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BEHIND THE STRIPES

Judah Middleton

By Atlanta United FC

June 22^nd, 2022

The poem “Freedom” by Langston Hughes is beautiful and urgent. The language bears weight, each word so necessary that, as a reader, you find yourself going back to read the lines over and over again.

I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

The lines beat like the rhythm of a march. It’s a cry for equality, a summons to press forward and head toward a decision of change. The poem evokes peaceful action through the image of planting seeds on ground never sown before, new ground where trees can, and will, grow.

It’s a call to action. The tone speaks with necessity, a vitality that creates brave movement through which Judah Middleton takes her steps.

For a long time, Middleton was the only Black woman in the room, oftentimes the only Black queer person in the room. She worked in corporate America as a designer. Her work appeared in several prominent sports businesses including ESPN and The Undefeated. She was successful in her field, rising through the ranks to a creative director position.

Then, 2020 happened. George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were tragically murdered. And Middleton experienced racial prejudice herself. She, along with her family, were kicked out of a restaurant in Florida. The events of that year, for Middleton, stopped everything.

“I felt like I was just cruising through life, thinking that I had worked hard to be successful when I still wasn't really free,” she said. “I was just in this box. So once I got out the box, I wasn’t free. Once I wasn't at work, I’m still a Black person. And there are still places I can’t go, especially being openly queer. It's still like, I’m walking down the street and people look at me funny. So we’re free, but are we really free?”

2020 affected Middleton deeply and gave her a desire to do more. She wanted to provide some type of change to the world. Living through those experiences made her consider what’s important in her life, which was her family and her people.

“It was like, no matter how hard I work, no matter how much I had to rise up in the ranks at my job, it wasn't going to make a difference between my life,” she said. “It was a life and death thing to me.”

She sought to create more opportunities for her family and people like her. And through her background she realized something was missing. She understood how underrepresented Black culture was. Even when her designs included Black men or Black athletes, most of the time they catered toward a commercialized, white audience.

Middleton noticed especially there was a need for more products designed for Black women. She loved to wear sports apparel, but found there weren’t as many streetwear options for Black women to wear.

“I felt like we were very marginalized group,” she said. “A lot of times people disrespect Black women or look down on us or don't give us credit.”

Throughout her life, Black women surrounded Middleton and shaped her into the person she is today. They saw her at her best and at her worst. Her mother is the most important person in her life. She looked up to public Black figures such as Queen Latifah, Beyonce, Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj.

“Being around a lot of Black women, that move a certain way, that can handle business on and off the court, it’s just a different vibe” she said. “It gives you a different grit. It's kind of like this connectedness, far and wide.”

So, Middleton didn’t wait. She worked to promote more Black voices. Middleton built her own brand called Trenches which focuses on creating streetwear and community for the Black queer creatives in the local community. The clothing line includes messages to protect Black women and celebrate Juneteenth.

June 19 is a special day. Also known as Juneteenth, the historic date commemorates the effective end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth became an official federal holiday in 2021.

To honor the occasion, MLS took on a series of initiatives for the June 18-19 matches. One of the initiatives included the “Freedom To Be” campaign. Players wore specially designed numbers on their jerseys for their matches on the weekend of Juneteenth. Atlanta United wore the numbers on the Forest kit for the match at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Middleton created the artwork for Atlanta United and MLS. For the look, she chose a vibrant yellow, green, and red color palette to represent the blood, soil and prosperity of Africa and its people -- red for bloodshed and passion, green for growth, and yellow for happiness and hope.

“I initially just started drawing out different ideas,” she said. “I sketch a lot, so I started to draw different shapes. I started to think about how me coming from Alabama, living in Texas, living in Connecticut, and these different people I started to meet. It was this connector group of shapes that were very much very different, but from afar, they started to connect with each other.”

This unity came together in Middleton’s design, much like the music she relies on to inspire her. Moving up north, she started listening to more Afro beats and Caribbean music, music from Africa and South Africa. The music doesn’t have words or lyrics but is carried through the sounds. Drums are a major part. This genre of music is reflected in her art.

“It’s like a bunch of music notes,” she said. “You have drums, you have voices, you have sounds, but together it is one note. Because at the end of the day, I think all of us just want equality and for Black bodies not to be murdered just for looking the way we are, having our hair a certain way or for not being like everybody else, just for being ourselves.”

Middleton is from the south, not too far from Atlanta. She grew up in Childersburg, Ala. just outside of Birmingham and attended Auburn University. While at Auburn, she was one of the first to create social media posts for the athletic department.

Growing up in the U.S. gave her a different perspective when she first started out to design for Juneteenth. Early in the ideation process, Middleton used brown and pink colors – brown for her skin color, pink to remind her of her mother. At first, she intentionally stayed away from red, yellow and green because, growing up in America, it didn’t mean as much to her.

“I met a lot of friends that are from Nigeria, Haiti, the Caribbean, and those colors for them are on their flags and when they have parties, those are their colors,” she said. “So I didn't want to use colors that are very much associated with a culture of people that I'm not as connected with as far as birth.”

But then Middleton went on a path of self-enlightenment. She looked into where her ancestors and last name might’ve come from. She learned that her parents grew up in the segregated south. She asked her family questions and got a sense of what they went through. She reconnected with the roots. Not only did she embrace them, she celebrated them.

“It connected me,” she said. “It connected my friends, it connected my family, it connected all the different Black people that I know because they're all very different. But together we all, living in America, have to deal with walking down the street and looked at as one person, one voice, and one people. And we all just want the ability to be free, to be equal and to have a lot of ownership.”

The result was the design that Luiz Araújo, Josef Martínez and the rest of Atlanta United wore on the back of their jerseys. Colors that included the red, yellow and green that Middleton initially ran away from. Her friends describe it as a Juneteenth army – a mixture of colors, shapes coming together. What at first appears as abstract shapes, upon closer look, are realistic in their unity. Each shape is unique – some are long, some are small, some have a lot of curve, some not as much – but fit together to create the whole.

“I feel that sometimes I'm like a soldier trying to advocate for Black people,” she said. “Black women, Black queer people, trans people, the LGBT community, we’re in the trenches of trying to have our voices heard. We’re trying to have people see us for our individual traits versus just one person.”

When MLS approached her with the idea, Middleton considered it a good opportunity. It aligned with her professional goals. She was starting to see herself more as an artist than a designer, and a project like this could help jumpstart the transition.

The opportunity also offered Middleton ownership. MLS gave Middleton control over her own design. It was the first time she had full creative freedom over a project. Having a lot of freedom can at first be a little scary, but Middleton felt equally ready to take it on.

“MLS had a lot of plans to put Black women in the forefront and I feel like that's something me as a Black woman, I really have to advocate for,” she said.

She took notice of the way MLS treats Black men and women, and she saw something different with MLS than what she saw in other leagues. She saw Black men and women part of ownership and decision-making, like Kevin Durant in Philadelphia. She saw Black women in positions of leadership, like Kaila Pettis, the first-ever Black female creative director at a professional sports club for FC Cincinnati.

“Not only are they [MLS] advocating for Black players on the field, but they're allowing us to own stuff,” Middleton said.

Atlanta United's worn jerseys from the June 19 match are available to supporters via an online auction running until July 5. Proceeds from the auction will go to the Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga. Click here to place your bid.

On Sunday, June 19, Atlanta United hosted Inter Miami CF at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Both teams wore the “Freedom To Be” design on their jerseys. And Middleton was in the stands to see her creation come to life.

The match was Middleton’s first Atlanta United game, but it’s something she’s always wanted to do. Growing up in Alabama, Atlanta United is the club she feels most connected to. Even if it weren’t the special jerseys, she said she’d try to make it out to a match.

“It felt like a cookout,” she said. “That for me felt very family-friendly and connected.”

Middleton sat in Section 122 with about 30 friends and family. Her friends brought their parents and siblings and cousins, which added to the family-like atmosphere. For Middleton, there was one person who went with her that made the day even more special, the person Middleton calls the most important person in her life: her mother.

Working in the design field, Middleton sometimes had a hard time explaining to her family all the aspects of her job. But getting to be at Sunday’s match, to point to the jerseys that players wore on field, point to the jersey she had on herself, and show that to her mother, was an unforgettable experience.

“I feel like if I had one goal, that was it – just having my mom be able to see it,” she said. “That’s not something I can buy. So, I'm very appreciative of MLS and Atlanta for giving me the opportunity to do so.”

As the Hughes poem says, change doesn’t happen when we wait for tomorrow. Change happens when we plant strong seeds, nurture them and allow them to grow.

For Middleton, that means making things better for the generation that follows. She doesn’t want success just for herself. She wants to bring people along.

“We're in the trenches, we're going to hustle, but we need people to see us so for the generation after us they can know that it's possible to do it and they can pass us,” she said.

Progress means making sure voices are heard, especially in creative fields. Black men and women make up just 3% according to a 2019 design census. Black design students are even harder to find and nurture. Learning design can be expensive, and sometimes, Black students are simply priced out of the system. To learn, students need equipment. Adobe is an expensive product. So is a laptop.

But Middleton is working to change things in that regard also. She uses her voice to encourage decision-makers to give opportunities to people from underrepresented communities. When it comes to hiring or diversifying, she suggests companies hire new talent and seek new voices.

“When there are opportunities to bring in new talent or new workers or just new people into your circle, find a way to add somebody that has a different perspective, because I also think that also makes things a little bit more well-rounded,” she said. “If all my friends are the same, then we're never really going to make much progress.”

For Middleton, progress includes all people – and it isn’t always limited to a professional setting. Listening to others, reading new voices, stepping outside of our comfort zones can be a way to hear each other’s stories and grow more well-rounded. As Middleton’s artwork shows, it takes all of us, all the different pieces, to come together and form a unified whole.

“I think just always finding a different voice that might be completely opposite of yours and finding something in common and trying to find a way to give them an opportunity.” she said. “I think that's it. Finding ways to give different people different opportunities.”

Story by Sandy McAfee / Photos by Mitch Martin, Dakota Williams

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