Clarisa James didn’t grow up believing she’d become the executive director of a nationally recognized social justice organization. She didn’t imagine teaching teen mothers how to make media, or crafting tech curricula rooted in cultural pride. At one point, she didn’t even know if she could keep Divas for Social Justice alive.

But standing in the newly opened social justice makerspace at the Coliseum in South Minneapolis—hundreds of miles from where her journey began—she knows now: the dream was always meant to grow.

Where It All Began

Before she was a nonprofit leader, James was a licensing executive in New York’s music industry, making sure songwriters got paid when their work played over the airwaves. “I worked at a performing rights organization and did radio account work,” she says. “It felt creative, important—but after 9/11, everything changed. The industry started to shrink. Layoffs were looming.”

Rather than wait for the pink slip, James took control of her future and enrolled in the Integrated Media Arts MFA program at the City University of New York (CUNY). The program challenged students to create socially conscious work reflective of underserved communities. “But there was a disconnect,” she explains. “There were no professors of color. Only two Black students. And white students were parachuting into places like Harlem to tell our stories—without understanding us.”

What she saw unfolding in those classrooms felt like exploitation masked as storytelling. “They focused on dysfunction—poverty, assimilation, pain,” she says. “I found myself constantly having to argue, to defend, to teach. And I realized: maybe my energy would be better spent creating the thing I wished existed.”

With that conviction—and a partnership with a fellow MFA candidate—Divas for Social Justice was born in Brooklyn.

Justice in the Files

While in graduate school, James took a humble file clerk job at a local foundation that awarded $50,000 grants to grassroots changemakers across New York’s five boroughs. But it wasn’t just paperwork. “My boss was a Black woman and an attorney, and she told me: ‘You’re the file clerk—but that doesn’t mean you can’t read the files,’” James recalls.

And read them she did.

She discovered proposals from community organizers, budget plans from local advocates, and impact reports from people just like her—Black women with big dreams and limited resources. One in particular stood out: the Brooklyn Young Mothers Collective, founded by Bernita Miller, a legal aid attorney who believed she could do more for her clients outside the courtroom.

Miller eventually became a mentor, and her nonprofit a fiscal sponsor for Divas’ first official grant—a $1,000 award from Open Meadows. It funded Through My Lens, a media training program for teen mothers to create PSAs that shattered stereotypes and uplifted their vision for the future.

“That $1,000 felt like a million,” James says. “It showed me what I could do with faith, writing, and a little bit of opportunity.”

The Robbery That Almost Ended It All

Soon after receiving official 501(c)(3) status, James was on a high. She walked to her small office space at the Magnolia Tree Earth Center in Bed-Stuy, full of plans. But when she arrived, all of Divas’ equipment was gone.

“The door was open. The young men scattered. Everything—gone,” she says. “I had put nearly $10,000 of my own money into that equipment.”

As if that weren’t enough, her co-founder backed out. And then James received another gutting blow—her mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

“It was a brutal time. My body was going through grief, shock, betrayal—all of it,” she says. “And my co-founder said, ‘Maybe this is a sign to give up.’”

But she didn’t.

“I cried. Then I started writing,” she says. She contacted bloggers who had once featured Divas, posted about the robbery on social media, and reached out to News 12, a local cable news station. “They came to our space, ran the story. Then the Daily News picked it up. And then came the blessing.”

Someone at Time Warner saw the story. And because Divas now had its nonprofit status, the company donated $10,000.

It was divine timing—and a sign that James was walking in her purpose.

From Bed-Stuy to South Minneapolis

For nearly two decades, Divas for Social Justice remained rooted in New York City. It expanded from media literacy to tech education, community gardens, murals, and youth-designed justice projects. In partnership with NYU, James and her team developed culturally affirming curricula that flipped the traditional deficit narrative into one of brilliance and possibility.

“We’re always talking about what’s broken in Black communities,” she says. “But what about what’s powerful? What’s worth expanding? That’s what we focus on.”

But her reach couldn’t be contained to just one city.

In 2023, James was introduced to the possibilities in South Minneapolis—particularly at the Coliseum, a historic Black-owned redevelopment project on Lake Street.

“I walked through the building before the renovation and heard Alicia and Janice’s vision,” she recalls, referring to the women leading the Coliseum’s rebirth. “Immediately, I felt alignment. I knew I didn’t have the partnerships yet. But I knew God would make a way.”

Since then, she’s hosted open houses and pilot programming at the Coliseum’s social justice makerspace. In October 2025, Divas will formally launch its first Minneapolis cohort of 10 to 15 students for a free, week-long intensive in emerging tech and storytelling.

“It’s a natural evolution,” James says. “There are youth on Lake Street who remind me of the kids in Bed-Stuy. The dreams are the same. The entitlement to dream is the same. They just need a space that says, ‘Yes, you belong here.’”

The Faith That Holds It All

James doesn’t quote scripture much. She didn’t grow up in church. But her mother taught her how to pray—not with rules, but with relationship.

“God knows my heart,” she says. “And if I show up sincerely, if I move with integrity, I believe God will always see me through.”

She’s seen it too many times to doubt it. From stolen gear to surprise grants, from skeptical partners to full-circle affirmations—faith has been her throughline. “But it’s not just faith,” she adds. “It’s faith plus work. You have to show up. You have to do your part.”

And she does. Every day.

For the Kids on the Corner

When asked what message she’d share with a young person walking around Lake Street with big dreams but no blueprint, she doesn’t hesitate.

“You are entitled,” she says. “You are entitled to dream, to create, to be more. You don’t need permission to be brilliant.”

She recalls visiting Egypt and seeing the unmistakably Black faces carved into ancient stone. “I thought, if I could take every child I work with and show them where they come from, maybe they’d stop questioning their worth.”

James wants kids to build websites, code justice campaigns, and leave murals that say “I was here.” But more than that, she wants them to believe they can.

“Nothing is out of your reach,” she says. “That’s the mindset we have to change.”

And with her work now spanning from Brooklyn to Minneapolis, she’s proving that truth—one city, one dream, one child at a time.

Clarisa James is the Executive Director of Divas for Social Justice. Learn more at www.divasforsocialjustice.org or reach her directly at cj@divasforsocialjustice.org.