Over the course of two conversations with Briana Johnson and Avery Harper Williams, the founders of Six Lanes Entertainment Foundation return to one word again and again: “passionate.”
“We’re passionate about music, but we’re also passionate about lifting up the Black community,” Johnson says.
So they’ve built Six Lanes around their passions in hopes of creating something positive. The organization’s goal is to host entertainment-related events and to work with companies in art, entertainment and culture. But they do so without an eye on the bottom line. Their vision for Six Lanes is to entertain to altruistic ends. Already Six Lanes has established four scholarship programs for students in low-income families who hope to attend college. Three of the scholarships have racing names connected to Six Lanes’ name. But in a nod to their base of operations in Houston, they also have the Robert E. Davis Scholarship Program, named for the city’s legendary DJ Screw.
In August, Six Lanes hosted “Electronic Highway,” a virtual event with several hip-hop artists and a screening of a film by Solange Knowles.
How to help
Six Lanes Entertainment Foundation is a 501(c)(3) based in Pearland, not yet rated by Charity Navigator. For more information or to donate, visit facebook.com/SixLanesEnt.
“We’ve been eager to show the entire world what Six Lanes is really about,” Williams says. “What it truly means to enrich a community, to help somebody else. That’s what we’re about.”
Their original vision wasn’t virtual events, but 2020 has had a way of scuttling plans.
A musician friend had convinced Johnson and Williams that Houston would welcome a new music festival.
“He said, ‘There’s money to be made,’” Williams says. “But we looked at it differently. We were interested in how festivals work, how the business aspects of festivals work. Briana looked at some other festivals and thought, ‘We can’t do that, everybody does that.’ We were looking at ways we could make an impact with our festival. That’s where the idea for the scholarships came about. That gave us a different direction to go, something we could fuse with the music.”
Six Lanes originally planned a big Juneteenth concert in Houston with some top local hip-hop performers, an event that had to be canceled.
“Corona came and wiped out those plans,” Williams says. “But that gave us time to pause for a second. We’ve tried to navigate ways to make other types of events possible.”
The seeds for the company were set at Howard University, where Johnson and Williams were fellow political science majors. He’s a Houston native, and she was an Army brat who spent much of her childhood in Texas. So after graduation they landed in Houston and went to work: She’s at Apple, he’s a paralegal.
Johnson initially felt like she needed to rid herself of college debt before doing something like Six Lanes.
“I thought I had to get rich to help people,” she says. “But if I waited until I was as rich as I wanted to be, I might be waiting forever. The time is now, no excuses. We want to be successful, but this isn’t about selling anything.”
The two are looking beyond events programming for Six Lanes. They’d like to create a model for community outreach, mentorship programs and encourage volunteerism that draws other young people.
“I don’t think being a good person or altruistic is a compartmentalized experience,” Johnson says. “You don’t have to be a nun to be altruistic. Rappers and people who listen to rap all day still can want to find a way to get lunches to kids. So we’re trying to get rid of that stigma. You can earn cred by being a good person who helps somebody.”
They’ve also actively tried to engage culture and entertainment companies in dialogue about diversifying their products to include more produced by Black-owned businesses.
“We’re trying to help get Black people into different spaces,” Williams says. “Hot Topic was really helpful with that. They’ve been a company that wants to go beyond donating money. And that’s the kind of action that makes a lasting thing.”
Adds Johnson, “We don’t see this as ending with one thing other than ‘do good.’ Stay connected. Make everyone part of the story. Those are the things we’re passionate about. And the time is now, with all that’s going on. Especially with the coronavirus. We don’t really know what will happen tomorrow. So we’re passionate about doing something now.”
andrew.dansby@chron.com
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The time to help is now, say Six Lanes Entertainment organizers - Houston Chronicle
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