Victoria McWane-Creek and Alicia "Fayomi" Rufus share how Onyx Collective celebrates rural Blackness and builds community
Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money. Maybe we're ragged and funny, but we'll travel along singing a song side by side.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Onyx Collective is about experiencing true freedom as a human in connection with other people. I know it's saving my life. It's extending my life. If we're thriving, our communities, the general communities are much closer to thriving too. So we're building that village infrastructure for black rural thriving, we're doing it through the lens of blackness, centering morality and with the people who are impacted and implicated in shifting outcomes for us.
Alicia Rufus:What we mean by hyper visibility is if you are black in a majority white area, you're definitely standing out. Everybody's gonna see you, but that doesn't mean that everybody sees you. Rural spaces is black spaces. People are a nature based people. So when you see us in urban spaces, that's surviving.
Alicia Rufus:We're thriving when we're in our natural spaces. Where I choose to be is where I will be. And where I be is where I should find community, where I should find safety, where I should find belonging, where I should find culture, all of those things. I shouldn't try to convince anybody that I belong in rural Minnesota. I want to convince more people to be in rural Minnesota.
Alicia Rufus:Like, come come down. Come be with us.
Ellen Wolter:That's Victoria McWane-Creek and Alicia Rufus talking about Onyx Collective, a community organization, network, and third space that celebrates rural blackness and offers cultural connection, wholeness, and healing. Onyx Collective began in 2024 after an exploration about safety and belonging revealed a striking difference between the experiences of black and white respondents in rural spaces. That led to listening sessions and intentional gatherings and eventually to a community that has grown from just nine people in June 2024 to more than 100 people across Minnesota today. Minnesota is often described as a predominantly white state, particularly outside the Twin Cities. But Black Minnesotans live, work, raise families, build businesses, create community, and put down roots in rural and small towns across the state.
Ellen Wolter:Approximately 90,000 Black Minnesotans live in Greater Minnesota, with over 10,000 living in rural areas and small towns. And those numbers are likely undercounted. There is a long history of Black communities moving between rural places, small cities, and metropolitan areas, building relationships and finding opportunities along the way. And those connections continue today. However, those connections often go unseen.
Ellen Wolter:This conversation is an invitation from Victoria and Alicia to black people living in rural places to find one another, build connection, and join Onyx Collective. Victoria and Alicia offer a very extension esque metaphor for how Onyx Collective works, mycelium. Mycelium is the interconnected network beneath the surface of a forest. You may not see the network, but it connects living things and helps move resources through an ecosystem. That's what Onyx Collective is building, a network of relationships that allows people to find one another, support one another, share resources, take collective action, and sometimes simply know that someone else is there.
Jim Griswold (Music):When they've all had their quarrels and parted, we'll be the same as we started, just to travel along, singing a song side by side.
Ellen Wolter:This is Ellen Wolter with the University of Minnesota Extension. Welcome to the Side by Side podcast. Where is home for you?
Alicia Rufus:So home for me right now is in Little Falls, Minnesota. I am a transplant from Chicago, Illinois, but Little Falls has been my home for eight years now.
Ellen Wolter:What about you, Victoria?
Victoria McWane-Creek:Interestingly enough, right now, home has been West Otter Tail County for many years. I also come to Minnesota by way of Chicago. So there's a Shytale connection that runs into Onyx Collective that's pretty deep, actually.
Ellen Wolter:So did you both grow up then in Chicago? You spent your childhoods in Chicago?
Victoria McWane-Creek:Yeah. Yeah. I have lived in a multitude of states and settings, the majority of which have all been smaller than Chicago, though Salt Lake City would be considered not by any means.
Ellen Wolter:Tell me a little bit about the Onyx Collective and the work that the both of you have been doing.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Onyx Collective exists solely so that black folks who choose to live in rural predominantly white communities can experience a cultural connection, wholeness and healing together as part of a community. And so we have been in existence for two years now and have been gathering together in order to figure out what that might look like moving forward while there was an idea and a seed. What we will collectively be able to do requires us all to collectively engage in many meaningful conversations in order to get to that collective action.
Alicia Rufus:Victoria really summarized it beautifully. She put out this wonderful beacon of light, and I was a firefly. It was Onyx Collective exists for other fireflies like me, who are looking for connection and wholeness and cultural identity where it's not found in rural Minnesota. And it may be that because I, you know, transplant from Chicago or somewhere where there's just a explosion of cultural identity and was shocked with the lack of it, Onyx Collective really stands out as a place for people to find it. Victoria's just been a light, and so I'll be the fire fluid.
Ellen Wolter:Where did the Onyx Collective idea or seed come from? What did it originate from?
Victoria McWane-Creek:It stems from many conversations, most of them one off here, one off there, over many years working as, I'm a, I always say firefighters in white led, white dominant narrative systems that were never built for a black person to thrive in. And you could pick and choose any of the systems. They weren't designed for us, that we were not considered in their creation nor in the process of even improving them once black folks had access to them. But basically, we want to be able to behold people, the full, the full gambit and spectrum of what it means to be a human, in human form, living life without hypervisibility, without being invisible, with being considered and centered in projects, processes, and outcomes. And so over the course of 2023, I was having a year of yes.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And the year of yes that I was going to do whatever came through that would help me move a little bit closer to the ideal version of myself that I'm always aspiring to be. And with all of those yeses, I was sitting around tables with people who were having a markedly different experience than I was when it came to experiencing safety and belonging in the communities that they belonged to and lived in, worked in and played in. And so as I'm sitting around these tables having this conversation and I began just saying out loud in these spaces, no, in my experience, that's not it. I don't feel safe outside. I don't feel safe at the grocery store.
Victoria McWane-Creek:I did not have a sense of belonging and much of it was culturally based and only because of the color of my skin. The things in which I was invited or included or excluded from, the things that I was only invited because I was tokenized, the things that being at the table and being ignored and unheard was just not something that I wanted to allow as a thing that was not happening. And so sharing in those places, what I had experienced and what my sisters and brothers have also been sharing that they had experienced led me to do an action project that literally said, let's study. Cause I was, you know, an academic at one point, let's study safety and belonging and see what happened. I have my idea.
Victoria McWane-Creek:I have a hypothesis and yet let's figure it out if I'm just an anomaly. So I did a survey created, very simple. Do you feel safe at home, at work, at school, in the wild? Do you feel like you can contribute at home, at school, at work, in the wild? And anyone could take that survey, Ellen, anyone.
Victoria McWane-Creek:We did a press release. The link was live. We got a small response, probably about 27, 28 responses, if I remember correctly. Of that, nine were Black. And those were the ones that I was interested in really understanding.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And so taking a look at that data was like, oh, people, similar way to my thought, were not feeling safe at home, at work, at school in the wild, which was very different from the experiences of the white folks who responded to that survey. They did feel safe. They did feel like they can contribute. And that means that if we're going to do something to increase safety and belonging, it really did have to focus. I had to focus and center my attention on the people who were not experiencing that and come up with a way that I would, as a participant in this whole thing, be able to improve that outcome so that safety and belonging were embodied and we stop experiencing such rapid churn of black folks, brown folks, immigrants, gay people coming to rural communities, not getting their needs met in a cultural way and exiting rather quickly along with all of their knowledge, wisdom, and skills, talents that we all need if we're gonna have a village that operates well.
Victoria McWane-Creek:That is what led to a couple of listening session. And on... While Onyx Collective was already created as an idea, it really took hold and was implanted in soil. When we got together the first time during that that, first listening session that occurred after the survey was completed and we invited black folks who wanted to be part of a listening session about what we might be able to do to improve outcomes for ourselves in rural Minnesota to let's just come and start talking. And that is literally what we have been doing ever since and determining where there are opportunities for us to engage more deeply around some of the, the areas that we could.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And what was very apparent in that first year of deep listening was if you own and operate your own business, then you have more control over your time, more autonomy and choice in where you might spend your time and might choose to remove yourself from situations where they were actively anti black, hostile to your humanity and opt into spaces and creating opportunities where we could engage as full on glorious beings in human form. And we have not stopped since.
Ellen Wolter:Well, what I understand is that you just keep growing and growing, and people keep joining and joining. You both are nodding. So for listeners that... We don't allow listeners to see us. I'm sorry.
Ellen Wolter:We look we look great, by the way. But you're both nodding. So, yeah, tell me a little bit about that growth.
Alicia Rufus:I was not there from the inception, so I was not a part of the survey or the listening session. I think I found her LinkedIn, and I sent her a message and said, I want you to be my mentor. And that was kind of it. She graciously responded quickly, and I was like, people don't usually respond, you know. He did invited us to the next Onyx Collective event.
Alicia Rufus:I invited a friend who was also now Onyx Collective member, and we attended. And it's what I've seen is growth. I've seen people who don't necessarily fit in the mold wanting to be a part of it. And so it's just been explosive. And one of the things Victoria does is we have our, our small personal get togethers, and then we have the public facing ones where people can get to experience what we're experiencing, that wholeness, joy, that safety and belonging through our lens.
Alicia Rufus:And so people get to see what we mean when we say we want community. Victoria, like I said before, she put out the lights and that I was a firefly. I didn't even know what that light was when I was buzzing by.
Victoria McWane-Creek:So the the moment that I asked Alicia if she wanted to come to our retreat in spring of twenty twenty five, which was the first retreat that we did. So she's been there from the beginning of the real intentional gatherings. So she has seen the organic and explosive growth that is simply word-of-mouth because we are hungry. Every human is hungry for a deep personal connection, a deep cultural and spiritual connection. And Alicia and the folks who come to any Onyx Collective gathering will know that we are always about 50 returning people and 50% new people.
Victoria McWane-Creek:This village continues to shift and grow because we continue to gather. Like we, coming out of 2020, already having been experiencing deep isolation because of COVID, already experiencing deep isolation prior to COVID, because we were rural already compounding that then with a skin color that has been demonized, criminalized, and excluded from so many practices of community in an integrated way. There's no way to do it the same. We are always experimenting. We are always shifting.
Victoria McWane-Creek:We are always adapting because it is only the people who are present and in space together that can determine what we are going to do together collectively. And so what started as nine people around a table in 2024 in June has become over a 100 people in 2026 who are directly connected to Onyx Collective, which doesn't then even talk about the people who are like, want to so bad because they know, and they're getting our emails and are RSVPing to an event and then something might happen that prevents them. But the community continues to expand beyond those who are even in sharing space together. And because we share space together in such an intentional way, rhythmic, it is seasonal. It is meant to, to follow a flow that is natural and not forced.
Victoria McWane-Creek:It allows for true choice on choosing to say, have a shared experience that I want to engage with you in. I have shared interests that I want to engage I with you have a shared background that I want to engage with you in. Oh, and I have some desire for some outcomes that will improve my lot and yours in this lifetime. Onyx Collective is about experiencing true freedom as a human in connection with other people. Who doesn't want that?
Victoria McWane-Creek:And how do we get more of that on purpose, by design, intentionally, and spreading? Like, that's literally what Onyx Collective is meant to do. I know it's saving my life. It's extending my life, being a part of this body, this village of folks who share so much. And that does not of course mean that we agree on everything.
Victoria McWane-Creek:It does not mean that we like all the things and choices that any one of us might make at any given time. But what it does mean is that the intention to continue engaging with and building with something that is beyond us that extends and allows the children's children's children, grandchildren to thrive. We're here for that.
Ellen Wolter:You're building what it sounds like to me, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're building a network that didn't exist before. Is that fair to say?
Alicia Rufus:Definitely. Yeah.
Victoria McWane-Creek:So you say network and I say mycelium, right? Because my backyard is a mushroom farm.
Ellen Wolter:Was gonna say- I don't know mycelium. So you're gonna have to explain that to me.
Victoria McWane-Creek:So they're mycelium, and I'm just getting into it. I know what's happening, but it's about the network that feeds the mushroom, the messaging, the supportive resources, the ability to direct and target and focus the energies and the resources of the network and disperse it to where it is most needed quickly because we're connected. And that did not exist two years ago in our area. It didn't exist. This ability to say, hey, we're having conversations about kiddos who are struggling in schools.
Victoria McWane-Creek:We're just gonna keep talking about the kiddos who struggle with schools until we can figure out what we can do together to disrupt what is happening. And then we start to send our resources to that area. Oh, so do we need to collectively go to schools and show up as a village of support for our kids and their families? Or do we need to have a broader conversation across the state of Minnesota about the experiences that black children are having and what the state of Minnesota is obligated to do in order to make sure that kids have a full, free, fair education that is accessible to them. Collective action, which is ultimately what we are doing, only happens when a network is tended to.
Victoria McWane-Creek:It's strong, it's built, it's nurtured, and then it's strengthened. And then it's added to by others who joined the network and continue to expand it. And you see it popping off all over the place because it's not about a person. It's about the network and how to make sure that it is thriving. So something that did not actually exist two years ago was this ability to be like, oh, we're going to do some planning.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Do you have some stuff that you want to contribute? Cool. All right. Well, we know your time is valuable and while we can't pay you anything or the wage, what we can do is, is value your lived experience and say, Hey, kit, it's just a little something, but isn't something that you didn't have before. And you're also building something for yourself, for our future, like, and distributing literally physical resources as well as the energetic resources that are life sustaining.
Victoria McWane-Creek:To, to know that you have a relationship with someone who can be like, hey, are you good? Do you just need me to walk with you? What do you need? And I wouldn't have that without Onyx Collective, not in Minnesota.
Alicia Rufus:Yeah. I wouldn't have that.
Ellen Wolter:Victoria and Alistair, you mentioned this idea of hypervisibility and invisibility, sort of living in that intersection, I think is kind of how you described it. What do you mean by that?
Alicia Rufus:You know, that was actually something that I was definitely hoping to circle back to. And what we mean by hyper visibility is if you are Black in a majority white area, you're definitely standing out. Everybody's gonna see you, but that doesn't mean that everybody sees you. And so that's what it means to be hyper visible and invisible. They see you, but they don't see your needs.
Alicia Rufus:They don't see your children as valuable or worthy of protection. They don't see that you may have a cultural need. Maybe just as simply as in the grocery store, right? When you go into the cultural aisles, you're not finding any specific African American black items that you need. I mean, they started to do it in certain places where they'll have hair care things, but not necessarily food items or self care items.
Alicia Rufus:I'm not going into the local Walmart and finding Shea butter, but it goes further than just your basic physical needs. It goes to your educational needs. It goes to the things you need for raising a family because cultural differences do matter. And I think that they are highlighted in other cultures, but they're not necessarily highlighted for our culture, especially not here in rural Minnesota. They're not saying, we know that there is, although small, a population of African Americans in these communities.
Alicia Rufus:Let's make sure that we have the things that they need. Let's make sure that we ask them, is there anything that they need? So we're visible. People can see you. They'll walk up to you and say, hi, what are you doing here?
Alicia Rufus:How long have you been here? What made you come here? But they won't say, and now that you're here, how can I help you? What do you need? And so that, for me, is being hyper visible and invisible at the same time.
Alicia Rufus:And also, one thing she mentioned was, like, being tokenized. You're the only black person in a ring. I find myself the only black person in a ton of rooms. And while your opinion is heard, I don't know if it's... It doesn't make a difference.
Alicia Rufus:Is it going to benefit my children? Is it going to benefit my community? Are these topics even about my children or my community? And I don't think that it's in the middle of being hyper visible and invisible. I think that it's both truths at the same time.
Alicia Rufus:It's... You're sitting in the middle of being hyper visible, and you're also sitting in the middle of being invisible.
Victoria McWane-Creek:You... You've you've seen the film Get Out. All you have to do is look at the film poster. It says, get out where you're invited, but never welcome. That's like the poster of it.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And I think about the the community college. They used to recruit so many young black kids, particularly boys to come and play sports at the college level. And these kids want to continue their athletic career as long as they can. And if they can also go to school at the same time, yay them. So they do that and they come up from Chicago or Detroit or Minneapolis or wherever with the hope that they're going to experience some success in the community that they choose.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Probably maybe you never setting foot in the community before they arrived. These kids experience what every child who goes to college experiences, right? Which is homesickness, trying to figure out how to make a friend, it's a new environment with a set of high expectations around their performance. They are invited to come into this community and engage in a specific way. They are highly visible student athletes, not just on campus, but in community.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And they are also more likely to not thrive on campus and in community. They're seen. Their needs are not necessarily seen. The humanity is definitely not seen. They are invited to be here.
Victoria McWane-Creek:But when we think about radically welcoming someone, we do what Alicia said. What do you need? How are you feeling? Is this your first time away from home? What do you need to feel okay in this moment?
Victoria McWane-Creek:Like we know that's what kids need. I remember I did a gathering outside for those student athletes and I was setting up for a labor day picnic. That's the first holiday that these kids are going to be away from home for many of them. And I set up for a picnic. We're out there doing our stuff.
Victoria McWane-Creek:A truckload of kids or adults, I don't know, in a white truck drove past and yelled out. What kind of... In a truck at the quad where we were. And that was the experience of trying to be outside in this community that I was then working in and recognizing that they saw exactly who was out there. They chose a specific set of behaviors, gun in the engine.
Victoria McWane-Creek:That's a threat. You know what I'm saying? Yelling racial slurs like that. That is a threat. And to then just get go off cackling and giggling as if that did not ignite in any of the black people who may have been gathering at that time, the historical memory, the knowledge of what that behavior can lead to.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And so when I talk about belonging and I talk about safety, it is not in the sense of the simple sense of, am I safe to, to touch this thing or that thing? No. Am I safe to exist in this setting is the question that becomes real. And that Onyx Collective is designed to answer. You are safe in this setting.
Victoria McWane-Creek:We're gonna make that possible by being in private spaces whenever we can, by being in large numbers as much as we can, and to just continue to reclaim the right, our birthright to experience the beauty that is the outside spaces that we choose to live in, in Minnesota. We live in a beautiful geography. We get to enjoy it. And those those threatening behaviors that I experienced and several of us experienced and people continue to experience sense, we, Onyx Collective, is a respite from all of that.
Ellen Wolter:Victoria and Alicia, tell me what it is you love about being in a rural space. And I say that thinking about the natural resources that Minnesota has to offer. Because there might be people that would say to you, and maybe they have, why don't you move? Why do you stay? What do you love about being a rural person?
Ellen Wolter:Because there are things that I love about the the quiet. Right? I grew up in North Dakota, and so I love the wind on your face. So... And I asked that because what it sounds to me like is you are wanting to build a space for black people in rural spaces where they feel safe.
Ellen Wolter:So what is it about those rural spaces that you really love? You know,
Alicia Rufus:it is those simple things like that, being able to see stars at night, right? Being able to walk into nature and have experiences that you can't get in, like, inner city Chicago. And you could travel to them, but they're in our backyard. We also have to understand that, like, rural spaces is black spaces. So whether you are of the mind that black people are native here or whether you're of the mind that black people came here through the Transatlantic slave trade, those were rural spaces.
Alicia Rufus:So that's ingrained in us to be able to to have that type of freedom to experience nature. Our people are a nature based people. So when you see us in urban spaces, that's surviving. We're thriving when we're in our natural spaces. And the answer to the question, why don't you move?
Alicia Rufus:Because I don't have to. I belong anywhere I am. And that's kind of as simple as as it is. Where I choose to be is where I will be, and where I be is where I should find community, where I should find safety, where I should find belonging, where I should find culture, all of those things. And that's really the simple question.
Alicia Rufus:I shouldn't try to convince anybody that I belong in rural Minnesota. I want to convince more people to be in rural Minnesota. Like come, come down, come be with us.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Yes, Well, hold on, Terri. Will say that question has been asked of me so many times in so many different settings that it's almost like, where else would I be? My mirror. Right? And then I think about my great grandmother and my great granddad who left land in Mississippi to make sure that their kids could live.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Right? So they escaped Jim Crow South, the terror, the racialized terror and the torturing shortly after the murder of Emmett Till, because they were, they lived in that area. And so they left to make sure that their kids and my my dad, who happened to also live with them at that time, would survive. My dad chose to leave Chicago to make sure that me and my two brothers could stay alive. Right?
Victoria McWane-Creek:He was like, y'all are not going to get caught up in the dudes and things of that nature. He took us to a very rural community where family had some vacation land. We hated it. She was wanting to make sure that we were alive. My decision to stay here is because I get to stay here.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Black people have been running in this country and moving because they had to for fear of death. They have been moving to access deeper sense of safety. I'm not concerned that somebody will come up to me and try and take my life or that of my children when I was raising them, like an intentional act. I wasn't concerned with that. And we've got roots here and we're building the community here.
Victoria McWane-Creek:We've been here for decades, decades upon decades. And some of us have been here since before Minnesota was a state, since before The United States was in existence. And so we get to be wherever we put our... I used to say wherever I put my own footage is where I belong. Now my foot can be on a public places, you know, because I got two, but that's where I'm gonna be.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And I get to be there and I get to enjoy that there that I am in. And it's beautiful here. I love water, trees. My backyard is very heavily wooded. I have a trail in the back, right off the back of my door.
Victoria McWane-Creek:It's like, it's a life that I want to live, so I'm gonna continue to live here.
Ellen Wolter:I apologize if that question was offensive, but I imagine you get that question. And I just want to clarify. I don't think you should move.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Was
Ellen Wolter:asking because I imagine that's a question that you must get from folks in rural and urban spaces. I don't know. But it sounds like You
Victoria McWane-Creek:know, I'm in my work. So Onyx Collective is heart, effort, energy, and love. Right? It is not work to me. I put in a lot of time, energy, and effort to make it do what it do, but I'm not worth the day.
Victoria McWane-Creek:I don't earn an income. I don't earn a wage. Where I earn my income is an organization for full participation. And that work allows me to build community externally. Right?
Victoria McWane-Creek:So I get to have a lot of conversations and assist people who are working in systems with a lot of different things that can close gaps between where they are and where they're ideally with whom they were. So we have some real different conversations over there than I do in Onyx Collective because Onyx Collective is about us, for us, by us, period. And there's no interpreting, there is no contorting, there is just is. It looks different. It feels different to being in relationships with people on purpose, by design.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And while I work, it's also about doing things on purpose and by design to put that into practice for black people, just so good. It's something that I've not been able to do until now. And it is without a doubt, the pleasure of my life.
Alicia Rufus:Yeah, you know, just referring back to you asking a question, I'm actually glad you asked the question. I think that this gives us a platform to answer that question so no one has to keep asking it. You have our answer. We belong where we are. My response to you asking if the question was offensive, it can be, I think depending on who's asking and why they're asking and the intention behind the ask.
Alicia Rufus:But I think if you're just sincerely wondering if you don't feel safe, then why stay? If you don't feel connected, then why stay? That could be anywhere. -Mm -I lived in Chicago and had experiences. I have been to Indiana and had terrible experiences.
Alicia Rufus:I've been places and I've been in my house and had experiences, so, you know, I understand people wanting to know that, but then I also would ask the same then. Why why are you here?
Victoria McWane-Creek:Why why
Alicia Rufus:are you in rural Minnesota? And the answers would be the same. Mhmm.
Ellen Wolter:Yeah. You know, Alicia, when you were talking about how people ask you, what are you doing here? When did you move here? Or... You know, that question.
Ellen Wolter:What you're describing to me is a deep history of black folks living in rural places and in rural Minnesota. Right? So this this idea of like, what are you doing here? Well, as Victoria said, well, my dad lived here. Right?
Ellen Wolter:Do you not know about the history of the folks that came here before Minnesota was a state? And I guess I don't really have a question here except just to say there is a lot of history that isn't included myself. I don't know a lot of it. I don't know much of it. And so there is sort of this missing puzzle piece for people.
Alicia Rufus:The puzzle that's missing is in our education system, there is definitely not an accurate description of Black Americans in American history, whether that be black natives or the Transatlantic slave trade or black contributions to society in every aspect, every manner, in any way. They don't teach inventions of... That black people made. They don't even teach the Minnesotans that inventive thing. They don't talk about our contributions.
Alicia Rufus:They only talk shortly about slave, the slave trade, and Martin Luther King. And, wow, we want our children to know about history so it doesn't repeat, and we do want our children to know about Martin Luther King. There is so much more rich, rich history that is being left out. It is not just being left out for our Black children, because I'm at home teaching my children, but it's also being left out for the white children in these schools because now we have adults who don't know, and that's not good. It's not good because them white adults are still viewing Black people through this particular lens that is just not true.
Alicia Rufus:And when they are confronted with information as an adult, it either becomes A, hard to believe, or B, DEI. A lot of the education is, you're gonna get it if you've a Black teacher, or you're gonna get it if you are in an urban space, or if you've a family at home that is teaching, but you're not gonna get it in the public education system. Definitely not how you need to, and that offers a chance for people to honor and respect African Americans and their contributions to society where there has been none. There's a lot more that we could discuss in this conversation when it comes to black people in rural places. We are farmers.
Alicia Rufus:We are nurturers. We are hunters. We are gatherers. We are scholars. We are everything that society does not want to believe that we are because we are the original, the blueprint.
Ellen Wolter:You mentioned that Onyx Collective is saving your life, that it's healing. What is healing about Onyx Collective for you and for others if you've heard what they've shared with you?
Victoria McWane-Creek:What we know about isolation is that it deadly, don't we? Isolation is as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. You compound that with anti black host hostility. You compound that with a cultural desert and living as a black woman in this body, in this place, easily could have been the end of me. As a person who has lived with many conditions, several of which could be considered life threatening, some of which have led to myself doing harm to myself.
Victoria McWane-Creek:So not seeing myself reflected anywhere and experiencing the pressure of the system being applied steadily through my life. All of these things basically compound in the life of a black woman and our lives are shorter than what we face in a daily basis of just trying to live a life. And so as someone who has made more than one attempts to end my own life, I honestly say that this has been a lifesaving journey. It is one that starts from a place of self, of self preservation, preserving in order to have a chance to thrive. And I use the word preservation and preserving on purpose because it is a word that has come up in Onyx Collective conversation.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Preserve, preservation. And that is an intentional practice. Then I didn't even know that's what we were doing, but I know the impact of the energy that I am experiencing is one of great love and care. And that's healing. It's great love and care for myself.
Victoria McWane-Creek:It's great love and care from others. It's great love and care for others. It's this mutual beneficial reciprocity in relationships where there is no extraction, just the removal of extraction, I think has been huge in saving my life. And then thinking about other people who have said to me that they didn't even know that they needed this. I get to breathe real deeply because of Onyx Collective, and I get to continue to breathe because of Onyx Collective.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And I didn't know that I needed it, and most of us don't know that we need it.
Alicia Rufus:So I knew I needed it. I just didn't know where to find it. I didn't know that I would find it. I used to join Nexus and they would have self care Zooms and they would have a therapist. And I would always say, but I'm in rural Minnesota.
Alicia Rufus:And they'll say, you gotta find your community. I'm like, How? You know? So Onyx was literally something that I journaled about, what I prayed about, and that just landed, literally landed in my lap. But that was years of it.
Alicia Rufus:Ella Vansett, she always says, If it's in the chair, it's in the room. So that means if one person is feeling it, there's got to be more. Because we are human beings that are designed for connection. We, in this society, we take away a lot of the spiritualness of the human experience. And we just look at the mundane, the day to day.
Alicia Rufus:But we don't look at the spiritual needs of a human being. Connection is definitely a spiritual need because you can't survive alone. Onyx definitely saved my life. I was having depression episodes, especially seasonally in the winter when I couldn't get outside, when I couldn't connect to nature, when I couldn't see the stars in the night sky. And so we even started to do things like in the middle of the winter just for a boost because see, I get to close my eyes outside.
Alicia Rufus:I don't have to look around and wonder if something gonna happen, is somebody gonna say something? Are my children safe? Because we have a community. I know somebody's gonna look out for my kids, and I'm gonna look out for theirs. So we get to explore, express.
Alicia Rufus:I get to do things that I feel safe doing. Like, I just got in a river. I just actually got in the river in August. My very, very first time, I canoed last year, and that was my first time. But me, my physical body in a river, I didn't know how much I needed that to get in the water.
Alicia Rufus:So I got to lay back and float in a river, and my kids did too. So now they don't get... They don't have to wait until they're 37 to say, I got in the river. I swam in the river. I canoed.
Alicia Rufus:I hunted. I camped. I foraged. Onyx is offering these skills, and it's free. We haven't paid for any of these experiences.
Alicia Rufus:Onyx has made it possible for us to have these experiences and other nonprofit entities with grants and other things, but has made it possible for us to have these experiences. And I think more of us need to have these experiences. So definitely it saved my life.
Victoria McWane-Creek:That 2018 incident that I was describing earlier, it was twenty twenty five September, the first time I did it at another public space gathering. That's seven years since that incident, it took for me to be back outside. I like outside. And that reclaiming of the outdoor space is on purpose because we are not meant to live in peace boxes and to never be outside. And so being able to write a grant and say, you know, we want to make sure that people have access, not only to get to us, but to experience things that they might not otherwise do without some intentional intervention.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And so when Onyx Collective gathers and we have a motto, but we gather, so it's a grab. The G is gather. The R is to recall or reclaim or remember. The A is to activate in some way. And then the B is to build or bring to bear or something along those nature.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Just depends on what we're doing. But gathering outside, that is an on purpose strategy because we have to normalize that we get to be outside, whether it is just sitting around a campfire like that, like my pleasure, or it's taking a hike or it's sitting and watching the water or it's whatever, being in their backyard at peace. Being outside is essential for thriving. Having access to natural settings is essential to a thriving community. So on purpose, when we did our spring gathering this year, we did so at a state park and that meant that we got to buy everybody state park passes and encourage everyone to use them.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Maybe we buddy up, maybe nobody goes alone, but we get to enjoy these spaces too. And to do so on purpose as we have just by right of being born into The United States Of America or being here in this moment in The United States Of America, we have the right to access all the things that are mortally, spiritually, naturally geared for our enjoyment and to do so in a way that honors the earth mother
Alicia Rufus:and all that she offers.
Victoria McWane-Creek:My grandmother, Lily Bell, would say she wasn't that space. She'd be like, you know, you just gotta get here. If you can get here, you're be okay once you get. And in fact, we will help you get here. Right?
Victoria McWane-Creek:So you don't even have to say that you need gas money or money for some snacks. We make sure that we're able, because of the grants that we've written and that have been funded, we're able to say, hello, you're coming here. Deacon safely. Make sure you're We okay as you get also then make sure that people who are generously leading with their lived experience and love of black folks and wanting to ensure that we can continue to get together as we grow beyond what any one person can do, stepping in and and saying, am the one to stand in this gap right here. Right?
Victoria McWane-Creek:This is my passion. How can I operationalize that for us in some way, shape, or form? What is the business opportunity that could then allow black dollars to circulate in a black owned ecosystem out here and have a community network of businesses and services that are black owned that we can tap into and platform through a multitude of different ways and shapes so that folks do have that freedom? How do we make sure that we can farm our backyards or our balconies as we need to provide for ourselves. So we navigate systems that we may not have ever navigated before because we wanna demystify what it means to do that thing.
Victoria McWane-Creek:So I got a farm number. Oh, so I wanna know what these arts and culture dollars, what that process looks like so that I can demystify it for my friends, family, and the other folks who are also trying to stay and get as free as they can and remove themselves from extracted places. And now I can help somebody else figure that piece out because I've navigated a system and can demystify it and break down a barrier or two because I walked through it already. And that is literally what Onyx Collective is doing is we're like, okay, well, what do we wanna do? We're demystifying what it means to sell, barter, swap, and have a micro market exchange practice when we do get together.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Oh, when we get together, maybe we can have somebody from within take on the cultural aspects of sharing our culture. We can contract with Ms. Rebecca Davis to come up here as an artist and perform in the woods, honey.
Alicia Rufus:In the woods.
Victoria McWane-Creek:A straight up concert in the woods. World renowned pianist, Rebecca Davis.
Alicia Rufus:It was beautiful.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Arts and culture where we are... Oh, we have a junior we have a junior culture there in the name of Emmerich, who was the opening act. Like, we can build the world, the community, the spaces that allow us to show up in all the ways in which we want to. If you wanna sit there and close your eyes to test for me in any spaces, can I close my eye and feel alright? If I can close my eyes in a space, that's the space for me.
Victoria McWane-Creek:That's what on purpose how we design Onyx Collective is want this to be a place, radical welcome, that is not a place. It's a third space. Don't exist in any kind of a physical form. It is only because people are radically welcoming, are radically loving, are radically caring, are radically collective in how we are choosing to be engaged with one another at any given time. And that is what makes us different.
Victoria McWane-Creek:It is the nature. It is the artistry. It is the wellness. It is having somebody come in like David as a well with body prayers come and lead us in body movement. It is having Susan Smith Greer come and read some of her writings for our gathering and to share some of that presence.
Victoria McWane-Creek:It was even me at one point. I got to do a little bit of Culture Bear. My help, Alicia, did the most amazing financial wellness workshop I have ever been to, which I can't even call it a workshop,
Jim Griswold (Music):but
Victoria McWane-Creek:she did that. But the Collective, the We, that part, we have to just be in space and continue to. And I just wanna share, I had written about what Onyx Collective was on 03/22/2024. And this was what was in my brain. And this is what I filed with the state of Minnesota and the IRS about what Onyx Collective was before I wrote the the study, before I gave you that, this is where...
Victoria McWane-Creek:What it was, and you tell me what you think. Onyx Collective is a collective of black people living, working, and playing in rural Minnesota who are interested in moving towards wholeness and healing in community. We are a community that moves with justness and fairness for an inclusive society, intent on unlocking the promise of the community by unleashing the promise in us all. We do this in a culturally responsive and culturally specific manner by offering fellowship and friendly association with people who share our interests through education and enlightening experiences and the support and assistance to members so they can fully participate, experience prosperity, and reach their full potential.
Alicia Rufus:It's called manifesting.
Victoria McWane-Creek:I had broke that 03/22/2024. Now how we do it, that is dependent on the people present. But what we're doing is that. Yes. Manifesting some...
Victoria McWane-Creek:We are building. World building each moment, brick by brick, and we all got a brick that we're bringing.
Ellen Wolter:I just... I'm speechless. You guys are doing just incredible, incredible things. It it reminds me a little bit of, what you're saying. John Powell, his work on belonging, if you know John Powell, and he said you can imagine your world into existence.
Ellen Wolter:That's what you're doing, right? You're imagining what is possible and making it happen. It's incredible.
Victoria McWane-Creek:The important piece for me and thinking about Onyx Collective as this idea of what it means to build, there's this desire, I think, for it to be easy and it ain't. That there is a way to do it that is going to look like something that you've experienced before. And that's impossible without replicating things. But the imagination piece that you just spoke to Ellen, we don't get to imagining unless the central nervous system is rested, at that space safety and belongingness enough that you can relax enough to unlock and unleash the power of imagination. Cortisol levels will prevent that from happening because we gotta focus on the threats in front of us.
Victoria McWane-Creek:So we get together because that is the moment, that's the place, the space where, as Alicia has already said, she can close her eyes and relax. That's when we get to begin to imagine and dream. We don't dream when we're stressed and in distress. That does not happen. It might look to people like, well, they just be getting together and having, having a good time.
Victoria McWane-Creek:Absolutely. That's the medicine, right? The medicine is to get, is to connect with other human beings who have a shared interest, who have a shared desire in an outcome that only together can you get to. That's the only way it happens. We have to do the gathering.
Victoria McWane-Creek:It is inoculating for when we return to our communities, when our children return to hostile school environments, when as adults we return to hostile work environments, or we are engaged in something and somebody is, well, why are you still here? Then if we can tap into an Onyx Collective thing, it will also maybe come down and maybe not get as high next time. And maybe we get to that lovely space of equanimity and can be steady. And in that space of steadiness, of balance, you can activate imagination in a moment's notice.
Ellen Wolter:What are your hopes and dreams for Onyx Collective?
Alicia Rufus:I feel like there's still this overarching, hope and dream for, like, all African Americans, right? And that is to have safety, community, love, your own businesses, financial well-being, prosperity, and this healing. And I'm borrowing seven generations back is seven generations forward. I kind of hinted to what my hopes and dreams for Onyx was, was that we can kind of be like the nexus of rural Minnesota, so nexus community partners. I see more African Americans in in my small town every day that I haven't seen, and I know our numbers are growing.
Alicia Rufus:And so they want a place too, and they say, hey. I didn't know you were here. And I say, hey. I've been here. You know, here's a card.
Alicia Rufus:We got a thing. And so, you know, I hope we grow. I hope we are steadfast to our mission. I hope that more people can see the mission, love the mission, support the mission, and then leave us to take care of the mission. You know?
Alicia Rufus:So tiny call for action. If there's any mentors or leadership opportunities that they wanna bring to rural Minnesota that we can engage our people in, more civic opportunities, African dancers that wanna teach our children, drummers that wanna teach our children and us because I wanna learn too. Any donators, partners that wanna support our mission and see the value in African Americans creating space, that third space Victoria mentioned, right here in rural Minnesota, then we are definitely welcoming to having that for our people here and for our children so that they can learn it and then pass it on.
Victoria McWane-Creek:She said legacy. Yes, she did. I am in full agreement that those are essential, ultimate outcomes of our existence, that will be here in some way, shape or form. Like if we're here, that means that the network is doing what it means, that the cultural desert is no more, That isolation is not standard if you are a black person who chooses to live in rural Minnesota. And I think that as we look at this for what it really is, black folks have been here.
Victoria McWane-Creek:We're not going anywhere. And so whether we're in a community that is 300 or it's a megatropolis, like 15,000, And as long as we are here, we're going to be able to practice what it means to be in relationships that are rooted in choice, in agency, in shared culture, in shared desire to be whole and to be well together. The language of Holon comes to mind, and I think about you're a whole system within a system, and each person is a whole entity. And as a system of systems, we are so strong. We deserve joy and creativity and rest and connection.
Victoria McWane-Creek:These are not luxuries. They are conditions for thriving. And I can say conditions for our thriving because Onyx Collective has been on a journey of strategically thinking about what the next three years would look like for us. Thinking about what are the conditions for thriving, thinking about what we need to be focused, that one or two things that we must focus on so that Onyx Collective can stand up fully on its own and from within sustain itself. We have some fantastic partners.
Victoria McWane-Creek:I think about West Central Initiative Foundation and that initial grant that they gave to my business. I think about RSDP as a, like, a ignition catalyst funding partner and an intellectual partner in that first year of real hub movements. I think about Blandon Foundation at the end of last year, just saying, hey, we like what you're doing here. Like that amazing to just be supported for people to recognize that, yeah, what we're doing is important and we're the only ones probably who can do this particular bit of work that must be done to ensure that people who are black and rural thrive right here. And we can have the diverse ecosystem that any community needs while also being a whole system within the bigger community.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And so both of those things are true. If we're thriving, our communities, the general communities are much closer to thriving too. And so we can all get at it. What we're building with Onyx Collective is that mobile cultural oasis that transform these really harsh landscapes sometimes, and make it hard to survive without nourishing relationships. And so we're building that, that village infrastructure for black rural thriving, and we're doing it through the lens of blackness, centering rurality, and with the people who are impacted and implicated in shifting outcomes for it.
Victoria McWane-Creek:And that is us. Right? So particularly any black person who is listening, who may or may not have ever heard of Onyx Collective, just know that the isolation that you may have experienced is not isolated to you. It is a generalized experience that we have had. And in order to do anything about it, we have to do something about it.
Ellen Wolter:Victoria and Alicia, it's been such a pleasure to talk with you both today and learn about your incredible work. I will be cheering you on and supporting you where I can. So thanks so much for joining me.
Alicia Rufus:Thank you so much for having us.
Ellen Wolter:Thank you for listening to Side by Side. We welcome your emails at sidebysideumn dot edu. Side by Side is a production of the University of Minnesota Extension and is written and hosted by me, Ellen Wolter. Special thanks to Jan Jekula, who designed our wonderful logo, and Jim Griswold, who sings and plays guitar in our opening and closing credits.
Jim Griswold (Music):Really doesn't matter at all.
Ellen Wolter:You can find episodes of Side by Side wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode. I'm Ellen Wolter, and this is side by side.
