Notes On Our Rebuild, Issue 1: A Foundation of Trust
A new chapter is unfolding, and there are a few ways you might be part of it.
Hey y’all,
It’s mid-summer, and like many of you, I’ve been feeling the weight of everything. But beneath it all, something else is stirring: the call to reimagine what could be.
We’re watching robots and people alike mimic us, platforms isolate us, and our brilliance flattened into content. It’s exhausting, yet familiar. These aren’t just trends. They’re symptoms of a world that was never designed with our wholeness in mind.
During the People’s Assembly I shared a vision for the future of You Had Me At Black: a home for our stories, storytelling, and selves that is owned and stewarded by the community, and where storytellers share in the abundance.
Equipped with community and wisdom from our first chapter, we are building anew.
My experiences working in corporate and pitching YHMAB to companies inspired me to think differently about how to sustain independent storytelling. My dreaming took me much further than a podcast or production house. I began to dream about legacy, longevity, archives. I began to see each story as a vessel for memory to be cherished, identity to be explored, and lessons to be shared.
When you look at Black media and historical archives, those are our stories. Who owns them? Many times a corporation, an institution. Less likely, the very people and community whose stories form the substance.
That’s what this next phase of YHMAB is about: using storytelling to build the kind of future we deserve. One rooted in preservation, shared ownership, and community.
As this vision for YHMAB came into focus, I kept coming back to one question: how do I turn these values into real, lasting ways of working?
That’s what led me to steward ownership, a model where we are accountable to our mission, not just to profit. It breaks the pattern where control follows money, and where something built with love can be sold off or stripped of its soul.
In a steward-owned structure, the purpose leads. And that gives us the chance to build something that lasts, that remains accountable to all of you, and that keeps our stories in our collective hands.
Steward ownership isn’t the whole rebuild, but it’s one way I’m putting our values into practice. It creates guardrails that keep us aligned with our purpose.
In emails ahead, I’ll share more about how this structure works, and how you might take part.
For any of this to work, it has to be a communal effort. Starting this fall, there will be three ways you might join me in this rebuild:
🕰️ With your time, as a Steward
💰 With your resources, as a Patron
💬 And of course, with your story, as a Storyteller
This will take years to build; we’re not moving fast and breaking things. Instead, this chapter calls for moving with intention, and letting trust set the pace.
During the June Assembly, I shared a rough timeline, but since then, I spent more time reflecting on what trust really requires. So, through the rest of the summer, you’ll hear from me twice a month as I break down different parts of our next chapter.
Each will go deeper into a different piece of the rebuild — from why we’re moving away from content culture, to the values guiding these choices, to the new ways we’ll show up together. By fall, you’ll have a full view of what we’re building and how you might step in.
Along the way, I’ll also host a series of Community Salons where we can reflect, imagine, and respond to what’s unfolding together.
You’re invited to the first one:
📅 Tuesday, July 29 at 7pm ET
🖥️ On Zoom
We’ll exchange ideas, dream aloud, unpack what’s been shared so far, and connect more deeply around the vision for this next chapter
All I ask is that if you missed the Assembly, you catch up on the 15-min replay before attending.
Peace,
Martinia
