Event curator Alexis Brown creates space for Black Miami. ‘We deserve to be here’
During the Friday of Art Basel, a large crowd mingled and moved around Overtown’s The Urban event complex for B.A.E. Basel, a collaboration with entertainment company Paramount designed to be inclusive of Black people that combined thumping music with visual art.
For SocialXChange Miami founder Alexis Brown, making sure guests at the events she plans and promotes like B.A.E. Basel — Black Art Experience Basel — can unwind is personal.
“It is a very personal journey because this work not only impacts me personally but my community at large that looks like me,” Brown, 36, said. “It’s like my love letter to Black Miami. My work is to let them know they are welcome and that we deserve to be here, have that space and have fun places to go and be entertained.”
Growing up in Cutler Ridge, Brown learned the importance of taking pride in her identity as a Black person at a young
age. After graduating from Coral Reef High School’s magnet program, she attended historically Black Hampton
University and graduated in 2010. Upon returning to Miami and working different jobs a few years later, she sought a space meant for people like her.
“I wanted somewhere to go,” she remembered, referring to social and community events and spaces. “I was a person that didn’t have somewhere to go. I thought if I want this, there have to be other Black people that want it. It’s about community.”
Brown launched SocialXchange Miami in 2013 as a part-time project outside of her day job in human resources. She was scared the first time she sold tickets to her events because she wasn’t sure if guests would pay to attend them. Once she saw that the demand was there for her events, she never looked back.
The success of Brown’s events in the City of Miami have not been without their challenges. She has noticed the rise of Miami housing prices and how they are pushing residents out of the city altogether. The trend prompted her to spend the last six months trying to assess in which local cities she should be planning future events.
Despite the success of her events, Miami nightlife still has many of the same issues it had