Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Features

Sisterhood of the social scene

Meet the Six Footahs. They’re tall, black, bright and beautiful. And they’re on a mission to create events that are tailor-made for their growing circle of friends.

By NICOLE JOHNSON
Published May 5, 2006

TAMPA -- Just after 9 p.m., Adrian Wright’s House of Soul simply simmers, not quite percolating yet.

A diva with an afro stands in the middle of the dimly lit room singing an Alicia Keys tune.

Plates piled high with ribs are toted from the back kitchen and placed in front of hungry folks seated at bistro tables draped in white linen.

A financial planner offers his business card to a group of young women, telling them they’re beautiful.

If it weren’t sandal weather in late winter, the place could be mistaken for a martini bar on Washington’s U Street or a poetry lounge in Philadelphia’s art district. Places where soul and power moves meet over top-shelf martinis.

This is West Tampa on a Thursday night.

And this urban creation is the work of the Six Footahs, six young women, most of them lawyers, working to create a new kind of social scene for young black professionals.

“We’re giving people something unique, something with quality,” says 28-year-old Desiree Demonbreun, the Nashville native Six Footah whom the others call the social butterfly. “We’re giving them the ability to network and relate to other young black people in the professional world.”

The Six Footahs (more on how they got their name later) and their parties represent a growing group nationwide.

They are a part of an African-American generation raised in an era of integration who have found success in the business world but long to embrace their roots.

Their professional success requires assimilation. But sometimes they want to be with people who understand social customs as familiar as fish fries in the summertime but also know the isolation of being waited on last at an upscale store.

“We deal in corporate America every single day, and black folks have the ability to wear the mask from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” said Kim Madison, the Six Footah whose infectious smile shines through her reserved manner. “After that, you don’t want to wear the mask, you want to be able to chill and relax.”

Her reference is a familiar one.

More than a century ago, Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poem, We Wear the Mask, delved into the necessity for African-Americans of the antebellum South to put on a happy face while dealing with white America, showing their true feelings only within their own community.

“We want something of our own,” said Madison, 28. “We want something, (so that) when we get there, we know we can just be ourselves.”

Whether it’s for the warm weather, (relatively) affordable living or to be closer to family, many young black professionals are choosing the South’s growing metropolitan areas.

The Tampa Bay area’s black population increased by 14 percent between 2000 and 2004, compared with 5 percent nationally, ranking it ninth in the country among metropolitan areas with the largest black populations proportionately, according to the Brookings

Institute Living Cities study, which used Census data and community surveys to examine which parts of the United States were attracting and keeping the most minorities. Orlando ranked third.

But Tampa’s social scene, the Six Footahs say, doesn’t reflect the reality.

“There was a general feeling among our friends and colleagues that Tampa, with all of its culture and beautiful scenery, was not the hot spot,” said 30-year-old Monica Williams, the Six Footah who serves as the group’s spiritual compass, among other things blessing the table before the group’s monthly dinners. “We continually asked ourselves why it seemed the yuppie community was so drawn to the city, while the buppie (black yuppie) community felt isolated and disregarded” by Tampa’s hot spots.

About the best outlet for young black professionals seeking an upscale hip-hop scene, the women say, has been Blue Martini at International Plaza on Sundays.

The manager of Blue Martini’s neighbor, Gallery Bistro, says other businesses are slowly waking up.

“There is indeed a local market out there, but for a long time they’ve been shunned because people would think bringing in a black crowd would mean bringing in an urban thug element, and I know that’s not right,” said Matthew Owers, whose restaurant was the scene of a recent Six Footahs event. “These are people who I know want the same things as I do,’’ said Owers, who is white. “They want to get dressed nice, come drink some wine and have a good time.”

Since January, the Six Footahs have been holding parties: There are the weekly buttoned-up, business-card oriented Soulful Thursdays at Adrian Wright’s House of Soul. And every last Friday of the month, the group hosts its signature event: the Finale, a more laid-back party that takes place at a different upscale venue each month.

All parties are promoted through grass roots efforts (the crew functions mainly from an e-mail list of about 350 names, plus word of mouth).

But whatever you do, don’t call them party promoters. A Six Footah “event,” as they like to call them, is an extension of their sisterhood:

Semi-exclusive.

A little silly.

But always classy.

“We try to stay out of the box,” says Demonbreun. “Are we an entertainment group? No. Are we a promotions group? No. We are none of that, we’re a group of friends having fun.”

Six Footahs 101

The history: Demonbreun, Madison and Williams attended the University of Florida Law School together and all wound up in Tampa over the past few years. Williams met Kamilah Perry, 28, a local lawyer and graduate of Stetson University Law School. The group ran into Nikki Shade, a fellow UF alum last year. Then Williams’ little sister, Erica Williams, 27, moved to Tampa after graduating from UF’s law school. The Six Footahs were born.

 
The name: A friend of Perry’s jokingly dubbed them the “Six Footahs” because they’re tall, especially in the high heels they favor. (In actuality, the tallest of them is Kim Madison,  at 5 feet 10.)

The ’tude: The savvy chic of Sex and the City with the girl-next-door cool appeal of rapper LL Cool J’s hit Around the Way Girl.

The signature dish: fried pickles.

“They’re just like fried green tomatoes,” Perry says as the gang digs into the crispy, tangy morsels during a recent dinner at Po’Boys, a casual Cajun restaurant in Hyde Park. The ladies are ironing out details for their next event, “Think Pink.”

Cosmopolitans. Shrimp cocktail. Dress code. Everything  pink. They’re thinking about corporate sponsorships. All proceeds will benefit breast cancer research.

But this one is for a good cause and it’s time to pack the house. Can they pull it off?

“Rule No. 1,” says Perry. “Never tell a Six Footah she can’t do it.”

Seeing potential

It was early January when Perry and a few friends met at Adrian Wright’s House of Soul in West Tampa to watch the national college football championship game.

 
The University of Southern California vs. University of Texas matchup was huge, but the former Tampa Bay Buc’s restaurant was empty.

“We just looked around at this empty place that had all this potential,” Perry recalled. “And I said, we can bring a crowd in, we know a lot of people.”

The next day, Perry pulled up an old e-vite she had used for a Halloween party a couple of years ago. She called her friends (back before they were Six Footahs) and they started spreading the word that the crew was throwing a party.

A week later, about 40 people came to the after-work soiree.

“Everybody came in from work with their suits on looking really nice,” said Shade, an assistant head coach for USF volleyball and the only Six Footah who is not a lawyer.

“They were happy just to have a place to go that was something different, but at the same time it was something done that catered to what they wanted.”

Shade, 30, remembers sending a text message to the rest of the Footahs that read: “Look at all these beautiful black people.”

The next week the women decided to make Soulful Thursdays a weekly gathering. The Finale event began in February and has been held at venues in International Plaza, Ybor City and downtown Tampa.

Their events are semi-exclusive, which essentially means you must become a part of their circle to receive e-mail updates — or have a friend who’s in the group. And it’s fine to bring a friend who is not black.

It may sound cliquish, but the Six Footahs say it is a matter of crafting a guest list of like-minded individuals.

“What we’re doing is making sure when you come to our event you meet people like yourself,” Perry said. “Upwardly mobile and young, looking for a social scene that’s classy.”

The Think Pink event last Friday night was no exception.

Just after 10 p.m. partygoers in dusty rose, fuchsia and pastels floated in and out of the

Good Luck Cafe on Seventh Avenue in Ybor.

Inside the lounge, a saxophonist blew an old-school tune, his breath fluttering a pink carnation attached to his microphone.

The jazz melody flowed from the live band outside to the lounge patio where a tall dude in a pink guayabera pulled from a cigar, providing a stark contrast to the T-shirt and sneaker crowd in line at the thumping bass club next door.

The Six Footahs’ first fundraiser brought in a little more than $400, a percentage of which will go to the Sisters Network, a national organization promoting breast cancer awareness in the black community. The amount wasn’t quite what the group hoped to raise.

But a sense of accomplishment was clear as Monica Williams greeted guests with hugs at the door and Perry chatted with people attending their first Six Footah event.

“When the motivation is money, the integrity of the event can suffer,’’ Williams said.

“We want people to feel like they’re an extension of our friendship.”

[Last modified May 5, 2006, 08:25:16]