Vegan Activist Soul Eubanks
Soul Eubanks is an Vegan activist that I first heard about when I saw his quote. "Some people are so skeptical of trying vegan food, they act like it's made out of dead animals" I found that hilarious so I reached out to him to have a discussion. As it turns out he is a musician as well. In this interview we discuss art, activism, music and veganism of course.
BP: Tell me more about your musical career. What you did and how you got into music?
SE: Hip-hop has always been one of my first loves. I grew up really in the, I would say, 90’s- really falling in love with hip-hop immensely. So a lot of the groups that I was really into, artists like Nas, The Roots, Soulquarians, Jay-Z. I was a really big fan of, East Coast lyrical music. So, I started doing that pretty much as a way to express myself. I always felt it was a great way to be creative and express myself. I would say around my early 2000’s I kind of got a little bit more involved with it. I started creating my own studio. Started engineering for others, but for the most part it was always just a way to help support my creativity and put out my music. I worked on a project for a while and just off and on did hip-hip for a little over a decade. And I still loosely write now. I still have projects I have in my head that I would like to do.
I have a whole album in my head that I’ve already mapped out. We’ll see if it ever comes into fruition, but yeah. Hip-Hop has always been my first love, I just love the way that I can express myself through Hip-Hop, I love the creativity, the sounds of the instrumentals. Some of my favorite producers were J Dilla, a lot of early Kanye West-
BP: I was gonna ask you about Kanye. How do you feel about Kanye?
SE: When people ask me about him I always just hope that he’s in a good space. I think the things that I’ve seen from him, that we’ve all seen from him over the last 5+ years or so, just makes me wonder about him as an individual. I wonder if he’s happy, if he’s healthy, if he’s in the right frame of mind. I know he’s talked a lot about his mental health and we’ve seen him pretty much have breakdowns and all of these things that say a lot of outlandish things. When it comes to him, I don’t think in the term of critiquing him more. The question is like man, how are you doing as a person? For you to feel these things and say these things and have these breakdowns, I really wonder if he’s happy, if he’s in a good space. So, any time I have a talk about him, I just hope he’s doing good.
BP: You mentioned J-dilla what other producers do you like?
SE I love Alchemist. There’s a producer named Derringer, he works with this group called Griselda. They have a really gritty, underground sound. It’s really amazing. I grew up listening a lot to Outkast and Goodie Mob, Organized Noize.
BP: I have hold your feet to the fire. What do you think your favorite Hip-Hop record of all time is?
SE: I couldn’t come up with one, even though some of my favorite albums from that time were albums from- like Mos Def on both sides, it’s amazing. “Things Fall Apart from the Root” is amazing. Yeah, those albums in that time “Like Water for Chocolate.” Yeah, but I was saying the 2000’s I’d probably have to go with Jay-Z Blueprint. 2010’s to 2020, probably J Cole 2014 “Forest Hill Drive.” That’s probably my favorite album of the last decade. And a close second is Kendricks “To Pimp a Butterfly.” "To Pimp a Butterfly." Was an emotional, heavy album. But, it was so it was done so perfectly. He did an amazing job.
BP: I heard you worked at a bank, what did you do at the bank?
SE: I would say 2008 to 2014, I worked as a bank teller. Yeah, and at that time I was more into trying to be more financially literate. I thought that was a great way to figure out how to be more business minded and business savvy. Being more in tune with and being better with finances. What I learned is that it wasn’t the place for me. It was more about customer service and sales. At that time when I first started, I’d say a couple of years in you know we had that big mortgage crisis and big financial things happened. After that the job became so much about being sales oriented that it really just turned me off of that world all together. So, it’s not like I was in love with banking, because I’m a creator. So, I wanna create, I wanna do new things. I do have an entrepreneurial spirit. So, I thought that would feed into the appetite, but it didn’t. And, yeah, when I was there it was so much about sales targets and it began to be so overwhelming. That’s why I decided to leave in 2014.
BP: Did you learn finance lessons you set out to learn there or was it just a disappointment?
SE I’d say one of the biggest things that I learned working at a bank is about my perception of money. Before I worked at a bank I used to think about certain amounts of money or large amounts of money. But, after a while I started to see “Oh, a million dollars is not a lot of money.” When, of course, a million dollars can change peoples’ lives but it definitely made my perception of money drastically different. I think a lot of times we give money a certain weight, a certain power. And I think working at a bank, constantly seeing money, constantly seeing people use money for a variety of things. It kind of made it not this illustrious thing any more and honestly became more of a tool to do what you want. So, I guess for a large part of my life, I was almost intimidated by money. But, after working at a bank, now I just see money as a thing. I know it’s something we all have to have and we have to work to get it. But, I no longer see it as a thing with such powerful control over my every-day life. It also made me realize that there are certain things that I will just not do for money anymore. I just wont. I don’t care if I have to minimize my living expenses and live a lot more simple life. I refuse to. It changed my perception about money.
BP: When you go to live a simpler life, what types of things do you do or what things do you cut back on or how does that look?
SE: One of the things I try to do is really only buy the things that I need. I don’t really feel the need to buy things to make me feel good. I don’t really feed into consumerism a lot. Sure there are certain things that we all want and we all admire. Maybe it’s clothing or something. Or there are certain things that we just desire in life and there’s nothing wrong with that. But, I don’t give them a lot of power, I just really started questioning “how much value do I get from things?” Honestly, living in an expensive place, there's just certain things that I realized that these things are just things. And I don’t really want to give them the power to feel like “Okay, I have to work for these things to keep up with these things and I need some art on my wall.” Or “I always have to keep up with the Joneses” by buying accessories and shoes and jewelry and cologne and whatever the things are our society kind of pushes down our throat to consume. I think those things are often a way to control us. So, yeah, I think I just live a lot more simple life now. Like- I kind of just have a room that I rent and my roommate and pretty much everything that I own is in this room. And I don't really- you know- desire to buy a new car. I’ll just use my car and I’ll use it until I can’t anymore.
BP: I love it. What kind of car is it?
SE: It’s an 04 Honda Accord and I’ve had it for almost a decade now. It’s the first car that I’ve ever had, it’s the only car that I've ever had. I just literally have no desire to get a new one until I need another one.
BP: Would you consider yourself a minimalist then?
SE: I would consider myself to be an aspiring minimalist. I still have a lot of room for improvement. It’s not that I have a lot of stuff, but, I do have more things than I would like to have. I think, ideally, if I could cut down 25-50% of the things that I own now I probably would be a minimalist. Because I think those would be essential things that I need. So, just looking in my room now- yeah, I think half of the things in here could probably go. At that point I’d be a minimalist. But, right now I’m not quite there yet, but that is a goal of mine. It’s something that I aspire to be.
BP: How did you get your finances in order to quit your job?
SE: Oh, that’s a great question. So, essentially I mapped out a plan and once I realized I was just not happy where I was working, I said “Okay, in order for me to leave” because a lot of people at my job didn’t like it and I realized “I can't just not like it and say I don’t like it and just wanna leave.” Because I realized that it wasn’t about shifts at jobs, I think it was a bigger issue of doing things that I didn’t want to do for money. I think it was a little bit of both. I thought that I resent the job, but I also wanted to resent the fact that I was even in a position. I had put myself in a position that I had to work somewhere. Just because I needed money to keep my to sustain a certain type of life. Once I decided I was like “Okay, what is it going to take for me to leave here?” So, luckily I was invested in a 401 plan; something that I had done just from day one. I invested in that and also I will say that the job still had a pension plan. Yeah, that was a blessing at the time, to have a pension at that time especially at that job. So, I was like “Okay-” I was looking at my 401k; looking at my pension “if I save over the next two years ‘x’ amount of money per paycheck, I’ll be able to leave this job in 2 years and be able to survive afterwards.” If I enroll in school, get some financial aid, learn a trade, learn a skill. I’ll be able to live two maybe maybe years if I stretch it. So, once I realized that I just started saving money for the next two years. And once that two years was up and I reached my goal, I said “Okay, I made this number, I saved this amount of money- I can actually leave and live for the next 2-3 years without needing a job.” So, that’s what I did. I just saved up and--401k, pension and yeah, that was it.
BP: Was your plan to do different activism, or just figure out life or what was the reason to take a break from having a 9-5?
SE: Part of the plan was to discover what I wanted to do in life. Have some time to say “You know what, I really want some time to figure out my next plan, my path.” So, for the first six months I intentionally said “I’m not gonna do anything, I’m not gonna work, I’m not gonna look for a job, not gonna think about a job. I’m just going to live and exist.” And at this time I wasn’t vegan, I actually had been a vegetarian for part of my life and then back to eating animal products and I was thinking about going back to being a vegetarian. So, like I said, I wasn’t vegan at this time of my life yet. But, my plan was just to take some time off. The only thing I knew I wanted to do was to enroll in school and to learn a trade. Because, I started to see photography and videography as a medium that I wanted to explore. And I wanted to use that as a new form of creativity. So, as I said, I’ve always been creative. Earlier in my life with Hip-Hop and music. And in this stage of my life it was more about photography and videography and learning how to do visual art. So, I said “Okay I wanna learn how to make films and do photography.” So, I enrolled in a technical college as soon as I’d left my job. And now, those were the only two things I knew I wanted to do. I wanted to learn how to do film and photo and take some time off of work. And that was my plan, and I was like “Maybe afterwards I’ll start up a photo or video business, but I at least want to learn what I can do with photography and videography while I take time off of a regular 9-5.”
BP: So, you were thinking the trade the skill you were gonna learn was photography, because you could drop it anywhere and get some money. Doing wedding photos or whatever you could scrap by for living if you needed to; is what you were thinking?
SE: Yeah, exactly. This is a skill I’ll always have so it doesn’t matter if I have to work for a company or freelance. I’ll always have this skill. So, if nothing else, if I can’t make tons of money, I can always do something on the side to make some extra money. It seemed like a win-win situation.
BP: Well, you’re never worse off to have more skills, right? SE: Absolutely, yeah. That’s something that can’t be taken from you. Education, I mean, no matter what the economy is doing, no matter the state of the world; if you have a skill, you’ll always have a skill.
BP: What other causes drive you to activism so much?
SE: I’ve done protests in local communities that involve the Black Lives Matter movement. I was doing that before I was in the animal rights community for about five or six years. I don’t want to make it seem I wasn’t as involved with it as animal rights. I wasn’t organizing and going to protests on a regular basis. But, every now and then I would be involved. I did a small documentary about a protest that happened in 2017 in Atlanta, so that was a way I incorporated my photography/video skills into that. And I also started to do activism around environmental change and climate justice. I went to a couple of meetings with other organizations and just started to see how I could get involved and be more of an advocate in the climate/justice space. I did a few of those and since I’ve done animal activism I’ve done a couple of events still around social justice in those spaces. I’ll say, I’m not as heavily involved in those types of activism anymore, but every now and then I still involve myself in those forms of activism. For the most part, animal activism is the focus of my activism now.
BP: I saw you had a Black vegans Matter shirt on your Instagram.
SE: Something that I didn't realize. Well actually I immediately realized that when I started doing animal activism, is that there wasn't a lot of black people doing activism in Atlanta in the animal rights community. And it's something that I started to notice not only in Atlanta, but a lot of spaces. Just wasn't a lot of black activists now there are a lot of black activists doing incredible work. But that's just that the face of it isn't, you know, very diverse. So, I just wanted to kind of speak out on that and just let you know, you know, anyone that's inspiring to do activism that maybe black or a person of color. We have a lot to give to this movement. We have a lot to share. We have a lot of insight. We have a lot of uniqueness that's not being shown and expressed in this movement. So, I think that, when I saw that sweater I was like “Okay, this is kind of a good way to think.”
BP: Do you have any advice to overcome some of that negative connotation to Black Lives Matter?
SE: One, have to continue to do the work too. Because it's work that needs to be done. So, it's not about the outside voices. It's just about making sure you put in your energy towards the change that you want to see in the world. And also, I would say, another thing is to know that, you know, these social justice causes are on the right side of history. You know, when we look back fifty to one hundred years, we're going to look back at the black lives matter movement, look at the climate justice movement, we're going to look at animal rights and say, “Wow. I can't even believe that you all have to fight for these things.” And because when you look back at the civil rights movement and you see footage of, you know, black people being hosed with water. When you look back at the women's movement at the fact that women couldn't vote until a certain time in history. You know we look back and say this is unreal that this was even happening. It's about seeing long term and I just mean we’re so short-sighted because we do tend to look at things through a very short-sighted lens, but if we look at it through a wider that's where the victories will be. They won't be in our lifetime. They're going to be for the next generation and that’s what we're fighting for. So, just continue to do the work and know that, you are doing the right work and anybody that's opposed to you, they're on the wrong side of history anyways. So, you know, you may not see the victories in your lifetime but you are fighting for something that is just and that should be.
BP: What do you think an individual can do to truly make change in their community?
SE: I think it's a combination of things. I think it's one is to actively be against any type of injustice as much as you possibly can. That plays out in a variety of ways. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be an activist. It can be as simple as if you’re having a conversation with your friends and someone says a racist joke you can check them on it. You don't have to just say “Oh, that’s just my friend.” or “That’s just my family member.” “I'm just used to them.” And just let it pass and I understand that's hard. It is very hard work to do. I think those times can be extremely challenging because I can't even say that I've mastered that skill set, but I think that should be a goal. When you see injustice speak out or make sure that it’s known that it is an injustice that has been happening. I Also think anything that you do should be sustainable. For some people activism is sustainable, some people can go to an event every other day. Some people can only do it for every other week. Some people can do it for every other month. Some people can only do it once a year; every couple of years. I think the thing that you have to do is make sure that you're listening to your mind and your spirit. Because, there’s no purpose in going to 40 events in a year just draining your energy. If it’s draining your soul and it’s draining your spirit. I had a friend tell me the “You know, the revolution will be led by the well rested.” And those in good mental health. It's not going to be led by those that are soaking in anger and bitterness. We look at revolutions that have happened in the past that have been led through violence and we just keep perpetuating those systems of oppression. Because when we overthrow people with violence that were violent. It's still perpetuating that same system of oppression. They’re still using the same tools that got us here in the first place. So the revolutions of the future are not going to be led by those using violence and anarchy. I think the best thing that people can do is do things that are sustainable with their spirit and just work on being against all oppression at all times, as best as you can be.
BP: What is it about activism that attracts you personally so much? What is it that makes you want to be an activist?
SE: The thing that got me really into activism as a lifestyle is realizing that I kind of grew up just as a young black person in America. It filled me with a lot of anger and resentment towards a ways Americans treated black people. Realizing that all that we've been through in my experience in America and a lot of my friends' experiences and just realized, I was looking through a very negative lens at the world and that shaped my mindset for a while. It took me a while to kind of break out of that and to not be as bitter about society as I was.
BP: How did you break out of that headspace?
SE: leaving work and kind of doing a lot of self discovery, learning what's important to me. I started to develop a lot more empathy for just humanity. I think a lot of times us as humans tend to think that we are so far evolved and we aren't. We are very much babies. We are very much a young species. We've only been in this state of civilization for maybe what, maybe five or ten thousand years in terms of like having buildings and, governments and systems. It's very small. And the Earth has existed, the universe existed as far as we know for tens of billions of years. So if you look at us as one species on one location. Earth is very small compared to the totality of the universe. It's microscopic and not only that, but our time on Earth is very small. So, I started to realize that we still have so much more work to do. That although we can recognize it's a lot of things that need to be changed and done. Us as a species is very young and we're still learning, we're still evolving. We're literally still evolving to be better versions of ourselves as a whole. So, I started to not judge people as heavily anymore. Once I realized, you know what? I'm still learning how to be a better person. There are things that I'm doing now, literally today, there's probably some things that I've done this in this past week or this past month that I'm going to look back twenty, thirty years from now and say “I can't believe that I was doing that.” So, I have to not really put judgement on others. Once I was able to strip away that amount of judgement for others and just say “You know what, they are really not another person, they're really an extension of me.” Because I know we're honestly sharing a collective experience. Nothing lives alone. Nothing lives in isolation. I interact with you. You interact with the environment you're in, the trees with the water, the water and ‘x’ with air. All of us are tied together.When I look at other people, I just see another version of myself just at a different level on their journey. So, I kind of just started to say that “You know what, I need to stop judging this hard. I need to stop having these expectations of others.” Because the universe is doing what it is supposed to do. Right now, we are aware as we are supposed to be. We're going to get to where we need to go, but right now, we have to experience this as is. I wanted to let go of these expectations and this judgement that I have for others. And once I did that, I was able to breathe a lot easier, ‘cause it's a lot of horrible things happening in the world. But, you know, I just honestly don't believe the universe makes mistakes and as horrible as these things are, we're going to find a way to get past them. So, I was able to just chill out a bit and relax and say “I don't have room to judge others. I just have room to assess and trying to improve myself.” That's the only thing I can literally work on. I can't change how other people see me. I can't change what other people think. I can't change if other people are going to be racist or sexist. I can do everything I can to fight it, but that's all I can do. So, once I started really lowering my expectations and just managing my expectations, It became a lot easier to cope with society as a whole And I didn’t feel stressed out and overwhelmed with the world.
BP: Why do you think you went vegetarian so young?
SE: I went vegetarian because I read this autobiography of Malcolm X and he was a vegetarian. Which is one of my favorite books. And I read that around when I was twelve for the first time. He also referenced Elijah Muhammad’s book “How to Eat to Live” Elijah Muhammad spoke about the danger of eating animals. The health dangers on our body. So, at thirteen I decided “I'm going to slowly transition into being a vegetarian.” I gave an animal product every two years. And I got to the point where, when I was seventeen, I became a full vegetarian. But, it wasn't for ethical reasons. It was just for dietary reasons. So, I will say a decade later, I kind of got back into eating animal products. Just because I felt like I was out of place. I didn't know any other vegetarians, I didn't really know what veganism really was. I kind of felt isolated. So, I started eating animal products. But, once I left my job and I went on this spiritual journey, I went back into thinking about not consuming animal products for health reasons. Then that became for ethical reasons once I saw the movie--documentary “Cowspiracy.” Because, at that point, I was trying to be a really good environmentalist, but I was still consuming animal products. And once I learned about the dangers of animal products on the environment, I stopped right then and there. Stopped eating animal products and then I slowly went into activism I would say about six months later.
BP: Why do you think at thirteen you were so concerned about health issues? I don't know if thirteen year olds care about their health that much.
SE: That’s a very good question. I really admired Malcolm for so many things and I was just like, if this is how Malcolm is living his life, I should probably aspire to do this. I should probably aspire to be this way. it was just his influence in that book autobiography of Malcolm X. I don't think I'd ever really thought about “consuming animals is unhealthy.” I just kind of thought about it like most people do, is just like “oh, this is what we do.” You just grow up and eat animal products. Like the thought never even crossed my mind. The fact that he'd even presented it and made it an issue. I was saying “Wow. Okay, this is a new idea. A New Concept. Let me see if this thing is actually valid. let me try it and see how it plays out.” So, I think that's probably what it was.
BP: Can you explain to me what veganism is?
SE: Definitely. So, veganism is an ethical lifestyle where you do everything possible, and practical to not contribute to animal exploitation, animal abuse. This isn't only about dietary choices because when I first became a vegan I was really plant-based. Because I was only limiting that to just what I ate, but animals are exploited in a variety of ways outside of just for food. So, when I first became vegan. I was only thinking about the food I was eating but I wasn't really thinking about “Okay, am I going to not support body care products that come from animal exploitation, animal testing. Am I not going to wear animals. Am I not going to support animals being used as entertainment in zoos and Aquariums?” And all of these other things. So, veganism is just a way where you do everything that you can to not support any exploitation of any animal. It took me about six months for it to really become a lifestyle for me, after I decided to become vegan. I do think people tend to think that it's limited to a diet but it's not. It's more akin to a philosophy. It's a lifestyle choice and not just a dietary choice. And I understand people use the term interchangeably. A lot of people just use it to talk about diet and there's no reason to get hung up about it. It's not like I'm going to correct someone if they say they're vegan. But they maybe are wearing a beauty product that has animal products in it. I won't just be a stickler about the terminology if someone is using it, not correctly. Once you get the philosophy, that you shouldn't mistreat a sentient creature it does spill over into all aspects.
BP: Some people would say ”We’re just at the top of the food chain, survival of the fittest.” What would you say to someone that said that?
SE: I would say that just because you were more powerful and more dominant than others, it doesn't mean that you have to abuse or support the exploitation of others. Because, sure enough--yeah, if I were in a situation where I had to, you know, kill and eat an animal to survive then, maybe I would. But when I'm not in that situation, I shouldn't use that as a justification. Just because we have the ability to inflict pain and suffering on beings to survive, it doesn't mean that we should. If we have another practical alternative to not. It's all about your choices in life. Yeah we are the more dominant species but, on another level, I'm more dominant than a lot of people on Earth. Does that mean I should inflict my dominance on other shit because I can? Just because I'm quote-unquote “At the top of the food chain.” and in other ways in society? Like, wage, use my strength to overpower people. Does that mean I should abuse others just because I'm stronger than them? No, it just means with great power comes great responsibility. Okay should I use that to abuse others? No, I shouldn't. I should use that power in a way to help vulnerable to look over vulnerable beings and not oppress them.
BP: So, lemme throw you another softball. But, what do you think of the people who are like “Oh, where do you get your protein from?”
SE: I get my protein from food. One of the things that the meat industry animal agriculture has done. They've made so animals are products with protein, but protein is in food. It's in plants that comes from plants. There's all the things you need in a variety of plant-based foods. So, anything from quinoa, to oats, to rice to grains, to peas, to bananas, to lettuce, to spinach, to broccoli. I mean-- it's literally in tens of thousands of plant-based foods, so I get my protein from food. I just get that protein from plants, plant-based food and not animal-based
BP: How do you plan out your daily meals, your daily eating routine?
SE: Since I've been working out a little bit lately, I have been more conscious about my meal plans and how I go about eating. I've been a lot more strategic lately. Before I just kind of ate whatever I ate. Like I just ate chips and oatmeal and cookies. I eat like a kid, to be honest. So, I wasn't the best person to use their platform to advocate about all the delicious vegan food that you can eat. That wasn't me. I just was not a person showing off. I feel like I was always a horrible example of what a vegan should be in terms of the variety of foods that you eat, because I never gave into that, I pretty much ate whatever I could whenever I could. But, now, I have been more conscious about it because I count my calories now. I work out a little bit more consistently, I'm a little bit more mindful of what I put into my body. When I wake up what I typically do--I always eat oatmeal. That's like my staple in the morning, a bowl of oatmeal with some frozen fruit with some cinnamon, slice up some bananas. And I make a big bowl of oatmeal. And I have a smoothie in the morning. For lunch, I typically just have a protein bar in some--there's this new soup that I just found out about. Just this creamy lentil stew-soup. So, I tend to make that for lunch and I throw some broccoli in there, just to make it more fulfilling. Because, broccoli so fulfilling. You can fill up on broccoli and it's such a low amount of calories, and it has such high amounts of nutrients in it. So, I try to do a lot--I don't do a lot of things like prep. I'm a lazy vegan. I don't really do a lot of cooking, a lot of my stuff is pre-packaged and pre-prepared. Lately, I've been going to Chipotle. It's probably kind of like using them as a meal prep service. I get three Chipotle bowls and I save them even for a week. I still go places. We have a vegan food truck parked down in Atlanta. We have a lot of vegan places that are amazing down here. We have like a Caribbean restaurant, we have a vegan Asian fusion restaurant. So, fortunately, sometimes I can bounce back and forth. But, for the most part, I stick to my plan. I kind of use Chipotle. I have my oatmeal, I make my smoothie. I have my protein bar that I eat.
BP: What protein bars do you eat?
SE: Cliff bars, it’s called “Builders.”
BP: I heard a Podcast where you said you went to a steakhouse and found something to eat. What did you eat at the steakhouse, what do you find at a non-vegan restaurant that you can eat?
SE: Sometimes you just have to be creative. Just have to ask questions and one of the things that I do is I just research before I go, I just look on that website. If I know I'm going out with some friends, I will literally just go to the website of the restaurant and see what’s vegan. Literally, every time I've done this, was at a house or restaurant that I don't know. Literally, I've been able to find vegan options, sometimes I have to be creative with the side and say “Hey, you know what, can I get two sides on one plate?” of say-- just some pasta and they look at me like “Oh, this is a little different, but okay.” And I just asked him “Hey, does this contain any animal products?” because, it's their job to know. So I’ll ask if I'm unsure but usually the website has it all. I'll just say “Hey, you know what, I was on the website, I saw y'all had this, I just wanted to know if it was cooked with butter or something like that?” If I have any questions, they’ll just say “Okay, let me check.” But, for the most part, I don't even have to do that. Because, I do know the perception sometimes that “Oh vegans, we always go somewhere, we have to ask a thousand questions about our food.” But, that's always the case. It's just like, okay, I'll just research beforehand, especially if you're going to places that are like chain restaurants. Usually PETA has like a whole list of things you can eat. So, when I can have this from Taco Bell, they have like a whole menu if you're going to Taco Bell and you want to know what's vegan. They tell you how to order it, they tell you what to look out for. They tell you what to say when you get to the counter and so things like that are really helpful. So yeah, so I typically would get like broccoli, rice, some kind of stew or something. There’s always something there, for the most part.
BP: Whats your typical day look like?
SE: I get up, I have a morning routine where I meditate for about 10 to 15 minutes. I read for about 10 to 15 minutes, I take my morning practice. I do pull-ups, I have a black bar and that's the end of my morning practice. So for thirty minutes I dedicate that time to doing a few pull-ups, reading and meditating. After that, I checked my emails for about an hour and for the next few hours after that, I do work, I have a fellowship with the animal saving movement, which is a non-profit animal rights organization. I’ve been with them for almost almost a year now, at this point. So, I checked my emails, checked my slack-that's the interface we use to communicate with everyone in the organization. So, I do that for a few hours. And around noon or 1 I do a workout for about an hour or so. I workout on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. So, sometimes it’s upper body day, sometimes it's lower body day. And then on Friday, it's a combination of both. After that, I started to work on a lot of the activism that’s catered to our local, Atlanta animal activism community. So, I'm checking our Facebook pages for messages, creating Facebook events or checking on Instagram and our messages and things like that. And that lasts until about maybe 5 or 6. So, I get up at around 8, or 9, and I just do that until about 5 or 6 in the evening. And then after that, pretty much either going to eat. And for the last couple of hours of the day I'm pretty much just relaxing, for the most part. Sometimes I may have a phone call in between and I shift my day around a little bit. But, for the most part, those are the staples of my day and I just kind of revolved everything else that I do around all of that. BP: What type of tools do you find yourself using every day? SE: I’ve had the same desktop ever since I left work. So, almost two years now. I mean, it's pretty decent. One of the things that I do is when I left work and I started using photography and videography as a second source of income, I started doing wedding videography. So, the computer’s strong enough for me to edit wedding videos and handle a terabyte or so worth of footage, it was pretty good. I can do all the things that I need to do on my desktop. I don't really have a laptop or anything else like that. Most of the stuff that I do is pretty much on my desktop computer. And when I log off of my desktop, that's it, I’m done with work for the day. So, that part of the day, that part of my room is work-related and I put my chair under my desk and that's it. I'm done with work. So I'm pretty much on the desktop mainly for work purposes.
BP: What was the inspiration for Animal Sanctuary Gallery and how’d you start doing that?
SE: The inspiration for that really came about by just trying to find another way where I could use my creativity, along with my sense of purpose in my work. When I first started doing activism, I noticed that there weren't a lot of photographers that were in the space. So, I was like “Hey, I have some skills that I can actually use and use these skills to really help someone.” Some of these events get more notoriety or just look better when they're posting them online and that could draw more people in. So, I just thought to use my photography for that and as I started to visit sanctuaries, I was thinking “Maybe I can use my photography to help benefit the sanctuaries.” So, I just started to call around to different sanctuaries and say “I'm trying to put together this sanctuary tour and I'll take the pictures of the animals and I'll let you all do whatever you want with the pictures. And if that's fine with you, I’d like to do a whole week of that.” So, I reached out to about 5 sanctuaries, and that's what I did for 5 days straight. I went to 5 different sanctuaries. And after all of these visits to these sanctuaries I had a really nice collection of photographs. And I was like “ I could do something with these photographs, I can put them on my website.” and I was able to have some people online support me because I needed to rent some equipment. Because, I didn't have the lenses that I needed and I didn't have the money to travel to each of these sanctuaries 5 days straight. So,I was said “Hey, I'm trying to create a sanctuary tour where I give photos away to these sanctuaries. If you all want to sponsor it, feel free to donate to my GoFundMe and donate to the gas money. And to rent the lenses and whatnot.” And people donated immediately. So, I was able to do that right away and I still have so many pictures from that sanctuary tour that I haven't shared. I'm going to put them up on my website for free use. So, if anybody needs some pictures of animals for anything, brochures or whatever. They'll be able to go to my website and choose from the photos that I captured. That's my next plan for that. I just need to get all these pictures together and, you know, organize it. Recently, I was awarded a grant from Mercy for Animals to officially help me start my own non-profit, animal rights organization. The first thing that I wanted to focus on was creating content. And I'm going to start this summer really honing in on the content and start to put the content out through the organization and later on in the year or maybe sometime next year, I'll start focusing on the type of actions and the type of campaign that I want to focus on. But, as of right now, I have a lot of ideas about some content that I want to do and I want to put that out. I'm getting I'm in the beginning phases of getting the organization off the ground. I'll be kind of looking for a graphic designer and a writer real soon. And someone who could kind of help bring the team together and make sure the team is on the same page. This summer, expect to see some different types of content from me. I've just been using my social media to share some things that I've done on Instagram, or Twitter or whatever. But, I haven't focused as heavily on creating more thought pieces and more advocacy heavy pieces. So, expect some of that this summer.
BP: What’s your favorite hot sauce?
SE: My favorite hot sauce is the one that is not hot. I am not really big on that. I am a mile south kind of person. I don't put hot sauce on a lot of food. I'm not really into spicy food. It really hits me, so, yeah. The mildest hot sauce you can find is my favorite one.
Get in touch with Soul Eubanks at his website, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook