This as told essay is based on a conversation with Javoris Hollingsworth and Arlene Hollingsworth, founders of Gracie’s corner. It has been edited for length and clarity.
My wife and I started Gracie’s Corner out of necessity. We were both working as a professor during the pandemic, and we used every resource we had to keep our three kids occupied.
One of those sources was YouTube. But I noticed that there weren’t many characters who looked like our children. In such diverse worldit is important that everyone feels seen.
I started working with my daughter Graceyn, who is now 13, to create a fun, educational show Black characters.
My wife’s private practice helped finance the show
It was slow at first. That first year we were just getting our foundation. I wrote songs that Graceyn sang and recorded them in a closet in our house. Our videos had about 100 views.
My wife was also a professor at the time and had her own practice as a psychologist. She took on more clients to help pay for Gracie’s Corner, and we also tapped into savings make videos. We hoped that one day we would be able to pay the production costs.
Money was not my main motivation; this was really one passion project. Yet I also wanted to feel like we weren’t investing our money in this black hole.
I left my professor position after going viral
The second year, in 2022, one of ours videos went viral. That’s when things really started to take off. In the spring of 2022, I quit my job to work on Gracie’s Corner. My wife filmed the moment I left my office for the last time. It was memorable. I thought I would retire from academia and work my way up, and that would be my life story.
Leaving the safety of one permanent job was a somewhat difficult decision. At the same time, the purpose I felt made it easier. As a professor, I have an impact in the classroom, but only on a handful of students in front of me. With Gracie’s Corner I could have an impact on a global scale.
My days involve a little creativity and a lot of business
The creative side of the profession comes easily to me. I write the songs and we now have a team of animators who bring them to life. We record with Graceyn every other week because we want her to have a good balance between Gracie’s Corner and the rest of her life.
The business side is much more demanding. I spend most of my time building that, because the business acumen is what keeps you moving. I meet with partners and oversee the construction of a recording studio and office space we are building.
I hope to leave the business to my children
Working in academia was never a job that would make you a lot of money. Now that my wife and I have both left academia to work on Gracie’s Corner, we feel at ease. We have been able to reinvest a lot in the company to help it grow.
Every time our content reaches families in their living rooms, that’s a success for me. A big moment was our first NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Animated Series in 2023. We were nominated alongside Disney and all these major platforms. That was a ‘we made it’ moment for me.
I want Gracie’s Corner to become Sesame Street 2.0. Our goal is that in fifty years we will have created something global that can be passed on to our children. We want to have an impact not only with our show, but also with our story itself: we are the family that started an animation empire. Who would have ever thought that?
