret / dance party drenched in chaotic creativity.

We take a few photos of ROOTS After Dark, but mostly what happens at ROOTS After Dark stays at ROOTS After Dark.

Regardless of whether you are programmed into ROOTS Week with an entry in the Program Book, you have an open stage and an audience of generous souls at ROOTS After Dark. You can bring the song you are afraid to sing anywhere else. You can write a brand new poem based on that thing that happened in the afternoon, and read it at ROOTS After Dark. You can listen and try to understand all these other people at ROOTS Week by paying attention to their art.

Attention to each other’s art is a form of revolutionary love, and we work it during ROOTS After Dark.

AuaniCh’ipiri
Multiband Studios
Alice Lovelace

Carolyn Renée Morris
Kathie DeNobriga
Lisa Q Mount
Abuelita La Doña

10/08/2026

ROOTS stays guided by is founders and elders—because they keep showing us the way!

As we celebrate our 50th Anniversary as an organization, we count ourselves lucky to have so many former executive directors present at ROOTS Week. They are witnesses to our journey—the highs and the lows. We know we can call on them when we need perspective. We are so proud of the ways they continue the legacy of Alternate ROOTS in their artistry, their organizing, and their lives.

ROOTS Week 2026 had its very first Artist in Residence: Alice Lovelace, former executive director of Alternate ROOTS and current poet, performer, author, teacher, presenter, publisher, and executive director of the ArtsXChange in Atlanta. During ROOTS Week, Alice delivered a keynote on her history as a revolutionary artist, taught a writing workshop, and brought the house down with a fiery performance of her poetry. That is what we mean by LEGACY!

10/07/2026

🔒 Applications for Artistic Assistance Project Development are now closed. ⁠
⁠
🫶🏽 THANK YOU to everyone who applied. We know it is not easy writing proposals, calculating budgets, and agonizing over work samples. Every grant cycle gives us the opportunity to understand the amazing justice-infused art projects our members are involved in, and we don’t take that for granted. ⁠
⁠
💎 We continue to raise funds in order to distribute even more support to activist cultural workers all over the US South. ⁠
⁠
💌 Applicants should expect to hear about the results of the selection process by the end of November.

10/06/2026

We gather for ROOTS Week in order to struggle together, but also inspire each other with our stories and our art. These are just some of the words that uplifted us at ROOTS Week 2026.

Incredible video of ROOTS Week by Chattam of Atlantis 🌊.

A friend of mine once told me that the only thing that we ever really have to teach with, or talk about, is our lives…
-Yvette Hyater

For me, art has always been the most revolutionary thing that you can do because there is nothing more revolutionary than being yourself and then putting your view, your view of the world, out there for everyone to see. One thing I firmly believe: you can not free other people, you can only free yourself…
-Alice Lovelace

A person must open themself to the possibility of bein whole: that’s what healin’ is…
-Jo Carson, as performed by Cece Daratany

Using culture, art, history, organizing, all of the tools that they can find to save their communities, to heal the wound…
-Bob Leonard

It is the individual, once they are free, who can join in community with others, who then begin to build a communal path for others to be free—and that’s Alternate ROOTS. That is ROOTS.
-Alice Lovelace

10/05/2026

🎇 TODAY is the DEADLINE for Artistic Assistance Project Development applications. All applications must be submitted by Monday, October 5, 11:59 pm ET.

📞 Final proposal support office hours with Program Manager Elly MAB are from 5 – 6pm ET TODAY: Monday, October 5th. This is your last opportunity to receive application support from the program manager. After 6pm ET on Monday, October 5th, staff will not be available to provide support.

Register for Office Hours at 🔗 linkinbio “Office Hours Registration”

10/02/2026

🪘 ONE MORE WEEKEND to write your proposal, craft your budget, and gather your work samples for your Artistic Assistance Project Development application.

🗓️ Monday, October 5, 11:59 pm ET: Application & Membership Deadline

📧 End of November: Award Notifications

Artistic Assistance Project Development provides direct funding to ROOTS members to support community-focused projects and collaborations. Project Development awards range from $500 to $6,000. These grants can be used to support live performance, exhibitions of visual art, workshop presentations, and much more. Program details at our 🔗 linkinbio under “Artistic Assistance Project Development”

📲 Final proposal support office hours with Program Manager Elly MAB are from 5 – 6pm ET Monday, October 5th. This is your last opportunity to receive application support from the program manager. After 6pm ET on Monday, October 5th, staff will not be available to provide support.

Register for Office Hours at 🔗 linkinbio “Office Hours Registration”

📸 slides 1, 2: mel cardona. slide 3: Eric Michael Ward

10/01/2026

“HARD WORK: that’s what we do! Though it may not look like work to you…”

—the first original Alternate ROOTS song, written by John Hadley

ROOTS Week is the Annual Meeting of the 150-person board of directors of Alternate ROOTS. Every year we gather for many hours of business meetings to deliberate and make decisions on behalf of the organization.

Business meetings are HARD WORK! They require time, attention, patience, listening, hydration, grounding, and emotional fortitude. We are tackling issues directly related to Alternate ROOTS’ future existence, financial health, values alignment, and staff well-being. Members bring proposals forward. Staff and Executive Committee people make presentations. We try to remember to take song and dance breaks.

Producing ROOTS Week itself is HARD WORK! Full-time, part-time, and contract staff are all helping folks register, getting them into housing, tracking dietary needs, driving golf carts, and distributing bubble machines. Our amazing colleagues at Multiband Studios make sure that everyone can be heard as well as facilitating live video calls.

We are lucky to have both artists who have documented ROOTS Week for many years, and new folks who bring a fresh eye to the documentation task, turning it into an art form.

Big thanks to everyone whose HARD WORK made ROOTS Week 2026 a success!

📸mel cardona
mel cardona
AuaniCh’ipiri
Kiera Ashlee • Ashlee Haze • Poet • Producer • Philosopher

09/29/2026

🎨 ROOTers! You have just under ONE WEEK to complete your application for for Artistic Assistance Project Development! Now is the time to write your proposal, craft your budget, and gather your work samples!

Here are SOME of the things Artistic Assistance Project Development Supports:

✦ Live Performances
✦ Filming of Performances
✦ Motion Picture Production
✦ Photography
✦ Audio Recording Projects
✦ Podcasts – Video or Audio
✦ Publishing / Book Projects
✦ Workshop Presentations
✦ Gallery or Visual Art Exhibitions
✦ Conference or Festival Production
✦ Artists’ Retreats
✦ Archiving Projects

Artistic Assistance Project Development provides direct funding to ROOTS members to support community-focused projects and collaborations. Project Development awards range from $500 to $6,000. These grants can be used to support live performance, exhibitions of visual art, workshop presentations, and much more. Program details at our 🔗 linkinbio under “Artistic Assistance Project Development”

🗓️ Monday, October 5, 11:59 pm ET: Application & Membership Deadline

📧 End of November: Award Notifications

🆘 Proposal Support! Every Monday during the application period, Program Manager Elly MAB will hold office hours from 5 – 6pm ET. This is a great way to get your questions about the Artistic Assistance application and selection process answered while connecting with other ROOTS members!

Register for Office Hours at 🔗 linkinbio “Office Hours Registration”

📸 slides 1, 3: mel cardona. Slide 2 courtesy of elisewitt.com

09/23/2026

Relationships are the center of everything we do at ROOTS Week.⁠
⁠
Old friends fall into each other’s arms at the registration desk. New folks wander around looking lost until someone hands them a lemonade and urgently introduces them to someone they just HAVE TO KNOW. Colleagues from different worlds meet in the cafeteria line and piece together the journeys that brought them together at ROOTS Week.⁠
⁠
Sometimes folks come to ROOTS Week with a hurt on their heart because of a difficult ROOTS relationship, and maybe they find some comfort in being held by community. We are all given the opportunity to meet conflict with grace at ROOTS Week. We help each other remember the centrality of our relationships, and we work to help each other move through sticky stuff.⁠
⁠
At ROOTS Week, our relationships are tools of the revolutionary solidarity we need in order to dream and build a just and humane world.

📸mel cardona
melisa cardona

Rev. Sara Green
Priscilla Gay Smith
Keryl McCord
Alice Lovelace
Clear Creek Creative
Lind Parris-Bailey
Wendy Shenefelt
Christine Gautreaux
Abuelita La Doña
MD Wellness Solutions
Nikki Mendez Angulo Brown

09/21/2026

✍🏽 TODAY is a great day to start your application for Artistic
Assistance Project Development!

👨🏿‍💻 Starting your grant application EARLY is a great way to
identify any questions or sticking points and get full clarity before
you submit.

☎️ Proposal Support Office Hours TODAY! Every Monday during the
application period, Program Manager Elly MAB will hold office hours
from 5 – 6pm ET. This is a great way to get your questions about the
Artistic Assistance application and selection process answered while
connecting with other ROOTS members!

Register for Office Hours at 🔗 linkinbio “Office Hours Registration”

Artistic Assistance Project Development provides direct funding to
ROOTS members to support community-focused projects and
collaborations. Project Development awards range from $500 to $6,000.
These grants can be used to support live performance, exhibitions of
visual art, workshop presentations, and much more. Program details at
our 🔗 linkinbio under “Artistic Assistance Project Development”

🗓️ Monday, October 5, 11:59 pm ET:
🔚 Application & Membership Deadline

🗓️ End of November:
📧 Award Notifications

📸 Ariston Jacks

Address

1270 Caroline Street, Ste D120/353
Atlanta, GA
30263

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 5pm
Tuesday	10am - 5pm
Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	10am - 5pm
Friday	10am - 5pm

Telephone

(404)5771079

Website

http://www.alternateroots.org/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Alternate ROOTS posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Alternate ROOTS:

Featured

The Maale Foundation
Rock City, Juba

Want your organization to be the top-listed non profit organization in Atlanta?