by Tiffany Johnson
A ‘space that is black-centered, black-serving, and black-affirming.’
Reviving Roots Therapy and Wellness is a Minneapolis-based resource that aims to “create a Black centred, Black serving, Black affirming communal space, conjuring a legacy of health, wealth, and healing,” according to its website.
Reviving Roots, founded in 2019 by Black mental health therapist Marlee James, provides individual therapy as well as professional counselling services to help organisations improve employee mental well-being.
James is a Minnesota native with a strong personal commitment to health and wellness, particularly in the Black community. She spent a significant amount of time working in wellness programmes, primarily in collegiate communities, before becoming a fully licenced therapist in 2019.
“At that point, I had worked in about five different organisations,” James explained. “They made certain that I was on each of those websites as the organization’s lone Black person. However, many aspects of the way they operated did not match. I knew I was going to leave once I got my full licence. That’s exactly what I did.”
James planned to open a new location in South Minneapolis in early 2020. She recalled scrambling to prepare her space as COVID numbers increased. “I had a big green couch, beautiful chairs, and beautiful art,” James recalled.
Due to quarantine requirements, James had to postpone the opening and quickly shifted his focus to telehealth as a means of providing services to the community. Soon after, the assassination of George Floyd shook Minneapolis. James lived just a few blocks from the intersection of 38th and Chicago Avenues, the site of the George Floyd Memorial.
“We were told to be prepared if someone broke into our house. But I’m also doing therapy with people,” James explained.
Because of the trauma that Minnesota’s Black community experienced in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, there was a massive influx of people who required Reviving Root’s specialised services, such as culturally specific individual therapy and professional counselling. “I had at least 100 referrals, and they were all Black people who wanted only a Black therapist because of what had happened,” James explained.
James took part in Finnegan Brewery’s Finnovation Lab entrepreneurship programme. James received support and resources as a Finnovation Fellow to envision a different future of Black wellness in the Twin Cities through Reviving Roots. This future would be inclusive, providing the care, services, and tools that the Black community desperately needs but often lacks access to.
“I conducted a lot of community research, surveys, and interviews,” James explained. “I realised my original thought was that Black folks didn’t want to go to therapy, and they didn’t want to take care of their mental health. But then I realised, thanks to this work, that we simply don’t like the options we have.”
James explained how her research findings revealed a number of common barriers that prevent Black people from participating in health and wellness resources, such as White practitioners who are disconnected from cultural issues, high service prices, and a lack of Black providers: “There are only 5% of people of colour in this field…so there isn’t a lot of representation.”
Reviving Roots is attempting to fill this void by offering a wide range of services to our local Black community, including yoga, mindful fitness, mental health therapy, cultural wellness workshops, and much more. The physical location will open in the spring of 2023 and will serve as a new beacon of Black wellness in the Twin Cities community.
“Centering Blackness and being very intentional about what that looks like is part of finding the solution for me,” James explained.
Visit revivingrootstherapywellness.com for more information on Reviving Roots.