The community that gathered May 6 to cut the ceremonial ribbons outside the Center for Black Excellence and Culture were from all walks of life. Elected leaders were there, including U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Shaundel Washington-Spivey, who made the trek from La Crosse where he is mayor. Community leaders across generations also attended, and some were there in spirit: poet Dr. Fabu Carter wore a black and white illustrated jacket given to her by the late Ms. Milele Chikasa Anana, the founder and publisher of Umoja, a magazine that celebrates Black culture.

At the center of it all were Alex Gee, wearing a blazer embroidered with the Center's logo, and his sister, Lilada Gee, sporting a multicolored dress and large yellow sunglasses reading "BOOM."

"Black culture has been consumed, but not invested in. Imitated, but not institutionally supported. Celebrated publicly, but underfunded structurally," Alex Gee said in his opening remarks to a crowd gathered at the entrance, the hay protecting newly-sodded grass crunching underfoot. "And that is why this moment matters. This is why this Center is not optional. This center is necessary, this Center is overdue, this Center is infrastructure for identity."

The Center hosts theaters and art galleries, sound recording booths, and makerspaces. Mixed room areas feature event planners to help plan proms, birthdays and dinners. The design is pointedly colorful, and intergenerational: a children's library sits adjacent to a gathering space for older adults.

The opening of the new cultural space at 671 W. Badger Road means more Black-led spaces for gathering, learning and creating — spaces the Center's co-founders say Madison has long needed. Anticipation to see the new building was high: By 3 p.m., one hour after an open house began, a line snaked from the door down the road. Some waited for nearly an hour to get in.

The Center was just an idea in 2020, when the Gees began organizing around the idea of an African-inspired space built for and by Black Madisonians.

The idea, in the words of Carter, who read a poem to the crowd, came "from the church on top of the hill, looking out and praying over the city. A vision comes to the pastor: African-inspired space built for Black people. Reflecting abiding love. Faith, resilience, and excellence. A Center where our culture is recognized and acknowledged. Where we are safe to be us.”

Alex Gee heads the Fountain of Life Covenant Church next door, founded the leadership development nonprofit Nehemiah, and hosts a podcast, among other things. Lilada Gee is equally busy. An artist and community organizer who runs programs supporting Black women and girls, Lilada designed much of the Center while working through a serious medical diagnosis.

Both have talked publicly about navigating Madison while Black. Alex Gee founded Justified Anger after being pulled over by police in the parking lot of his own church. In 2021, Lilada Gee pulled her art from the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art's Wisconsin Triennial, after facing repeat instances of racism and disrespect. 

On opening day, Lilada Gee described the Center's launch as a different kind of exhaustion — a welcome one.

The Center sits blocks away from other cultural spaces built with recent support: the new home for Centro and the Black Business Hub are a 10-minute walk away.

The Center broke ground in 2024, and in June 2025, announced it had crossed the $32 million threshold to open its doors free of debt. Six million of those dollars came from the state, said Alex Gee recounted a blunt conversation with Evers that netted an extra $1 million.

Gee shared with the crowd that he told the governor about the people he had galvanized, and the community he had built, to support the project before the state funding.

Hallways in the Center feature notable Black "firsts" in Wisconsin, from Cavalier Johnson (the first Black mayor elected in Milwaukee) to Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings (the first Black woman to earn tenure at UW-Madison School of Education). Frances Huntley-Cooper, the former mayor of Fitchburg and the first Black mayor elected in Wisconsin, is vice chairman of the Center's board.

But Gee noted that the Center is a blueprint for what's next, not a museum of what was: "It's a place where Black thought is curated. Black innovation is incubated, and Black identity is affirmed. Without apology."