When I first meet Vivian Mims, I clock her at about 6’4’’ tall. Turns out, she’s 5’9’’, and my overestimation is a testament to her personality. A tower of joviality, yet powerful as a hurricane.
We’re sitting in the vestibule at Flava Cafe, a community-oriented coffee shop at the corner of University and Dale– once a portal into the heart of Rondo, the once-thriving Black community, bifurcated and all but destroyed by the construction of I-94 starting in 1956. She’s like the mayor, waving to incoming customers as they wave back.
“Hey, baby!” She shouts.
The tower of joviality that is Vivian Mims. Photo: Uche Iroegbu
“I feed them,” she explains.
The highway construction was responsible for the closure or demolition of 300 businesses. Seven hundred family homes were demolished. But The Mims’ was not one of them. They have been living in the neighborhood for four generations, and their household– which the family has dubbed “A-Block,” is still presided over by Vivian’s 93-year-old mother, the family matriarch, Miss Juanell (sometimes spelled “Warnell” ) Mims. When she passes, Vivian will step into the role of matriarch, and she seems well-poised for this important role.
As she bangs out a classic soul food meal inspired by her mama’s Sunday dinners– fried chicken using birds she butchers with the precision of, well, a butcher; turkey tail collards; vats of macaroni and cheese the size of a baby pool; pineapple upside down cakes; and sweet potato pies compliments of Miss Juanell herself– she contemplates how she got here....
