Welcome
By the River Center for Humanity is located at 1306 Water Avenue, one block east of the Saint James Hotel. Our back entrance faces the Alabama River. Visitors have access to the Butterfly Park and the Riverfront Park City Walk as well as a breathtaking view of the Historic Edmund Pettus Bridge.
About Us
By the River Center for Humanity is a “mixed-use” creative incubator developed to provide a showcase for local performers and artisans to promote their talents, arts, crafts, and merchandise.
Our mission at the By the River Center for Humanity is to provide a platform for small business owners, artists, and performers to reach a larger market of consumers. We achieve this through our gallery, retail gift shop, and monthly open market events. In addition, we offer educational classes in business to equip our community with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.
The founder and supporters of By the River Center for Humanity are humble servants from all walks of life who have, at one time or another, made a personal commitment to serve humanity. We thank God for blessing us with the space and opportunity to serve the citizens and visitors of the Selma—Dallas County area.
Soul Prints Interactive Experiences
Let The Healing Continue...
SOUL PRINTS, a transformative interactive dramatization, empowers participants to understand better the embedded trauma of the Middle Passage and slavery.
Sister Afriye We-kandodis passionately believes that the study of the slave trade and the enslavement of Africans often occurs at scholarly or organizational levels, overshadowing and ignoring the unhealed emotional and spiritual wounds of Africans and their descendants living in the Americas and the Caribbean.
Soul Prints, with its unique approach, aims to fill this gap and provide a transformative experience.
In June 2005, through the grace of God and the blessings of her Ancestors, Sister Afriye, a seasoned healer and educator, was inspired to create and conduct “Footprints of Our Ancestors,” an interactive dramatization that enables participants to emotionally connect with the embedded trauma of the enslavement of Africans throughout the diaspora.
Using sound, movement, and performance, Afriye can create an unconventional healing space to guide participants through the spiritual and emotional releases that can suddenly surface and go unattended during an academic study of the topics of slavery.
Sister We-kandodis has received hundreds of letters and cards from participants who shared how this stimulating and soul-searching presentation was a life-changing experience for them and their families.
In May 2008, Sister We-kandodis realized that this dramatization not only encouraged participants to embrace and learn from the past but also inspired them to move forward in healing themselves and uplifting all of Humanity. This realization led her to rename this magnificent healing piece, “Soul Prints of Our Ancestors and Ourselves,” a testament to the profound personal growth and healing it can bring.
Each experience culminates in an open forum, a space of inclusivity and acceptance. Here, groups of different races, nationalities, religions, traditions, and ages can come together to discuss the intense pain of slavery and its effects on us even today. This fosters the spiritual healing of not just African Americans but Humanity itself.
Heart to heart soul to soul
Conversations of Turth, Hope & Love
We Cannot HEAL What We Are Not Willing To Talk About.
