Michael Henderson and Jared Culp Michael Henderson and Jared Culp started A Tribe Called Brunch to get people together to discuss pressing issues facing our community while sharing a delicious meal. It’s been just over a year since more than 50,000 people gathered downtown for the Women’s March on Austin, the largest march in Texas history, which motivated Michael Henderson and Jared Culp to start A Tribe Called Brunch. Henderson and Culp met during their undergraduate studies at Howard University and moved independently to Austin, where Henderson now works as a project manager at the City of Austin Innovation Office and Culp is a senior experience designer at McKinsey & Company. When they bumped into each other at the Women’s March, they had been following each other on Instagram for a year, admiring each other’s dinner parties. Culp’s were loose social gatherings, focused on getting creative people into the same room to enjoy good food and conversation, and Henderson’s were more structured, policy-oriented dinners with a goal of galvanizing volunteers. “I think we were looking for heaviness and lightness together,” Culp says of their decision to join forces. “We thought, how can we make a bigger event, elevate the conversation, and have more fun?” A month later, they hosted their first brunch, titled “Feminism: Which Way Forward?” “As we happened to run into each other the day of the Women’s March, that became an easy theme,” Culp explains. “We thought, people will still be looking for ways to connect with the community as the momentum dies down and the issue is not as omnipresent.” “And then we thought about it. We’re two black guys,” Henderson laughs. “We had to check ourselves. We were like, this is someone else’s issue. We need to make sure that we’re going to the right people, that we have a diverse group of women. I feel like everyone walked away impressed; we had feminists say, ‘You really nailed it.’” For the first event, inside a space on Tillery Street, over 30 people gathered for a few hours of conversation, cuisine, and mimosas. Speakers included Haven founder Liz Deering, Women Who Code Austin’s Sara Ines Calderon, and UT Austin Community Engagement Center Director Virginia Cumberbatch. Since then, they’ve hosted three more brunches, including “Hallelujah,” an interfaith discussion held in the wake of President Trump’s travel ban; “Bigger Than Me: The Next Wave of Philanthropy,” on reimagining ways to give; and “Cranes in the Sky,” the official kickoff event of Austin Design Week, addressing the changing face of East Austin. Most of their brunches, attended by 40 to 70 people, have been held at venues in East Austin, where Henderson and Culp live. They take great care to find the right speakers, who step up every 30 minutes to give five-minute speeches that end with action items, such as how to get involved or where to contribute, and a positive toast.
“One definition of a toast is a prayer amongst friends,” Henderson offers. “So we are bringing everyone together. We’re not saying, this is right or this is wrong. It’s more like, this is my perspective, this is how I live my life, let’s all celebrate together and move forward.” Culp echoes that sentiment: “I think it’s important to bring people together and have a conversation so that they’re inspired to do the things that are important to them. It’s not necessarily to copy what the speakers have done, because that’s what works for them, but to start thinking about the community and ways to get involved in the issues that matter to them.” With topics like religion and gentrification, they admit that brunch can get heated, but nobody is throwing potato croquettes or smoked salmon canapés around the room. Between speeches, the discussion o!en continues in a more informal manner, though Henderson and Culp have no control over that part. “People continue to talk about the themes,” Culp says, “but I think it’s also great that people are like, ‘Oh my god, you went to Copenhagen, I went to Copenhagen.’ People are meeting new people and making new friends. More than ever, at the last one, people walked away saying, ‘What’s your Instagram? What’s your number? Let’s hang out and grab coffee.’” Henderson agrees: “That’s beautiful, that’s community building.” A winning combo: motivated individuals, big ideas, and brunch.
tribeza.com
| FEBRUARY 2018
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