ThirdSpace Action Lab

Walter Mosley has written more than sixty books. "Ghalen: A Romance in Black" might be his finest.
It's the story of one Black family — a scientist, a cook, and the brilliant son they raise together — told with the patience and depth that Mosley always brings to the inner lives of people mainstream fiction tends to skip past. Love in all its forms. Becoming. What you carry from the people you lose.

The book dropped yesterday. Tomorrow, he's sitting down with Black bookstores that are a part of the National Association of Black bookstore nationwide to talk about it, and we're hosting the virtual watch party right here in the Reading Room.

Come through in person on May 28 at 8:30pm ET and watch it with us on 105th. Or pre-order Ghalen now and get a signed copy with custom artwork plus access to the live simulcast from wherever you are.

Cleveland is turning 230! We’re proud to be part of One Cleveland, a
citywide civic pride movement celebrating the people, places, stories, and
history that connect us all.
From our neighborhoods to our shared experiences, celebrates what
makes us Cleveland. Visit cpl.org/onecle to learn more.

We are the sun. And Jamaica Gilmer has the lens to prove it.

This isn't your typical lecture — it's an invitation to slow down, breathe, and practice. Join us as visual artist and healer Jamaica Gilmer introduces her Peace Practice, a framework for cultivating rest, intention, and inner freedom as acts of resistance. This lecture features portrait sharing, honoring the faces and stories at the heart of this work. Guests are invited to move through three hands-on stations, reflecting with Peace Practice cards, settling into coloring, and rolling beeswax candles, creating space for the kind of quiet, communal healing that doesn't always get a room of its own. Come as you are, leave a little lighter.

RSVP: https://bit.ly/FL_Peace

The work got its flowers.

ThirdSpace Action Lab just received a Merit Award in Planning from AIA New York — recognized alongside Sasaki, WSP, and our partners for Repairing the Innerbelt: A Playbook for Highway Removal in Post-Industrial Cities.

The Akron Innerbelt was not a neutral infrastructure decision. It was urban renewal — which is a polite name for the demolition of Black neighborhoods through eminent domain. Hundreds of homes, businesses, and churches. Communities that did not consent and were not compensated fairly. A mile-long wound dressed up as progress.
The playbook we helped build is about what comes next when a city is finally ready to reckon with that. Not just redevelopment — repair. The kind that starts with the people who were displaced and works outward from there.

This recognition belongs to the community members who showed up, told the truth about what was lost, and trusted us to hold it in the work.

We're just getting started.