Co-Founder of The Gathering Spot, Ryan Wilson Talks the Arrival of a New Space Curated for the Black Community in Los Angeles

By  Saybin Roberson

Los Angeles and West Adams specifically will soon be welcoming a new institution made for us, by us! The Gathering Spot, an intentional private membership club focused on the people and the community will be coming this fall to unite and stimulate the Black community.

Founded by Ryan Wilson and TK Peterson, The Gathering Spot (TGS) was born in D.C. during a time of unrest and longing amongst the founders. While in their apartment they shared during college, the two conceptualized the idea of creating a space for Black and Brown people to gather in a space that celebrated their existence. We spoke to co-founder Ryan Wilson to discuss TGS, an idea turned reality, that forever changed his life.

“Growing up was to always be an attorney. I wanted to be a lawyer because to me that was the best way to have an impact in our community,” he shared. The Georgetown alum shared that he followed that path, however, it took until law school for the moment of change. “I was working at a law firm in Buckhead in Atlanta and I got an email from some friends after George Zimmerman was acquitted of Trayvon Martin’s murder, and the email simply said, ‘What are we going to do?’”

“I responded back to the email with two different parts. The first part, ‘I think we’ve got to use this moment to figure out how we can really work to empower ourselves.’ Then the second, ‘I think we need to build a physical place and create a community where we can tackle this issue and anything else that we want to do,’” he detailed. “From the minute that I wrote that paragraph, I felt like the place that was in my head really needed to exist.”