Riverwise is a community-led/driven/created social justice magazine emerging from organizing, arts, culture & liberation work being done in Detroit and beyond.
Movement. This is a word that gets bandied about regularly. It is also one that isn’t always so clear and carries many meanings. Meditation. This is a word that we… Read More
In the fall of 2025, the federal government came to a halt, unable to reach an agreement on a national budget. By October, word spread across the US that, beginning… Read More
I don’t like explaining my work. I like to leave it up to people to decide.I like to joke that their interpretation is usually better than mine. If I have… Read More
Writer. Birthworker. Abọriṣa Abolitionist. Mother. All of my identities are grounded in birth, transformation, and new ways of being. In my youth, I considered myself an activist. As a younger… Read More
In 2017, artist Barbara Fox (BF) designed a coin for the state of New Jersey, celebrating immigrant families as they enter through Ellis Island in pursuit of the American Dream.… Read More
Mural by Mary Gagnon located at the Artist Village in Brightmore, MI. I grew up in East Dearborn, the daughter of Arab immigrants, learning early that my body was always… Read More
My earliest memory is of a red metal wagon, a little rusty, covered in “No Scab Papers” bumper stickers. My childhood best friend and I remember holding hands from atop… Read More
Featured article from the "Future Beyond Billionaires" exhibit held at Swords into Plowshares Peace Gallery. I’m writing this to you because you love Detroit; you build communities of care and… Read More
In Winter 2025, Riverwise partnered up with our friends at the Swords Into Plowshares Peace Center and Gallery for the Detroit 2050: Future Beyond Billionaires exhibition, which ran from November… Read More
Featured article from the "Future Beyond Billionaires" exhibit held at Swords into Plowshares Peace Gallery. We have had enough of your governments We have had enough of your schools We… Read More
Editor’s Note: This recipe is a part of a series graciously offered from the community inspired kitchen of Josmine Evans, founder of the Detroit based Indigo Culinary Co. We hope… Read More
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways. They put up highways so they could build and sell cars. They sold cars so they could build and sell… Read More
Abortion may be protected in Michigan, but protection has never guaranteed access. For many people across the state, getting care is shaped by cost, distance, clinic closures, stigma, and the… Read More
This poem was written on a day when I was supposed to be doing grad school homework. I felt too distracted. I had spent much of the semester processing the… Read More
I miss the fist Joe miss my parents, grandparents & the Bob-lo Boat Note: Detroit Poet Laureate jessica Care moore recently invited Detroiters to write haiku for our city, so… Read More
Weather Report Unlike white men wearing short pants in Midwestern winter, wholly unworried that the car might not start – no waiting for buses with these guys – and confident… Read More
I like to be very still. Very quiet and listen to them sing. Then I am not thinking about Genocide, ecocide. Drones, bombs, and war. I am most certainly not… Read More
She is bass lines and sirens. She is your relaxing reward for a day of hard work. She slaps the back of your head when you say something stupid. She… Read More
When I sit cross-legged in a handstand in contemplation on action - my action - anger spills onto my living room floors. Movement was spurred by anger, an anger that… Read More
Think Detroit in the 1930’s: religious hate radio is being invented here - broadcasting white supremacy and antisemitism; corporate industrialists openly embrace fascism and turn guns first on the homeless… Read More
Meet DUANE: Still smoldering from the late March 2026 cover of the Detroit Metro Times, working with Godmother of House, DJ Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale, catwalking to open a fashion show,… Read More
A recent executive order targeting exhibits deemed “divisive” or “race-centered” has placed institutions like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture under pressure—raising urgent questions about how… Read More
Whatever You’ll Let Me You are not an easy person To come by, that is. Like a warm day in February, Melting the top two layers of compounded snow.… Read More
A man consistently and intentionally leaves turds in your hands. Day after day, week after week after month after year. The turds stink and stain. They attract flies. Because you… Read More
Womb Artist Jessica DeMuro Graves and Laura Earle“…Where we commune with our first true understandings of self and connection.” Antepasados Artist Rosa Maria Zamarron “…Learning to cook from my… Read More
There is a reason that the most inspiring movements, works of art, songs, books, speeches, and actions often feel as though they belong to the future. And it isn’t because… Read More
‘She Safe, We Safe’: A New Focal Point For Black Liberation by Atinusewakaraiye "Tinu" Roland In the midst of a global pandemic that has forced myself and many others across… Read More
There is a reason that the most inspiring movements, works of art, songs, books, speeches, and actions often feel as though they belong to the future. And it isn’t because… Read More
Dr. Walter Rodney (National Security Archives) Background Dr. Walter Anthony Rodney, born March 23, 1942, in Georgetown, Guyana (South America) was an extraordinary human being. His achievements and impact defy… Read More
I do not live in this small town I live in the great expanding void of the universe the holiday of day one the elusive home of nothing that is… Read More
In the late summer, the FoxCreek Artscape hosted Freedom Growers and the College of Creative Studies as part of Detroit Month of Design. The four-week series celebrated family, harvests, and… Read More
Caption: GROWN IN DETROIT GROWER, DETRA IVERSON OF LOVE N LABOR BOTANICALS FARM It begins with the growers When her herbs and vegetables are at their best, you can find… Read More
The House of Tears Carvers and their totem pole stopped in Mackinaw City in late July. It was their last stop en route to their final destination, the U.S. capital. … Read More
Protect the Waters Shut Down Line 5 Dear water, Thank you for all the things that you do. I just wanted to say thank you! Your freshwater and saltwater components… Read More
In late summer, I had the honor of traveling to Anishinaabe land (so-called “Northern Minnesota”) to support the indigenous-lead resistance against the Line 3 pipeline being non-consensually built on native… Read More
Folks from Flint, Highland Park, and Detroit arrived in Benton Harbor on July 10, 2021, to support because we know what the Benton Harbor community is going through all too… Read More
This past August, when many Detroiters who had worked long and hard to help revise the City Charter learned that the passage of Proposal P had failed, they took to… Read More
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2023
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2023
Special Citizen Empowerment Issue
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2021
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