FilmCastPodScene: Fierceness Served! with Michelle Parkerson & Chris Prince
March 29, 2023 | FilmCastPodScene
Podcast recorded by FilmScene, in Iowa City, Iowa, each episode features conversations, critiques and clips of upcoming titles at FilmScene plus visits from special guests, interviews with filmmakers, viewing suggestions, and more. This interview with Fierceness Served! director, Michelle Parkerson and Project Director, Christopher Prince accompanied the 2023 Out of the Archive: Black Women Behind the Lens series screening of the documentary.
Essex Hemphill & Wayson Jones | Photo Credit: Daniel Cima
FIERCENESS SERVED! The Story of the Legendary ENIKAlley Coffeehouse in DC
July 18, 2021 | Phil Esteem | Pride Index
It’s a typical Friday afternoon and after what seems like a long ass work week I cannot wait to get the f – – – away to something non-work related. With the simple swivel of my chair, I go from work to home computer where I can turn my attention to Facebook, Twitter, and email messages. “Stop the press,” I think to myself, as I came across a story suggestion from a friend to read up on this documentary about a famous back-in-the-day, black coffeehouse located in DC. And my ears start to perk up because I am excited by what I am reading. Fierceness Served!The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse is a “documentary on DC Black LGBTQ artists who during the 80s launched a national gay cultural movement.” Social activists, politicians, artists, including the likes of Essex Hemphill and Audre Lorde, have performed at this venue. I reach out to Christopher Prince, activist/ artist member of the project’s Steering Committee, to arrange an interview. To my delight, he answers that he’s interested in sharing more details about this project.
Wayson Jones and Christopher Prince, who performed as the neo-soul duo Nightskin,
Gentrification has erased many Black LGBTQ gathering spaces. A group of artists made a film to memorialize one hub of ’80s art and activism.
June 25, 2021 | Marissa J. Lang | Washington Post
When the Enik Alley Coffeehouse opened in a brick-lined carriage house near H Street in the early 1980s, the crack epidemic was ravaging the surrounding communities, and AIDS had left so many dead that the pages of the Washington Blade were filled with obituaries. Across the city, Black gay people were harassed and denied entry at predominantly White gay clubs.
But inside the coffeehouse — named for the streets that border it: Eighth, Ninth, I and K — Black LGBTQ artists and activists found a haven unlike any other in the District then or since. Until it closed in 1989, it was an integral part of a scene that gave rise to some of the most prolific Black LGBTQ artists of a generation and saw the likes of Audre Lorde and Essex Hemphill perform on its modest stage.
In the decades since, Enik Alley was often overlooked in the telling of LGBTQ history in the District, but now in an effort to preserve and promote that history, the surviving members of that cohort have come together to produce a documentary about the coffeehouse. The film, “Fierceness Served!,” will debut in a virtual screening in late August.
The Four of Us 1st Coffeehouse performance poster , Thomas Lucas, Thom Minor Brenda Files and Christopher Prince.
A New Documentary Tells the Story of a Critical Gathering Space for D.C.’s Black LGBTQ Community
August 19, 2021 | Sarah Marloff | Washington City Paper
The documentary Fierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse shines light on an iconic but often overlooked venue for Black queer creators near and far.
It’s the intimacy of ENIKAlley Coffeehouse that Wayson Jones remembers most. The small carriage house-turned-performance space located just off H Street NE was a thriving hub for D.C.’s Black LGBTQ community in the 1980s. “I remember the intimacy. I remember the feeling of community,” Jones tells City Paper. “That was palpable—it seemed that everyone knew one another.”
Jones, who describes himself as gregarious, admits he still felt a “little socially awkward” during his first few visits to ENIKAlley, a performance venue, rehearsal space, and gathering spot for artists and political organizations that opened in 1982. A musician, performer, and visual artist, Jones didn’t begin to feel truly at home in the coffeehouse community until he began performing on its stage, often with his longtime friend and frequent collaborator Essex Hemphill, the renowned poet, activist, and editor of Brother to Brother.
Zhoxza LaBrique & Michelle Parkerson | Photo Credit: Leigh H. Mosley
‘Fierceness Served!’ Documentary Ensures Story of Black D.C. LGBTQ Coffeehouse Lives On
June 14, 2022 | Stephan Hicks | The Reckoning
Sandwiched in an alleyway on the northeast side of Washington D.C., Black queer, gay, and lesbian artists like Wayson Jones cultivated fertile ground in a coffeehouse. What they did in the cramped space is the stuff of legends, yet the coffeehouse is long gone—much like the city of old. A documentary recently released online captures what the coffeehouse meant—and continues to mean—to Washington, D.C. as well as to Black and queer histories.
"Fierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse" has been making its rounds at select screenings. The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse was a performance and rehearsal space for a cohort of artists, a gathering spot; plus a meeting place for political organizations. This was almost hallowed ground for Black artists to share and workshop their craft. Jones, Essex Hemphill, Cheryl Clarke, Audre Lorde, Blackberri, Casselberry-Dupree, and Pomo Afro Homos all stepped foot into the former carriage house-turned-coffeehouse between 8th, 9th, I, and K Streets, NE. The space at 816 I Street, NE was brick, the size of a large walk-in closet, but had great acoustics.
"The intimacy lent itself to that feeling of being part of the family," Jones said.
Gregory Adams, Kweli, Pamela Jaferi, Gregory Ford | Photo Credit: Valerie Phillips
Enik Alley Documentary Highlights Beloved Arts Venue That Was Home To Black Gay D.C.
October 19, 2022 | Pat Padua | DCist
Near the corner of 8th and I in Northeast D.C., there’s a two-story cottage that’s currently for rent. It’s a pleasant home staged with neutral, magazine-friendly decor that seems like a fairly typical example of D.C. real estate, but beneath its trendy, exposed brick walls is a more radical history. More than 30 years ago, this property was known as the Enik Alley Coffeehouse (named for cross streets Eighth, Ninth, I, and K), and it was a crucial arts venue for the Black gay community.
This nearly forgotten space was in operation from 1982-1989 and its history is documented in the 35-minute film, Fierceness Served! The ENIK Alley Coffeehouse, playing in D.C. at this year’s Reel Affirmations Film Festival.