BLK South

BLK South Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from BLK South, Nonprofit Organization, 600 Park Offices Drive Suite 300, Durham, NC.

BLK South seeks the development, vibrancy, and well-being of underserved, underdeveloped historic African American neighborhoods in the South through community development projects.

03/14/2026

John Perkins taught a generation of leaders that real community change begins with living there -- people choosing to love a place and the people in it.

For decades, Perkins called folks to move toward neighborhoods that had been overlooked—to listen, to build relationships, and to invest in the flourishing of the community.

His vision helped shape what became the movement and continues to influence work happening in neighborhoods across the country.

At BLK South, we’re grateful for elders like Perkins who showed that faithful presence, local leadership, and long-term commitment can help communities grow stronger for generations.

02/17/2026

Rev. Jesse Jackson (1941-2026) was a Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and political leader who became a prominent national figure in the movement for racial and economic justice. A close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and later founded Operation PUSH and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, advocating for economic empowerment, voter registration, and equal opportunity.

His life and leadership helped reshape American political imagination, widening the table and insisting that those long pushed to the margins belonged at the center of the national story.

02/03/2026

📚✨ It’s Book Club Night! ✨📚

Tonight, we gather around Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower—a story that reminds us that when the world refuses to imagine us, we must write ourselves in.

This virtual book club is a space to read together, think together, and tell the truth about the world we’re living in—and the ones we’re trying to build.

Although spots are full, you can still sign up for a potential opening or follow along on the Fable app at your own pace!

See you tonight!

🎥:

01/30/2026

On this national day of protest, “to be free” is a demand.

Nina Simone told the truth out loud, especially to and about the South. This song was written in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement, when freedom was painfully concrete: the right to live, to vote, to move, to breathe without fear.

For Southern Black communities, Nina gave language to what many felt but weren’t allowed to say. Her music carried grief, rage, tenderness, and hope all at once—church, protest, and prayer braided together.

Thank you for your life and legacy

01/20/2026

Let this song by aliahsheffield settle in as we prepare to read Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, February 3–March 3. Join us for weekly live online conversations, or read along through our Fable book club if you can’t make every session—or simply want space to process with others as you read.

Comment READ if you want to join, and we'll send you the link! 🙌🏾📚

This winter, we’re gathering folks across the South—and beyond—for a 5-week virtual book club reading Parable of the Sow...
01/16/2026

This winter, we’re gathering folks across the South—and beyond—for a 5-week virtual book club reading Parable of the Sower ✨

🗓 Tuesdays | 7:00–8:30 PM EST
📍 Zoom
📅 Feb. 3 – March 3

Set in a near-future America shaped by climate collapse and social fragmentation, Parable of the Sower follows Lauren Olamina, a young Black woman wrestling with survival, faith, and community in a breaking world. Through her vision of Earthseed—“God is Change”—Octavia Butler invites us to imagine new ways of living, believing, and belonging in the midst of upheaval. This is not an easy-hope story, but a deeply formative one.

Reading Schedule:
Week 1: Ch. 1–5
Week 2: Ch. 6–10
Week 3: Ch. 11–15
Week 4: Ch. 16–20
Week 5: Ch. 21–25

Important Note:
BLK South is Black-centered, not Black-autonomous. Our gatherings are rooted in Black history, experience, and ways of knowing, while remaining open to participants of all ethnicities who can enter with humility and care.

🔗 Sign up + book link in bio
📩 Zoom link sent a few days before we begin

12/11/2025

In the South, our people survived by staying human—by creating, laughing, improvising, and refusing to let the world steal our joy.

Black music was a lifeline. A way of remembering who we are and saying, “You will not crush the sacred in us.”

Born July 10, 1924, Major “Mule” Holley Jr. is a perfect example—turning a bass into a full conversation, letting his whole body speak, humming his soul into the strings. Creativity like this merged in a region where Black folks had to make their own freedom, sound by sound.

At BLK South, we honor this lineage.
We preserve it.
We build from it.

Because the South is sacred—not because of what was done to us, but because of what we created anyway. 🖤✨

_________

Here are three simple ways to support what we’re building in Durham and throughout the South:

1️⃣ Join our email list
Stay connected to reflections, neighborhood updates, and upcoming events.

2️⃣ Join our support team
Make a one-time or monthly donation to sustain our neighborhood programs, youth work, and community development efforts.
(Link in bio)

3️⃣ Share this post
Like, link, repost, or send it to someone who needs to hear it — it truly helps our work reach farther.

We believe that the work of rebuilding Black communities in the South begins with listening — to the land, to our ancest...
12/04/2025

We believe that the work of rebuilding Black communities in the South begins with listening — to the land, to our ancestors, and to the truths rising within us.

In our latest reflection, offers a powerful invitation to pause and pay attention. She writes:

“Lately I’ve been listening more closely—not just to the world around me, but to the echoes within me. What do you hear when you sit with the truth of your own formation? What do you hear when you listen for what your faith, your church, your practices are shaping you to become? As a descendant of enslaved people—specifically a Black woman whose foremothers were bred like cattle to create this nation’s wealth—I find myself asking what it means to now use my voice to ask for that wealth back, to reclaim what was extracted from our bodies and redirect it toward the flourishing of Black people.”

This reflection is part history, part testimony, and part call to reimagine what wealth, formation, and justice can mean for Black communities across the South.

If this reflection speaks to you, here are three simple ways to support what we’re building in Durham and throughout the South:

1️⃣ Join our email list
Stay connected to reflections, neighborhood updates, and upcoming events.

2️⃣ Join our support team
Make a one-time or monthly donation to sustain our neighborhood programs, youth work, and community development efforts.
(Link in bio)

3️⃣ Share this post
Like, link, repost, or send it to someone who needs to hear it — it truly helps our work reach farther.

🖤 Read the full reflection on our site. The South is speaking. And so are we.

“When seeing is too much, maybe that is the invitation of this moment: to choose hearing. To let our ears become instrum...
11/20/2025

“When seeing is too much, maybe that is the invitation of this moment: to choose hearing. To let our ears become instruments of discernment when our eyes are overwhelmed by the spectacle of power and the theater of intimidation.” — Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould ()

Dr. Cassandra Gould’s words speak directly into this moment.

In a world overloaded with noise, images, and spectacle, she reminds us that listening — to Spirit, to memory, to ancestors, to the truth beneath the chaos — is a practice of survival and liberation.

We’re honored to share her full written reflection on our site today, and as you swipe through this carousel, the final slide features Rev. Dr. Gould in her own voice.
In this clip from the Organizing Revival, she reminds us that under rising authoritarianism, we must “fight like hell” for justice — and we cannot afford to do it alone.
This is the work of collective freedom. This is the work of community. This is the work we’re tending to here in Durham and across the South.

If this reflection speaks to you, here are three simple ways to support what we’re building in Durham and throughout the South:

1️⃣ Join our email list
Stay connected to reflections, neighborhood updates, and upcoming events.

2️⃣ Join our support team
Make a one-time or monthly donation to sustain our neighborhood programs, youth work, and community development efforts.
(Link in bio)

3️⃣ Share this post
Like, save, repost, or send it to someone who needs to hear it — it truly helps our work reach farther.

Thank you for being part of this journey.
The South is sacred. And we’re tending to it together.

11/20/2025

She wasn’t born on a Southern porch, but the South lived in her voice.

Umpeylia Marsema Balinton—better known to the world as Sugar Pie DeSanto—was born in San Francisco to a Filipino father and African American mother. Yet listen closely, and you’ll hear it: the soul, sting, laughter, and lament of Southern Black music pulsing through every note she sang. That sound didn’t come from geography—it came from memory.

Her mother, a musician who could hear a song once and play it flawlessly, passed on something that no textbook could teach: the inheritance of sound. That inheritance—carried by families who migrated from the South to California, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland—became the heartbeat of Rhythm & Blues, Soul, and Rock & Roll.

At just 4’11”, Sugar Pie commanded rooms. She performed with James Brown, wrote hits from the blues of everyday life, and became one of Chess Records’ highest paid songwriters—the same label that shaped the Black musical migration story from Mississippi to Chicago.

Like so many artists of her time, she did not become a household name until later in life. But she never stopped pouring out joy, honesty, and fire. Late in her career, she finally began receiving honors—from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, Arhoolie Foundation, and even a mayoral proclamation in Chicago.

Her legacy reminds us:

You don’t have to be born in the South to carry the South with you. The sound travels in the body. And it remembers.

May she rest in rhythm, laughter, and peace.

🎥:

Address

600 Park Offices Drive Suite 300
Durham, NC
27709

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+14807798665

Website

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