Anasa Troutman

Anasa Troutman is revitalizing southern communities and repairing long-standing economic exclusion. She works with residents to transform their stories and cultural heritage into engines of ownership, community wealth, and systemic change.

Anasa has created a restorative development model that places cultural assets at the center of community revitalization. Working in Memphis—America's largest majority-Black city—she integrates physical reclamation of historic sites with narrative transformation and economic development. While traditional approaches either create dependency through charity or displacement through gentrification, Anasa's model enables communities to own and benefit from their cultural heritage.

Her insight cuts to the heart of America's racial wealth gap: changing money flows alone cannot address inequity rooted in "plantation capitalism." The stories told by and about communities directly impact their economic valuation. By changing these narratives while building community-owned infrastructure, Anasa creates the foundation for genuine economic transformation.

What distinguishes Anasa's approach is her focus on historically significant properties rather than just housing, and her use of storytelling and culture shift as an economic catalyst. Through The BIG We, she acquires cultural landmarks, places them under community control, activates them through powerful storytelling, builds entrepreneurial clusters around them, and collaborates with institutions to strengthen the ecosystem. This integrated strategy creates an alternative economic system owned by communities that have been systematically excluded from wealth creation, proving that economic development can honor history while building shared prosperity. And it’s a strategy that has relevance across the American South and beyond.

Despite ostensible progress made since the civil rights movement, the racial wealth gap in the United States has gone virtually unchanged since 1950 (in fact, the gap has been widening since the 80s). In addition to the policies that uphold and aggravate these disparities, common narratives portray poverty as temporary and personal, not deeply entrenched, multi-generational, or a natural consequence of structural racism. In the United States, conditions are most egregious in the South. Because of the absence of industry or exponential city growth, along with bipartisan disinvestment in Black and other communities of color, the South has the highest concentration of Black people, and the highest concentrations of Black poverty.

The Southern city of Memphis, TN is, per capita, the biggest majority Black city in America, and holds great economic and cultural importance. At the turn of the 20th century, South Memphis represented Black upward mobility as it became a hub of wealth and culture -- despite oppressive Jim Crow laws. The legendary Memphis blues sound was birthed on Beale St., stomping grounds of Muddy Waters, BB King, Elvis Presley, etc. The first Black American millionaire called Memphis home and invested in Black culture, leisure, and ownership. However, systematic discrimination turned once-thriving neighborhoods into shadows of their former selves. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ strike. He saw in the movement's iconic I AM A MAN slogan the potential for a multi-racial coalition against poverty, which he felt was the only way to realize the promise of democracy for all. It was during his trip to Memphis that King was assassinated at the Lorraine motel -- where the National Civil Rights museum now stands. His powerful directive and the work left undone are relevant, and perhaps even more urgent, more than 50 years later.

Today, Memphis isn't short on cultural tourism as far as Southern towns go, but most of those cultural assets aren't owned by, nor do they generate wealth for, the Black communities where they originated. Instead, decades of redlining and disinvestment have resulted in an economic boundary that isolates underserved neighborhoods in Memphis from market-driven growth in adjacent ones. Take Beale Street, for example, which was purchased by outside investors who turned it into a thriving tourist district. But that opportunity hasn't played out for the surrounding community -- just minutes away from the bustling corridor of neon-signs advertising blues and barbeque, South Memphis exemplifies the impact of generational disinvestment: crumbling infrastructure, vacant lots, and derelict buildings. The 91% Black community has a poverty rate of 45.3% and a life expectancy 13 years lower than that of adjacent neighborhoods.

The racial wealth gap cannot be solved by simply putting money in the hands of people because it is not simply a function of the mechanics of how capital moves. We are all, regardless of socioeconomic status, subject to an economy grounded in the culture created by what Reverend James Lawson called, "Plantation Capitalism". Without a fundamental shift in these values and practices, those that have suffered most will continue to stagger in the pursuit of equity.

Memphis is one of America's most philanthropic cities, yet this outpouring of charity hasn't moved the needle on poverty (Memphis is also one of the most impoverished). The cultural economy in Memphis may be thriving for a select few – but success of the current model threatens to further displace local communities. Conventional development either abandons disinvested neighborhoods as unsalvageable or exploits their low property values, extracting wealth and displacing families. Meanwhile, important stories lie dormant – historic sites unremembered. What's missing is an approach to development that combines wealth creation with cultural reclamation—the very gap Anasa's work addresses.

Memphis and the South are at a critical juncture. The reverse migration is in full swing and 59% of Black Americans live in the South. As the demographics continue to shift and development and gentrification slowdown in other parts of the country, majority Black southern cities, particularly cities like Memphis where Black culture and innovation create social and economic value are next on the gentrification list. There is no doubt that in 10 years Memphis and other cities like it will look different, the question is whether the difference will be owned and governed by traditional developers who will displace and damage or by the people who have been stewards for generations.

Operating on the principle that culture drives capital, Anasa has built a restorative development model that leads with the cultural economy. At its core, Anasa's model systematically reclaims cultural assets, restores them both physically and narratively, and ensures communities retain their value. The BIG We applies this strategy through three interconnected areas: culture-based real estate development, creative entrepreneur acceleration, and storytelling and placemaking. "Our primary objective," Anasa explains, "is to work from the inside out, being and building beloved community—transforming who we are so that what we do evolves naturally."

Anasa's solution is anchored in historically significant sites that embody Black Memphis's untold stories. Her journey began in 2018 when she was invited to Memphis to produce "Union: The Musical" about the Poor People's Campaign for the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. The production was staged at Historic Clayborn Temple—a massive 25,000-square-foot Romanesque building constructed in 1891 that served as headquarters for the 1968 Sanitation Workers' Strike.

During a six-month research and engagement process to develop the musical, Anasa recognized how restoring the temple could drive equity for the surrounding community. When the opportunity arose to buy the temple in 2019 (and save it from being turned into a nightclub), she sprang into action – raising $5 million to purchase Clayborn, beginning an activation and restoration process led by a committee of 23 community members. As she and her team raised funds for the building's physical renewal, they simultaneously prepared the local community to participate in its economic revival. Through a wide array of events, shows, conversations, film screenings, etc., the The BIG We has become a centerpiece of the neighborhood, and a magnetic hub for cultural events among Memphians and tourists alike. Today, because of Anasa's leadership, Clayborn is part of the United States Civil Rights Trail, which connects 130 historic landmarks across the American Southeast and Midwest.

Anasa's vision extends beyond the redevelopment of a single distressed area; it aims to transform cities like Memphis nationwide. The BIG We purchased Aretha Franklin's birth home and began a similar process of community engagement and visioning. Together with her growing team, she identified and is now orchestrating a network of over 30 cultural heritage sites that tell the story of Memphis and the story of America. The network is the process of building a heritage trail with support from federal, state, and local governments.

Their real estate development work focuses on revitalizing buildings whose stories remind communities of their historical depth and power to lead change. The restoration process itself becomes a storytelling opportunity —at Clayborn Temple, local artists redesigned stained-glass windows to depict sanitation workers carrying "I AM A MAN" signs, allowing visitors to see the power of everyday people reflected in the glass. These sites become community hubs that bring people together and serve as engines for local development, with their activation driving growth and opportunity in surrounding neighborhoods.

Crucially, The BIG We prepares communities for investment and participation from the beginning, cultivating an entrepreneurial ecosystem that both drives and benefits from the value created by these cultural anchors. The BIG We recently launched the second cohort (of 40 participants) of its flagship entrepreneur acceleration program, Southern Shift Memphis. Each cohort goes through a curriculum on culture shift and restorative economics. Participants receive a 50K investment, intensive capacity-building and 1-on-1 mentoring. The BIG We also has a revolving loan fund that provides organization-forgivable, no-interest loans to the program participants. So far, they have injected $1 million from their fund into cultural entrepreneurship. Anasa aims to build a network of complementary businesses surrounding cultural anchors like Clayborn, creating a new economic zone that attracts more capital into the community.

To build supportive infrastructure for entrepreneurs, Anasa has developed a partnership with the Nonprofit Finance Fund to expand Memphis's Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) footprint. She has helped design innovative lending practices like loan guarantees based on business plan viability rather than collateral requirements, unlocking capital for previously excluded entrepreneurs.

Their funding model acknowledges the scale of systemic problems, enabling integrated capital infusion that supports community ownership while growing with the stages of development and community readiness. Recently, The BIG We became Southeast Center for Cooperative Development's West Tennessee anchor and will begin providing training and low-cost loans to cooperative businesses in 2025.

Beyond transforming physical spaces and financial systems, Anasa works to institutionalize support for the cultural economy in government. She was instrumental in creating Memphis's first Office of Creative Economy and serves as cultural advisor to the mayor. In this role, Anasa is working with a team of researchers to develop new measurements for tracking culture shift in Memphis. The BIG We also leads the Memphis Cultural Coalition, a consortium of 40 arts institutions collaborating to shape policy and infrastructure supporting the city's creative communities.

Culture shift remains the throughline in all of Anasa's work. Every participant, regardless of program, experiences a curriculum that provides shared language and understanding about what is possible when communities own their cultural and economic futures. "As we leverage the innate cultural assets of communities to build economic, political, and narrative power," Anasa says, "we know our most important assets are our stories. In these stories lies the roadmap to build a future that works for everyone."

While narrative work infuses all their programs, The BIG We's dedicated storytelling division produces theater, podcasts (with a regular audience of over 40,000), and digital content that share their vision and invite others to participate. The BIG We podcast has an audience of 40,000. Each storytelling opportunity is accompanied by engagement activities that allow people to practice the values embedded in the narratives. As an ecosystem builder, The BIG We also seeds outside capacity through programs like Shestories, which provides capacity-building and grants to women storytellers from excluded communities. Supported by Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company, the program was originally slated to award $150,000 to four storytellers, but an overwhelming response (over 400 applications) resulted in the immediate expansion of the program. Shelectricity is an entrepreneurship curriculum for middle and high school students in Memphis charter schools focused on restorative economics, participatory grantmaking, storytelling and podcast development. In 2023 alone, The BIG We granted $1.65 million in stipends and honorariums to support young storytellers throughout Memphis.

The BIG We's work is attracting national attention and inspiring replication across the South. In Mobile, Alabama, Anasa was invited to replicate her work in Africatown—a community established by descendants of the last known slave ship to smuggle enslaved Africans into the U.S. Anasa partnered with Participant Media to help the community share their story in the Netflix documentary "Descendant" and prepared them to own their narrative and participate in the growing cultural economy around this heritage site. In Montgomery, Alabama, she's partnering with GirlTrek, co-founded by Ashoka Fellow Morgan Dixon, to support the community-led restoration of the historic Black Bricklayers Hall—headquarters for the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

True to its name, The BIG We is for everyone. In 2024, Anasa began working with the Mid-South Development District to replicate their entrepreneur acceleration and storytelling work in white rural communities facing similar economic challenges but with distinct cultural assets.

By 2033, Anasa envisions Memphis transformed into a model for community-led growth and development without gentrification. The largest majority-Black city in America will also be the most equitable, the safest, the fastest growing, and the most transformative, doing it all from a set of core values that restores our humanity and repairs our planet.

Anasa was born in Harlem, NY, and raised in a household that emphasized the importance of deciding who you are in a country that wants to decide for you. She grew up surrounded by and celebrating Black culture.

Anasa went to college in Atlanta, GA, thinking she would become a scientist, but a summer job at a music store changed that. Music became Anasa’s first sanctuary, and she listened to everything she could get her hands on. She began hosting art events that attracted a growing number of musicians trying to foster a more loving, more cooperative world through their art. Surrounded by talent, she decided to launch a collectively owned record label to amplify their work and to counter extractive tendencies within the music industry. Soon enough, the artists started getting signed, and some made it big. While backstage at an India Arie concert, a stranger approached Anasa to thank her --- saying that one of the songs transformed her daughter’s self-image and confidence. Anasa felt she had mounting proof that music could change the world.

But with success came growing pains around collective decision-making, and eventually Anasa decided to leave the label -- reflecting that she had the “right idea, wrong format.” She wrote a list of things she needed to learn in order do it better. She was invited to become the first senior fellow at the Movement Strategy Institute in Oakland, CA, where she doubled-down on her driving question: how to leverage cultural moments to drive change? It was there that she began developing her culture shift model – and has been refining it ever since, now bringing it to life in Memphis.

After her fellowship, Anasa began teaching her culture shift model to a wide array of groups across the country and eventually got the opportunity to test it out in the entertainment industry while leading the creative team for a globally famous musician (and one of her earliest artists). After years spent traveling the world and helping artists unlock their own creativity, Anasa decided it was time for a change.

She moved to Nashville and launched a successful production company as well as a program for girls in STEM. In 2018, Anasa was invited to write and produce a musical in Memphis, TN, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. She spent six months in Memphis doing research on King’s legacy and the larger context of the sanitation workers strike. She learned about the first Black millionaire in Memphis who established first Black-owned bank in the city, which provided credit to Black folks to purchase homes and start businesses. He laid the groundwork for what became thriving business districts in majority-Black neighborhoods. She also uncovered stories that had been lying dormant for decades, alternate histories unknown even to locals. Anasa began to see the story of Clayborn and Memphis as a reflection of both the struggles and potential futures for America. After the musical launched and traveled to other Southern cities, she decided to move to Memphis to bring her culture shift model to life.

A year later, the owner of Clayborn Temple told Anasa he was selling the building to a developer who intended to turn it into a nightclub. Despite much difficulty and opposition from the buildings owner, Anasa managed to raised $5 million (all funds came from out of state) to save the temple and become its steward. Today, Anasa’s vision has expanded far beyond a single structure or city, yet the restoration and activation of Clayborn temple exemplifies the power of revisiting the past to reimagine a better future.