Staying Power

About Staying Power

Staying Power is a youth-driven movement for housing justice and belonging through arts activism. Through workshops, live performances, publications, and a podcast, Staying Power works to address gentrification and preserve Black and Indigenous history, culture, and art in Washtenaw County.

Staying Power was founded in 2017 by Molly Raynor, Samuel Martin, Sakinah Rahman and Zakiyyah Rahman (aka Ain’t Afraid). In its first iteration, Staying Power focused on two cities—Richmond, CA and Ypsilanti, MI. In 2017, the same year Molly moved back to Michigan to coordinate the Neutral Zone’s Literary Arts program, a group of residents in Richmond created a coalition called “Staying Power” to defend affordable housing. When Donté visited Michigan in 2017, he felt a deep kindred connection between Ypsi and Richmond- both are small, historically Black, family-oriented cities with rich cultural histories of art and activism. This was when the dream was born: to build off of the work happening in both communities and connect young artist-activists across the country for a cultural exchange.

The program launched with a retreat in Richmond led by Donté (our Artistic Director) and CieraJevae Gordon (our Richmond coordinator)  and continued with weekly virtual workshops. The Richmond teens came to Ypsi in December 2019 for a joint production, “Staying Power: Concrete Not Wood,” that they performed for a sold-out audience of 500 people at Ypsi High to culminate their year-long exchange.

The teens of Staying Power are reclaiming their community, re-writing the mainstream narrative, and re-imagining their cities as safe havens and artistic hubs.

After facing a number of challenges during the pandemic, Staying Power’s regular programming is on pause indefinitely, but we are currently working on publishing the script of our last production, “Spoke From the Soil: When Love is a Thing Called Home,” that will be released within the next year. Stay tuned!

Staying Power alumni and former staff Ciatta Tucker has launched Ypsilanti’s first-ever Youth Poet Laureate Program.