When her mother and father both passed away, Monica O. Montgomery was left with a lot of stuff.
Her mother was an artist and an educator, who did graphic design, photography and collage. Her father was a genealogist and historian who wrote the book Collecting African American History. They left her a collection of more than 7,000 items, ranging from artwork and photographs to historical archives and ephemera like recipes and scrapbooks connected to African American history.
“[My father] was very passionate that people should never throw out things, that we’re making history every day, and we need to hold on to it,” Montgomery says.
A lot of people would be overwhelmed by a collection of this size, but Montgomery is a museum curator by trade. She’s worked at the Smithsonian, the Brooklyn Museum and, closer to home, with Historic Germantown and as a former University of the Arts faculty member. She decided to leverage her parent’s archive and turn it into the cultural center DiasporaDNA Story Center.
The center, which is currently doing pop-up exhibits (most recently at the UArts Celebration of Life) while it looks for a permanent space, is meant to showcase items and share stories from the global South. It’ll include items from African American history, but also those from Latino, Indian, Asian, Polynesian and Indigenous cultures. In addition to these archives, the center holds events that help people tell stories and process grief.
On June 10, Montgomery is sharing her story at National Mechanics in Old City as part of MISSION Story Slam, hosted by B Corps PWP Video. (The Citizen is a media sponsor.) She plans to tell the story of how she came to found DiasporaDNA, but also how she’s seen personal and institutional archive building and storytelling help grieving people find catharsis.
“I want to talk a bit about my personal journey of trying to process, release grief and reclaim power by building an institution that can outlast me,” she says.
Montgomery will be speaking alongside stand-up comedian and storyteller Che Guerrero, designer and writer Meg de Brito, and Roz Pichardo of Operation Save Our City. The event takes place from 6 to 10:30pm. Tickets are $10 ahead of the event and $15 the day of.
A do-gooders story slam
The idea for MISSION Story Slam came from PWPVideo producer Dave Winston. Winston’s been in the video production business for more than 35 years. At PWPVideo, he’s loved producing content highlighting the stories of nonprofits — JEVS Human Services, CHOP and the ACLU — but he wanted to spend more time with the amazing people he met on sets.
He also saw opportunities for nonprofits to help each other out. What if, he thought, they created an event where nonprofit leaders and other do-gooders could share what drives them while also raising funds and bonding over drinks? Participants could compete against one another and the funds could go to nonprofit organizations.
“The idea behind MISSION Story Slam is it’s your mission. Why do you do what you do? What motivates you? What things have you seen and done that make your work important?” Winston says.
He shared the idea with PWPVideo founder Michael Schweisheimer, and MISSION Story Slam was born. They held their first event in 2018. Since then, they’ve hosted 11 slams, including a few virtual ones during the pandemic.
“You get a lot of funny stories, and then you get some stories that are very heartfelt and even gut wrenching.” —PWP’s Dave Winston
Onstage, people have shared stories about surviving abuse, becoming a kidney donor or simply why they started a nonprofit. Trenae Nuri, host of City Cast Philly, shared a story about her mom taking her to meet a man who was dressed in full cowboy garb. Then, she told Nuri the man was her grandfather and that he was part of the Federation of Black Cowboys.
“When she revealed that it was her grandfather, and that was the first time they met, the place went silent,” Winston says. “You get a lot of funny stories, and then you get some stories that are very heartfelt and even gut wrenching.”
Hear stories; tell stories
Story slams are open-mic style competitions where people tell stories. It’s not stand-up comedy. There’s no music, props or notes allowed. It’s just a person, standing in front of a microphone, talking to an audience. Each MISSION slam story lasts five minutes. Participants are encouraged to tell a personal story around a particular theme. The theme for June 10: The time is now. Winston thinks the theme was fitting for MISSION Story Slam 12. “In my head, I saw a clock with 12 at the top and I thought, okay, how about something with time?” he says.
Participants can treat the theme pretty loosely, however. This go-round, Winston expects they’ll fixate on “time” or just “now,” for instance. The event’s three judges — volunteers from Philly’s community of nonprofit leaders and the audience — can take adherence to the theme as seriously as they want, or just focus on good storytelling. Each competition offers a prize of $250 for the judges’ award and $100 for the audience favorite.
Each MISSION Story Slam event has between eight and10 competitors. Ahead of the event, Schweisheimer usually reaches out to a few people, often members of the nonprofit community, to come and share their stories. They typically source one to four stories this way for each event. The rest are audience volunteers. If there’s a lull, emcee Chris Satullo, a longtime journalist for The Inquirer and WHYY, will step in with a story of his own.
After people sign up at the event and names are put into a coffee can and drawn out to determine their order.
“We have our own Horn and Hardart can of destiny,” Winston jokes, referencing the coffee can the City Commissioners Office uses to determine the order names will appear on the election ballot.
Ripple effects
A number of story slam events have popped up in Philly in recent years. The Moth hosts story slams in a number of U.S. cities, including at World Cafe Live. The College of Physicians hosts an annual slam for medical students. The storytelling nonprofit First Person Arts has hosted slams in the city since 2001, but, due to the loss of the National Endowment for the Arts funding, have closed their doors.
MISSION’s slam sets itself apart with its focus on nonprofits and sustainable, mission-driven businesses. Participants compete on behalf of nonprofits. Monetary prizes come from donations.
Guerrero is competing on behalf of Esperanza Immigration Legal Services; de Brito is competing on behalf of Philadelphia Cultural Fund; Pichardo and Montgomery are competing on behalf of their own nonprofits. Every audience member who signs up to compete the night of will also name a nonprofit to which their prize funds should be donated if they win.
The donations are small, but the event itself can be transformative for organizations, an opportunity to recruit volunteers, develop partnerships with other nonprofit leaders and share resources.
“The awareness that’s going to be built from the audience is another way we can gain new followers — people signing up for our newsletter or people saying, hey, I want to volunteer to help you do this work,” Montgomery says.
PWPVideo doesn’t track what happens with the winning nonprofits after the slam, but they do record all of the stories shared during the competition. Nonprofits can use the videos to continue to raise awareness about their mission.
“It’s a pebble in a pond. The ripples go out,” Winston says. “Not everybody can afford to hire us … It gives them a little bit of material that they can use to amplify the good work that they do.”
MISSION Story Slam 12 takes place June 10 from 6 to 10:30pm at National Mechanics, 22 S. 3rd Street. Tickets cost $10 ahead of the event and $15 on the day of.
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