Written by Connor Spelta

For the most part, a drive down Taylor Street in East Chattanooga looks like any other street in the city’s poorer river-to-ridge region. The blur of closely packed industrial, commercial and residential lots aging into historic status is interrupted by a sprawling 14,000-square-foot complex adorned with stained glass windows and statues. 

The over 100-year-old building, formerly the Solid Anchor Church, hosts Chattanooga non-profit Responsive Initiatives for Social Empowerment (RISE). The black-led non-profit was started in 2011 by current CEO Shane Morrow and his partner.

Known originally as Jazzanooga, the organization began with a single-day Jazz festival as a part of the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga (CFGC). After the initial success of the festival, the organization spun off from CFGC into the independent non-profit it is today.

“Jazzanooga is whatever the community needs it to be,” Morrow said.

The organization lived up to this characterization and continued to host jazz while adding additional programs after changing its name to RISE. Morrow founded Jazzanooga with his partner and is responsible for the shift to more diverse, non-musical approaches to community empowerment.

The Creative Hustle began in 2019 as a professional development program for local creatives.  Participants took part in eight weeks of seminars and workshops led by local professionals that taught them how to apply for grants, write and negotiate contracts and other skills essential to running a successful creative business. 

“We actually even wrote our own grant,” said Erika Dionne Roberts, a local poet who completed the Creative Hustle. “We didn’t know it was a real grant though…we graduated with getting money for a program.” 

Even as the scope and span of programs offered by RISE have diversified over the years, they have always kept free live music as a key tool in accomplishing their mission.  

“There should never be a barrier for high-quality performances because you didn’t have the money,” Morrow said. “There shouldn’t be a barrier to that.”

They hosted the Levitt Foundation’s Audience Music Place (AMP) music series from 2017-2019, the success of which acted as a springboard for the current similar Levitt Building Layers of Community (BLOC) concert series. Additionally, the organization hosted its Soul Sundays in the Park Concert series in 2021.  

RISE’s work is not focused entirely on arts and culture; they have also branched into providing more material support to the communities they serve. In April of last year, a donation from The McKenzie Foundation allowed RISE to team up with local black-owned auto shop Jackson Motor Service to pilot a program providing low-cost insurance and repairs to qualifying applicants. 

The organization also ran a magazine/newsletter called CoCo in the year leading up to and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic amidst what their website described at the time as a national creative blackout. However, the radio show they started in collaboration with WUTC around the same time called Amplify survived, and remains on air to this day.

Most of the current RISE programs are run out of the renovated church building on Taylor Street. The building, called the Hub, is home to an incubator program, a co-working space and various other resources essential to young creative entrepreneurs. 

Another program, the Black Owned and Operated Marketplace (B.O.O.M), was previously located on MLK, but is transitioning to an online marketplace on Oct. 14 and opening at a new physical location sometime in 2025. An exact location hasn’t been announced yet, but it will be in the same area as the Hub.

“People wanted to have RISE go to other areas, I said if we’re going to do the work that we need to do, we need to be…literally in the community,” Morrow said. “What kept me to this building was when you look around and you see the stained glass—despite it being in a low-income marginalized community—they kept this place sacred.” 

The careful preservation of the church by the neighborhood’s residents shows hope for their community. A hope that regardless of all the divestment and neglect that they’ve faced, that beauty would rise up through it all. Roberts says it perfectly,

“Art will always win. It always wins. Always.”

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Rising Artists

Written by Koleby Gilbert

The Sundays of September 2024 saw hundreds of dancing feet groove along to local and global superstars’ folk, jazz, and R&B music. Even in the record-high end-of-summer heat, RISE Chattanooga hosts free concerts for delighted families and friends of all ages.

Known as the Levitt Building Layers of Community (BLOC) Music Series, this circuit of four free events targeted underserved communities in Chattanooga, including Miller Park, East Chattanooga and Southside Community Park. Thanks to two $30,000 grants designated for this year and next, RISE can activate a bustling music scene within places often overlooked. 

The Levitt BLOC Music Series is funded through a partnership with the Levitt Foundation, a national organization specializing in dynamic and equitable funding for underused outdoor spaces.

This isn’t the first collaboration between the two nonprofits. In 2017, RISE was the first black-led nonprofit in the country to be selected by the Levitt Foundation to host the Levitt AMP Music Series, which took place in front of the Bessie Smith Cultural Center.

Levitt Foundation CEO and president, Sharon Yazowski, has observed the success of Chattanooga as a grantee, both in the past and present. 

“Reflecting Levitt’s mission, we are committed to supporting diverse nonprofits and communities like Chattanooga, creating joyful, inclusive public spaces where the power of free live music brings people together and inspires hope, connection and belonging for all,”  Yazowski said.

Not only have the continued efforts from RISE and Levitt brought big names to town like Moonchild and Keke Wyatt, but their commitment to community resulted in Chattanooga-based artists opening for each concert. In addition, local food vendors and creatives were offered free space to sell their products during each event. 

With this type of programming, RISE continues its mission to create deeper community bonds and uplift Chattanoogan pride. No matter where you are in the city, RISE brings the music, the moment and the culture. 

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Meet the Storytellers