Home Team: Refuge Coffee Co.

Refuge Coffee Co. exists to serve the global community in Clarkston, Georgia through coffee-related job creation, job training, social networking, and commerce. They have recently expanded their mission of welcome, as they opened a location in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta – joining the legacy of the civil rights era vision for creating a beloved community.

We believe in the resilience of our refugee neighbors. We see incredible strength in our barista-trainees. Our goal is to join in the task of empowering our refugee friends to use their many gifts to help us create refuge.

We are glad to reciprocate the beauty of welcome to our newest Home Team partner. Show how much you root for them and grab a shirt. Or skip the shirt and give directly to Refuge through one of their creative campaigns.

And while you’re at it, buy a coffee and pull up a chair. Founder/CEO, Kitti Murray, and Sweet Auburn Community Coordinator, Rebekah Pleasant-Patterson, humored us in answering some of our favorite questions. Their insightful responses are complied here for you to enjoy.

What does Atlanta mean to you?

Rebekah: In my opinion, Atlanta means resilience, hope, welcome, diversity, opportunity, and enterprise. Atlanta is like what Maya Angelou famously writes, "Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise."

What’s a hope you have for Atlanta?

Kitti: I was in kindergarten when Mayor Hartsfield said Atlanta was a city that was “too busy to hate.” I grew up in a home that, for the most part, embraced that mantra: “Let’s not hate anyone; just get busy doing good work, and prosper.” These are hopeful words, right? They bristle with a sort of noble industriousness. And, for many years, I felt propelled by and even proud of words like these.  

But I am learning that while an idea can be right, that same idea can also be woefully incomplete. Yes, being too busy to hate is good. But thinking carefully about who the busyness of an organization, a city, or nation belongs to and who will benefit from it is a better idea. 

I’m finding hope these days in the intersection of two good ideas that seem to complete each other: Too Busy To Hate and Black Lives Matter. I am also finding hope in waking up to the truth about our busyness, to all the ways White people have busily overpowered and dominated Black people in my lifetime alone, not to mention the horrific use of our power as a race in the centuries before. Waking up to my own racist inclinations. This waking up doesn’t feel much like hope. It feels more like sorrow. 

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“I’m hopeful because of the change that could happen if enough of us wake up and repent and seek to make repairs to the damage we’ve inflicted. ”

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But that sorrow is the deeper promise of hope. The Bible says, “sorrow leads to repentance,” and I might add that repentance and reparation eventually leads to healing and hope. So, as a really busy White person in Atlanta, I’m hopeful because of the change that could happen if enough of us wake up and repent and seek to make repairs to the damage we’ve inflicted. And I’m hopeful because really busy Black people I know have not used the fact that we coopted industry for ourselves as a reason to stop busily building and loving. And a city-full of busy Black and Brown people know that now is not the time for patience, but it is a time to mete out a robust type of forgiveness and reconciliation commensurate with repentance. In this I find hope. Not immediate or cheap hope. But real hope for our city’s future. 

What do you want more for our city?

Rebekah: Auburn Avenue Research Library donated a fantastic book to our Sweet Auburn location’s mini library called Lest We Forget; Atlanta's Disappearing Black Neighborhoods. Author Anthony G. Clark reminds me that there is rich history being buried in neighborhoods across Atlanta. As seen in the history of Underground Atlanta, the strength of Atlanta's resilience is sadly marred by its inability to rebuild from the ashes of the past. Instead of doing the work to reflect on our history, with the goal of developing a solid foundation for future-forward progress, we find ourselves covering, as if in shame, the already shaky and wavering ground that our city was built upon. My hope for Atlanta is that we all will continue to do the hard work of building with materials from the past, weaving together the beautiful history and stories into a tapestry for ALL to enjoy; not just a select and privileged few.

What's got you busy?

Kitti: Lately, I’ve been asking two fundamental questions: What do I need to learn? And What can I do to help? It’s tempting to ask How can I prove I am not a racist? Or How can I prove I care? The former questions are healthy and hopeful and have the potential to build genuine relationships; the latter are all about me and, in the end, do not lead to healing or hope.

At Refuge, we have a team of curious leaders who ask both of those former questions on a continual loop. It’s exhilarating, and, to be honest, it can be exhausting at times! Maybe this is a function of my age, but lately I find myself investing in our busy team more than I’m actually busy myself. Our current trainees, talented refugees and immigrants from eight different countries, who have fled oppression, work hard every day welcoming the world with great coffee and customer service. Our supervisors, Frey, Ali, and Ali, build trust and insure operational excellence. Others on our support staff—Walt, Ahmad, Leon, Annalisa, Rebekah, Gracie, Sage, and Marianna—are tirelessly busy making good on our promise to show the world what welcome looks like. Rebekah leads community engagement at Refuge Coffee Sweet Auburn, and Gracie leads the same efforts at Refuge Clarkston. They lead our team to listen and connect Refuge to our majority Black (Sweet Auburn) and majority Refugee (Clarkston) neighborhoods. The result is a calendar full of purposeful busyness. 

When I say I “invest” in our team, think more of lively conversations with trusted friends than about everyone executing my plans. Most days, I want to pinch myself that I get to go to work with these people. At a recent brainstorming session, Rebekah put a really fun idea up on the wall. As she sat down, she said, “This is basically some fireworks going off in my head.” That’s what I’m busy doing these days: applauding the fireworks show.

Who or what are you inspired by as you do that work?

Rebekah: I quote Maya Angelou often; her words are resonating with me in this season of my life. 

"I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise,
I rise,
I rise."

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“I represent an unimaginable dream, even a miracle, to my Great Great Great Grandmother. I seek to steward that reality well and pass it along to the generations to come.”

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I am inspired to work for those who will come after me. I am inspired by the stories of my father growing up in Jackson, Mississippi in the '40s. I am inspired by my slave ancestry. I represent an unimaginable dream, even a miracle, to my Great Great Great Grandmother. I seek to steward that reality well and pass it along to the generations to come.