I had the pleasure of sitting with Erinn Knight, creative strategist, community builder, and co-founder of Where Y’all At Though?! and Build Your Own Dreams. We talked about belonging, building community, Black Austin, and what it means to make a home in a rapidly changing city. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation.

“ …I started feeling under appreciated in Atlanta, but I was also just dealing with a lot of tough emotional stuff. So I was like, "Let me go to Nashville," 'cause I have friends there, I have a place I can cry. But Nashville never felt like home, it just felt like a safe place. You know what I'm saying? But Austin, it just was like, there was always space for me here. You know what I'm saying? So it's, like, in a very micro way. Not the whole city.

The city was interesting, but I had people here, so I was like, "Let me just make the plunge." So even now it becoming home to me is new, but if it wasn't for B and his family I would not be here. It would just be a fun place that I'd be still flying into. I'd still be building stuff, one foot in the door, one foot out the door.

But for me to commit is because I had community, like intimate community, like people that I can cry with. I have little nieces and nephews that are excited to see me. I have places I can cook. Like, the things that... I'm not talking about the, "Oh, we can turn up, we can... But yeah, I, I moved here 'cause I had community, in an intimate sense.”