Meet Kelsie
Kelsie has spent most of her life in Harlem. Her grandparents migrated from the south, “My mom's side… grew up in Atlanta, and my father's side is South Carolina. So they both migrated to New York and came straight to Harlem… Both of my parents are from Harlem too, and my mom is from Fifth Avenue. That's where I'm from… and my dad's from Manhattan Avenue.” As a 90s baby, she describes her childhood as “epic.” She has made many grand memories in Harlem, playing outside, hand games like Numbers and Quack Dilly Oso, camps, youth programs, and dance. Now working as a social worker and having founded her own movement, Partner with Black Joy, she is helping people get in touch with their joy and creativity like she was able to growing up in Harlem. On her path, many people and experiences in the neighborhood have shaped who she is and continue to shape her path.
Most of her childhood was spent outside, Double Dutch, hopscotch, playing tag, catching lightning bugs in the summer, having dance battles, going to the Skate Key, and playing in the park. She says, “I always say, like, if you don't have scars on your knees,” she laughs, “And I have a few scars to say… I was outside hustling and bustling with the best of them.” She remained active attending summer camps and dance school, “Every summer I was in a summer camp, whether it was like, St. Aloysius Education Clinic, which took place at P.S. 175, or Kennedy Center… And then I was in three different dance schools… Technique Dance Theater, Culture of Arts, and then La Rocque Bey School of Dance, and Ruth Williams Dance Center.” Kelsie attended high school at Frederick Douglass Academy, “So during that time, this is when… the get lite movement was happening… Chicken Noodle Soup, Aunt Jackie, you know, the Harlem march, all of those songs.” Thinking of the fashion at the time also brings a smile to her face, like Baby Phat, Jimmy Jazz, Moni, Doctor J, and Jordans, “Cuz now your kicks gotta be fly so, you know, you try to find your different spots on the East Side or wherever to, like, see where the Jordans drop.”
“My mom’s side… grew up in Atlanta, and my father’s side is South Carolina. So they both migrated to New York and came straight to Harlem… Both of my parents are from Harlem too, and my mom is from Fifth Avenue. That’s where I’m from… and my dad’s from Manhattan Avenue.”
Growing up in Harlem means that she knows “what community means.” She says, “I know what it means to really be a part of Black culture. And I know what creativity looks like. I know what originality looks like, because I'm from these places. And also just courage… When you think about the history of the Harlem Renaissance, and people [having] the stories that they want to share…” Kelsie also attributes many of her values to Blue Nile Rites of Passage, “a spiritual, moral, character development program that came out of The Abyssinian Baptist Church.” She describes the program saying, “Young brothers and young sisters, we learn about personal growth and development, health and wellness, community consciousness, economic development. Just a whole bunch of subjects that you may not learn in school. And it helped me become more conscious of where I lived and how I want to respect my community more and know about where my precincts are. I have conversations with police officers… how to… protect my brothers and my sisters and stand up for each other and to… speak out whenever I see an injustice, for an injustice to one is an injustice to all.” She would remain community focused when she attended college, “Even going to [a] HBCU, I knew I wanted to… have that community of people. I went to Delaware State University, and then for grad school, I went to a [predominantly white institution], so I went to the University of Southern California. And when I was out of USC, I had to find my tribe. You know, I had to find my Black people. Like… What's the community service like? …I did a lot of community service as a child growing up in the church or in different programs… So it's, like, literally in my DNA to… serve and have a heart of service.”
After college she wanted to be a journalist and wanted to highlight Black stories and experiences through her writing, “I interned at Hot 97. And then I interned, which was a huge deal for me, at Amsterdam News… My beat was to talk about, like, gun violence and stop and frisk at that time. And so I shared some stories. I remember talking about Ramalee Graham, who was killed in the Bronx… I wanted to get my people to know what was happening on our streets. And so what better way to do that then to do it through Amsterdam News and to connect with other people? So, again, community, Blackness, and building out networks and learning what's what on the ground. And then from Amsterdam News, I went to Essence magazine. I started interning there.” From there she wanted to work more directly with people which eventually led her to social work once she saw there were many ways to be involved.” Her values have carried into her work now with Partner with Black Joy, which she refers to as “a space of movement.”. And I started that on February 1. So I'm like… no better time than Black History Month with my Black self… I am in a new partnership with joy; I want the community to kind of join me in that and to know how to access Black joy and be familiar with what Black joy looks like… I feel that I'm pretty relatable and… have positive energy where people feel like they're able to connect with me. And so I want to use that to my advantage so that I can get my Black women and Black men to experience joy in a digestible way… where it doesn't feel like too much.”
“I know what it means to really be a part of Black culture. And I know what creativity looks like. I know what originality looks like, because I’m from these places. And also just courage… When you think about the history of the Harlem Renaissance, and people [having] the stories that they want to share…”
Spending most of her life in Harlem has molded the person she is, “[I’m] big on community service, wanting to be around my people… [being] loving… [and] being gravitated towards… people who kind of hustle, because that's all you see around here, and that's how it was. I mean, you walk up and down 125th, there used to be a whole… cloth and mad CDs… Like, people just talking, selling you something. You go to Mart 125.” Kelsie says Harlem is her “love story.” Though she now lives in the Bronx, her connection to Harlem has not faded and her community ties remain, “I still know a bunch of people from Saint Aloysius…Kennedy [and] my high school programs, HEAF, Harlem Educational Activities Fund... or Double Discovery Center, which took place at Columbia University… And I think that's why also community is so important, because even now, today… the network of people that you have by your side that… really takes you a long way.” She is excited for more Black owned spaces opening in the neighborhood, community preservation, and youth centers that foster bonds between residents and Harlem.
