Flint Local 432 launches “Amplify Her” to celebrate women in the arts

FLINT, Michigan — In light of their recent 40th anniversary, the Local Flint 432 is looking to kick off their 41st year with a new tradition. As the first of many, Amplify Her is a month-long event centered on the Women’s History Month celebration in March, presented in partnership with the Flint Women and Girls Fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. 

“[This event] is really aimed at celebrating women in the arts, whatever the category may be,” explained Maiya Legardye, the General Manager of the Local Flint 432. “All of [these events] are really either us partnering with an organization that really highlights women, or just putting those women on the stage that really come through and show a lot of love to the venue…it’s also us kind of reaching out and grabbing some folks from Detroit, like, a little further out…to come and give their talents to the Flint community during this month.”   

After being in the process for about a year, Amplify Her includes concerts featuring women-fronted and fully women-led bands, as well as plenty of roundtable discussions on a multitude of topics, including theatre, DJing, fashion, and business ownership, and even a partnership with Mott’s Gay and Straight Alliance Club for a drag show later on in the month. It kicked off with a poetry event, titled Feminine Rage, on the 6th, followed shortly by a concert featuring Becky Coggins, Palm of Your Hand, and Babe Wall on the 7th. 

Legardye has been a member of the Flint Local 432 family for almost 10 years, since she began her internship in 2018 while attending Mott Community College. Throughout those ten years, she has connected with music and the Flint community in ways she hadn’t imagined. Along with that, Legardye has noticed a surge in female performers she’s seen in her managerial position over the past few years. 

“I’ve noticed the ladies doing more of the putting stuff together, and really, y’know, they are the ones in the forefront of a lot of this stuff! Shout-out to all the ladies out there. I like it, because I’m learning I’m one of them, too…It’s amazing to watch.” 

She even estimated that the majority of the Local Flint 432’s events are women-led and performed. “It definitely can be daunting as a woman coming into a very male-dominated environment…[but] I see a lot of women in those, those positions of power, be it with other organizations or just with other creatives putting on events. Not just at the Local, but just in the city. Like, shout out to the woman, really holdin’ it down!”

As more women step up into different entertainment scenes and put themselves out there through local venues, Legardye and plenty of others have grown a sense of pride in being a part of this movement. Legardye spoke on how it, “… Inspires me to carry that baton for the next generation, so they can look up and say, oh, okay, I can do this too…For me to be here, it does my heart a lot of good.”

Legardye mentioned that, being able to provide the women of Flint an inclusive space, “…means everything to me…With the climate that we’re dealing with socially, politically, um, I think it’s super important that we position ourselves as an organization and say, like, hey, this is a safe place. I really hope that this serves as an example for other places, groups, and organizations, too; y’all can run with this, too! “We can be a city that really highlights our women, we can be a city that really highlights our minorities, the whole nine.” We really wanna be the ones who, if we have to start it, we’ll start it and hope that everybody carries it along, but if not, we’ll be the ones carrying it along.”

Above all, though, Legardye wanted to really push the idea that the Local is a space for everyone, especially young women performers, to improve and learn. She advised, “These are the training grounds. We want to train you up, we want to teach you…and then we want to push you along to the Masonic temples, to the Capitol Theatres, you know, to the bigger venues and different places – the Machine Shops. The goal is not to keep you at this level at the Local; we wanna get you to the next level, but this is where you learn. This is where you start, this is where you grow.”

As a last word of advice, Ledardye wants to tell women who wish to put themselves out there to, “Just start…There’s no such thing as a finished product; it’ll always change, it’ll always evolve, so I say just start. You never really get out there until you just allow yourself the space and the opportunity to not be perfect at it…It’ll always be something new, you’ll always have to be a forever student, and you’ll always have to surround yourself with like-minded people. Just start…Do it scared, do it fearful, do it trembling, but just do it.”

Expect different History Months and similar events to be celebrated similarly at the Flint Local 432 in upcoming years, Legardye stressed how this template would be laid out for many other representative months. 

All events associated with the Amplify Her movement are free for community members, as are the snacks and drinks provided for attendees. The Flint Local 432 asks for continual support for the performing women of Michigan and their fellow creatives throughout their Amplify Her project.

You can learn more about Flint Local 432 and Amplify Her by checking out their Facebook page.