Here is what we have always stood for, what we are building now, and the standard we refuse to lower.

After Juneteenth came Reconstruction. In barely a decade, a people freshly freed built schools, churches, businesses, and universities; sent their own to office for the first time; and laid the foundation that would carry Black America for the century to come. They built it themselves, and they built it fast against ferocious resistance — and much of what they made was contested, undercut, and rolled back. That is the part of Reconstruction we do not say enough: it was generative and it was embattled, at the same time. Progress and pushback have always traveled together.

I say all of this not to relive the past, but because I recognize the shape of it. This organization is in its own reconstruction, and so is our industry. And the only question that matters is the one those builders answered with their lives: not what was taken, but what we as a community choose to build now.

Trade Day with Benjamin Moore, KIPP Memphis 2023

What We Have Always Stood For

BID did not begin as a reaction to any moment. Since our founding, alongside the late visionary who started this work, we have held a single standard: nothing but the best for our community, because we have never doubted that they deserve it. That standard has not moved; it is the reason we are still here.

What We Are Building Now

This next chapter moves from visibility toward viability. We are beginning to award business grants — capital, not just encouragement. We are pairing the talent we nurture in our student programming with design firms doing real work, so emerging designers gain experience and established firms gain the help they need to scale. And we are building in-depth masterclasses and courses that teach what too many of us were left to learn alone: not only how to design beautifully, but how to build a business that can withstand.

The BID Standard

This column carries that word for a reason. It is where we set the standard — for this publication, and for ourselves. And it is a reminder of the standard we have always kept: to give our community our best, and to keep becoming more than we were.

A reconstruction draws resistance; ours is no exception. There will be doubt, and there will be those who would rather we shrink, and we have no intention of obliging them. We inherited this work without a map, because there was no standard for what we are trying to do. There is one now; we are writing it and building in plain view. JR

An Era of Reconstruction

Letter From The Editor

On Grief, Inheritance, and the Permission to Reclaim