The MURPH is rooted in community, radical feminist and anti-capitalist values. We committed to a partnership with The Guild to materialize these values through community stewardship of a physical space. Our partnership is only possible because our political values and commitment to action are aligned.
We envision the MURPH to exist as a consistent, valuable, and relevant gathering space that brings together people locally and from around the world. This vision requires longevity that only community-based infrastructure can provide.
THE MULTI-use radical people’s hall
The MURPH is a space for individuals, organizations, groups and communities to gather, work, dream, scheme and take action for our collective liberation.
The MURPH is 9,700 sq. ft. building in Atlanta’s historic West End community. Like many communities with deep Black cultural roots and institutions, the West End is experiencing rapid gentrification and loss of communally held spaces. The MURPH will build on the community’s abundant legacy and offer affordable, accessible and well equipped meeting space. Our space hosts ten individual offices, one conference room, one classroom, a large common area, laundry room, full kitchen and a 3,400 sq. ft. warehouse.
The MURPH — previously held by Southerners on New Ground (SONG) — is a community stewardship project led by three long-time organizers in Atlanta, GA.
After more than a decade of organizing, they come to this work with a shared commitment to build power through relationship building, resource sharing and community infrastructure.
The MURPH meets the needs of everyday people and organizations as access to communally stewarded spaces continues to shrink due to rising costs, corporate greed and political misleadership in Atlanta and across the South.
The MURPH team carries forth the radical, queer, anti-capitalist, and feminist legacy of our SONG comrades who previously stewarded this space. Their commitment to going against the grain by refusing to sell out to corporate interests allowed a principled transition to development of the MURPH.
Mary Hooks
(she/her)
Mary Hooks
(she/her)
Mary is a 42yr old Black, lesbian, feminist, abolitionist, pan-Africanist mother and wife. She is a member of Southerners On New Ground and part of the leadership of the Movement 4 Black Lives. Her people are migrants of the Great Migrataion, factory workers, church folks, Black women, hustlers and addicts, dykes, studs, femmes, queens, and all people fighting for the liberation of oppressed people. Hooks has been at the forefront of fights to abolish money bail, defund police, re-imagine public safety, and develop new organizers.
Kate Shapiro
(she/her)
Kate Shapiro
(she/her)
Kate was raised in and still makes her home in Atlanta with her toddler. Having served in a variety of organizations including Southerners on New Ground, Women’s March and ReFrame, she brings 18 years of experience in grassroots organizing, base building, campaign development, training, program development and strategy. She is at her best supporting ordinary people to build teams and schemes that cultivates humor, courage and vision.
She served in a variety of leadership roles at SONG between 2012-2020 and most recently worked at Women’s March as their first Director of Organizing. She currently serves as a Senior Advisor at ReFrame. She is also the primary author of ‘We Don’t Want to Be Stars’ a 21st Century Intersectional Feminist Organizing Curriculum and sits on the Vision and Strategies Council of Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective.
Charlene A. Carruthers
(she/her)
Charlene A. Carruthers
(she/her)
Charlene is a writer, filmmaker, community organizer, and Black Studies PhD Candidate at Northwestern University. A practitioner of telling more complete stories, her work interrogates historical conjunctures of Black freedom-making post-emancipation and decolonial revolution, Black governance, Black/Native/Indigenous relationalities, and Black feminist abolitionist geographies. Her work spans more than 20 years of community organizing across racial, gender, and economic justice movements. She served as the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), and is author of the bestselling book, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements.
ONCE RENOVATION OF THE SPACE IS COMPLETED, IT WILL INCLUDE:
10 office spaces for community-based organizations
1 large conference room
1 classroom
1 large event space / common area
Full event kitchen and prep space
A maker space with screenprinting, and artist workshops
Children’s room (for onsite childcare during workshops and events)
“As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people my job is to make revolution irresistible” – Toni Cade Bambara.
The MURPH is a people’s space for individuals, organizations, groups and communities to gather, work, dream, scheme and take action for our collective liberation. We follow a community stewardship model that is affordable and accessible for short and long term use.
We believe that movement infrastructure requires space for cultural work so that our hearts, minds, and bodies can work towards collective liberation. The MURPH is committed to providing space for arts education and creation that contributes to building community power.
