When Music and Activism Meet - Founder/Vision Holder of Her Many Voices, Alicia Fall, on Leaving a Legacy of Positive Impact
Alicia, what is your personal narrative? What key moments in your life led you to where you are?
My mix background has had a huge influence on how I view life and how I walk in life. I am an Eastern Band Tsalagi (Cherokee), Cuban Taino woman, with a splash of many other cultures. In short, I’m a good mutt.
I am a born and raised New Yorker who grew up in an artistic family. My mother was a classically trained vocalist, my father was a visual artist, and my oldest sister recently retired as a professional dancer. Their influence was/is palpable.
As a child I was a painfully shy. I was a lot more comfortable delving into the arts than relationships and began song writing in secret. It was so much easier for me to express my thoughts and emotions through music than anything else.
One day I stepped out of that hidden comfort and started playing for others. The feedback was that they could relate. Relate to my pain, my fears, my hopes, my perceived injustices and my desires. Over the course of my life, I taught myself to play guitar and a few other instruments, that didn’t really stick, but it was my voice that carried. Over the years I’ve been blessed to collaborate with and meet many talented musicians. It’s truly been a gift. My music spans genres, much like my work as an activist.
As a musician, I am first and foremost a singer/songwriter. I find joy in telling stories through music. I believe we connect with one another, we teach one another, and we motivate one another through stories.
I’ve always been involved in social justice with the mindset of an artist, meaning I live in perverse fantasy world of unrealistic expectations. But every activist must believe the impossible can happen with persistence and creativity.
The tragedy of 9/11 spurred a deeper connection between my music and activism. Most of my family still lives in New York City, so do/did friends. It took days to know if they had survived. Some did not. In response to those terrible moments of fear, loss and sorrow, I wrote a song called Many Blessings. It begins and ends with this verse:
I sit by this window
Sunlight pouring in
And I am reminded by the warmth on my skin
The gifts I’ve been given
The places I’ve been
The beautiful people in this world
How blessed my life is.
At the time, I was reflecting on the souls that had influenced my life. Now I realize I was singing to a greater meaning, which is this: we can’t stand still in tragedy and destruction if we want to realize a better world. We need to find our power in joy, in blessings, in creation. Recognize our gifts.
This belief further coalesced when I met Jensine Larsen, the founder of World Pulse. She started her career as a journalist in Burma. She witnessed great horror, but she chose to focus her reporting on the stories of hope and work toward social change, especially by women.
Jensine founded World Pulse as a safe digital space for women to tell their stories, and in telling their stories find their agency. I performed at the first fundraiser for World Pulse, and I realized that I wanted to do the same thing as Jensine…Make a difference in this world by leaving a legacy of positive impact, especially for those whose voices are often silenced…women, children and Mother Earth.
World nations wallow in the struggle. That’s disempowering. I want to work with others, especially with women, in the act of creation. So I use the term artivist for the women and men who are a part of Her Many Voices. The “Her” makes reference to Mother Earth, the “Many Voices” all of Her children.
Over time, in the music industry, I found myself playing a lot of benefit concerts, so thought why not marry the arts with the humanitarian world. In 2009 HMV was birthed from this creation. The following year Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I traveled there shortly after the quake with a Haitian born woman my sister had introduced me to. Tamara Cantave had built a school in Haiti and was focused on expanding support to the Haitian community through education and agriculture. Her father had served as Haiti’s Minister of Agriculture years back and she was carrying his legacy. Tamara and I had embarked on a journey that continues today. We’ve made multiple trips together since, founded a primary school, partnered with Wynne Farm Ecologic Reserve and have provided trainings for women's businesses over the years. And now Tamara sits on our Board of Directors.
We arrived in a world that was completely devastated. There were places I stood in Port-au-Prince where the bodies of loved ones of those we visited were beneath us. I struggled for words to express what I witnessed. It took what seemed for forever to write about my experience because I had no reference to express such devastation. In retrospect, I see how easy it is to focus on the tragedy and loss, because it is all encompassing. But Her Many Voices has instead focused on creation. Today we look to rebuild homes and schools out of hempcrete, a sustainable and earthquake resistant material.
What need did you see in your community that led you to found your non-profit, Her Many Voices?
I come from a legacy of strong matriarchy. As an Indigenous woman my ancestors were warriors, leaders, and healers. I see that same in todays communities. Unfortunately, dominate culture has tried to silence and eradicate our ways, our people. That is why it is critical that we look to the wisdom of Indigenous Women to recreate ways of life that supported communities for thousands of years. Indigenous Women are connected to Mother and Her children. Those children are all the living things on this planet—a child, a tree, a river, a stone, a blade of grass. We are all connected. We are all related.
The heart of the mission of Her Many Voices is the revitalization of Indigenous practices to address the greatest threat of the 21st Century: climate change. The warming of the planet impacts every aspect of our lives. And Indigenous practices can change our collective future.
The utilization of hemp is a key example. Hemp has been erroneously connected with marijuana, and the U.S. government has effectively weaponized hemp to prevent Indigenous People and others from using it. A plant was made illegal, yet it is one of the most resilient and sustainable materials.
Hemp has been used all over the world to build massive structures, from the Great Wall of China to Roman bridges. Hemp is naturally resistant to termites and mold. It is adaptable to a wide range of temperatures. And it can survive natural disasters, including fires and earthquakes.
Indigenous People have used hemp in many ways for thousands of years. By bringing hemp back for building, medicine, paper, food products, lotions, and cosmetics, we can create a globally sustainable infrastructure that addresses climate change and empowers All People.
As the Vision Holder, what goals and dreams do you have to further spread education to communities with the greatest need?
As we currently see in the most recent iteration of culture wars, education has been coopted to force us to view the world through a particular lens, and it’s not one that will lead us toward a brighter future. We should never white wash the horror of our collective past, but we also should not live in that space. We need to create a new one.
I dream of education that my ancestors received to create community. I dream of a curriculum that honors the role our tribal ancestors have played in protecting people and earth for thousands of years. It’s a curriculum that empowers everyone and invites us to live in a place of common ground, both figuratively and metaphorically. And women are key to this vision.
We can all agree to common goals of safety, sustainability, and creativity. From there, we can build villages that lift everyone out of poverty, that protect our precious resources, and that teach us how to live in hope versus doom. We have been given all that we need to thrive. We must stop the destruction of these gifts and honor what we have. Our core value at Her Many Voices is Whatever I do for another, I do for myself. This was instilled in me by my mother. My journey allows me to build from this foundation for the sake of our Future Ancestors. Here is where my aspirations lie.
