Today we’d like to introduce you to Trey Carlisle.
Hi Trey, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My life changed at 17 years old on the 15th anniversary of 9/11. It was on that day when I participated in a program that brought Jewish, Christian, and Muslim teens together to find common ground, cultivate empathy and solidarity with one other, and discuss tangible steps they can take to help build a more peaceful world. And we experienced all this by engaging in facilitated dialogue….and making music together! This was my first exposure to Music In Common (MIC)—-a music and peacebuilding nonprofit that heals the fractures dividing communities worldwide—and I was hooked!
It was truly life-changing for me to have my eyes and heart opened to the profound commonalities and empathy I experienced with young people across seemingly disparate religious and cultural backgrounds as me. One of the participants who was Muslim said “I’m afraid to wear a backpack to school, out of fear of being accused of being a terrorist.” I immediately felt deep empathy towards her because as a Black man, I’ll be afraid to wear a hoodie when it’s cold, or a backpack inside a store, out of fear of being accused of being a criminal or thug. I learned that in spite of our diverse backgrounds, we all experienced the pain of being stereotyped and dehumanized, based on the negative portrayals of the communities that we come from in the media, textbooks, or in our family discourse. As a result, we teens co-wrote an original song together called “Rehumanize” and performed it for the community, which was so impactful that we were selected to give a TED talk about our experience!
On that day, I realized the power of Music In Common’s work and continued to participate in their programs every year. I worked my way up from a participant to becoming a peer mentor in MIC programs. Finally in 2020, when Music In Common made the shift to becoming a “youth powered organization” (engaging the young people they serve in co-running the organization), I was hired as the MIC Senior Fellow and co-created with MIC Founder Todd Mack The Black Legacy Project, a musical celebration of Black History to advance racial solidarity, equity, and belonging. Now (six years since that fateful day my life changed), I work full-time as the Program Coordinator for Music In Common and Co-Director of the Black Legacy Project.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of the biggest challenges we faced at Music In Common was navigating how to do our music and peacebuilding work amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to 2020, we facilitated all of our programs in-person. Therefore, it took creativity, persistence, and innovation to explore how to create the same meaningful spaces where people could engage in bridge-building dialogue and collaborative songwriting virtually. This exploration led to the creation of programs like the Bridge Sessions (which engaged community members over zoom in discussions and collaborative lyric writing about global issues) and our Peace Prodigies program (which trained young people to facilitate and organize music and peacebuilding initiatives).
Another challenge was doing our work in the midst of such heightened polarization and injustices across racial divides in 2020. Todd and I were in a constant state of grief as we would witness the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, and others on the news and the resulting protests across the globe. The polarization and conflict between Black and White Americans across the nation seemed eerily similar to conflicts Music In Common has worked to transform overseas in the Middle East. However, it was at that time when Todd started relistening to Bob Dylan songs and was struck by Dylan’s solidarity with the Black American struggle, and by the relevance of these songs in the present day. As a result, Todd and I channeled our grief into creativity and action by co-creating the Black Legacy Project, which travels the country bringing together Black and White artists and artists of ALL backgrounds to record present day interpretations of songs central to the Black American experience and compose originals relevant to the pressing calls for change of our time. Community roundtable discussions help inform how these songs are interpreted and written. Since its launch in 2021 in Western Massachusetts, we’ve taken the Black LP to Northwest Arkansas, Denver, CO, Los Angeles, CA, and will soon take it to the Mississippi Delta (Feb. 22), Atlanta, GA (April. 3), and Boise, ID (June 11) this year. Furthermore, The first Black LP album will be released in April 2023 and a Black LP touring band will hit the road in May.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am the Program Coordinator for Music in Common a nonprofit that strengthens, empowers, and connects communities through the universal language of music, and I am also the co-director of a national project that is produced by Music in Common, the Black Legacy Project which is a musical celebration of Black history to advance racial solidarity, equity, and belonging.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Serving at Music in Common has been a dream job for me because MIC combines my two greatest passions from childhood…music and peace/social justice work. Growing up playing music as a part of my church’s worship team, I witnessed every Sunday the power that music has to inspire people. At 13, once I started writing and performing my own songs at my school, church, and community—being greatly inspired by the song “Glory” by Common and John Legend—-I developed a love for writing and performing songs that inspired people to advance peace, love, and justice within their lives and in the world. Moreover, that same year I developed a passion for advancing peace and social justice through activism as well, particularly after meeting a Holocaust Survivor named Helen Freeman, who showed me the number tattooed on her arm by the Nazi’s and said “You teen’s must carry the torch and make sure nothing like the Holocaust ever happens again.” Mrs. Freeman instilled within me a passion to prevent acts of targeted hatred, injustice, violence, and oppression from occurring by building bridges between people across divides. Therefore, when I participated in my first Music In Common program on that fateful day when I was 17, I knew “this is where I needed to be!”
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emcee_poetrey/
Image Credits
On Martin Luther King Day 2023, the Black Legacy Project band led a full day of performances, film screenings, and song writing workshops for the students at the Bement School in Deerfield, MA. The band performed a curated set of songs that came out of the Black Legacy Project launches in the Berkshires, Ozarks, and Denver. Moreover, the Bement students worked together with the Black LP team to create their own verses to the song “We Shall Overcome,” which the band showcased to the school!
