Article by Anna Armstrong from the Press Democrat
The local branch of the NAACP on Saturday celebrated the grand opening of the Home of Intentional Vision for Equity, or H.I.V.E., marking the organization’s first permanent, nonreligious office building in Sonoma County in almost 20 years.
Located on the corner of Fourth Street and St. Helena Avenue in Santa Rosa, the new building will serve as a “safe space for advocacy, education, and community building, centering Black, Indigenous, and People of Color” in the county.
“The goal is to really make sure that we have a safe space and that it embodies and reflects Black culture and community,” said Kirstyne Lange, the president of the Sonoma County NAACP branch. “We don’t have any Black spaces here in the county.”
Visitors to the lobby of the nonprofit’s new digs will see a colorful mural inspired by Sonoma County nature and residents, a front desk with informational pamphlets and a whiteboard with a Coretta Scott King quote.
The hall winds around to offices, a youth space and conference rooms, where the NAACP hosts workshops and programming like its youth council and Black doula program.
The event kicked off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and featured a DJ, food truck and artwork by local artist and educator Martín Zúñiga.
H.I.V.E. was opened in collaboration with Health Action Together, a local community group that works to address health and social inequities in the county using its “Agenda for Action.”
Health Action Together Executive Director Adriana Arrizón said that in today’s political climate, it is “more important than ever” to have a space where the community can come together.
“We really need to focus on not only holding each other but also walking together through a healing process,” Arrizón said. “Everything that is happening nationally is to continue to invisibilize us into making us feel like we don’t belong.”
Arrizón said she and Lange have a shared vision of creating a sense of belonging in the new H.I.V.E. center.
“We are going to keep doing the work that we’ve been doing around supporting students who are experiencing discrimination in school, supporting employees experiencing employment discrimination or business owners that need support working with our labor partners,” Lange said. “These are the things we have been doing and we are just going to keep doing it.”
The NAACP also recently hosted its Freedom Fund Gala, which raised $15,000 to support the organization’s work and served as a local celebration of Black joy, Lange said.
During Saturday’s festivities, people socialized, shared meals together and took photos to mark the occasion.
For Zúñiga, Saturday’s celebration also meant people could see his mural and artwork throughout the center for the first time.
His mural, titled “The Waves of Sonoma County,” took him three days to complete. It depicts the nature and resiliency of the county and its Black, Latino and Indigenous communities.
“Art is my first language,” Zúñiga said. “All of us are artists when we are kids playing around and creating. I just didn’t stop.”
Contact Staff Writer Anna Armstrong at 707-521-5255 or anna.armstrong@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @annavarmstrongg.