- Coming up on "American Black Journal," we're gonna talk with the Detroit artist who is behind an exhibition that celebrates the life and legacy of acclaimed author James Baldwin.

Plus, we'll tell you about a Summer Fest on the grounds of the Marygrove Conservancy.

And students at the Downtown Boxing Gym get a lesson in cooking.

Don't go anywhere, "American Black Journal" starts right now.

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(upbeat music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm Stephen Henderson.

A traveling exhibition that honors the life of noted writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin has made its final US stop at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History right here in Detroit.

The exhibit opened on August 2nd, which would've been Baldwin's 100th birthday, and it runs through February of next year.

It's titled "Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin," and it features the work of Detroit-based artist Sabrina Nelson.

I spoke with Sabrina about the inspiration behind this major project.

Sabrina Nelson, it is always delightful to see you.

Welcome to "American Black Journal."

- Thank you, Stephen Henderson.

I am always happy to listen and also see you out on the streets of Detroit.

- Yes, right?

We always seem to run into each other, just wandering around.

So tell me about "Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin," this exhibit at the Wright.

- Well, I can tell you the beginnings of it and how it started.

A lot of people will always ask, "How did you get so obsessed with James Baldwin?"

And I have to respond that I wasn't obsessed with James Baldwin, but I was invited by our Detroit Poet Laureate Jessica Care Moore to travel with her in 2016 to the James Baldwin Conference at American University of Paris.

I was on the plane with her, Melba Boyd, and Magdalena for a view of them.

And I just wanted to do as much reading as I could on James Baldwin before I got there, because I knew more about Beaufort Delaney, who was his mentor who's an artist moreso than I knew about James Baldwin.

And so I was invited by Jessica to paint live during her plenary session.

So I'd never drawn Baldwin before and I had done as much reading.

And when I got there and I started drawing his image, I felt something.

Now I don't know how many people feel things spiritually, but I felt something and my hairs raised on my arms that I had never drawn him before.

But I felt like he touched me, he came to me, and then I asked, after I experienced my Poltergeist moment, I asked, I said, "You know, if you're here, I need you to teach me how to know you."

And sometimes I feel like the spirit has jokes because it went deep and heavy.

And I've learned so many things about James Arthur Baldwin and his life and his activism and his artivism as well.

This is how it started.

So it started off with small sketchbooks and drawing him during what we normally call Inktober.

I didn't like the word pops, so I changed it to Blacktober.

And I said who can I draw, this is of course, after I came back from Paris, can I draw every day for 31 days?

Which ended up into 91 days because I didn't stop.

So that's the beginning of this "Frontline Prophet."

And with Ashara and Omo Misha who armed my co-curators, they came to my studio and said, "Hey, what are you doing with these little sketchbooks?

What are they?"

And I said, "Well I did a study of James Baldwin."

And she was like, "What are you doing with them?"

And I said, "Well, they were in my studio."

And she says, "We should do a show."

And I'd already talked to a friend of mine named Mikael Rashid about it, but I wasn't really sure how I was gonna do it.

And with Ashara suggesting that she'll travel, we've traveled now to seven, six cities.

And now after being home, we will go to Paris to make it a full circle.

And so it's been a really amazing journey.

It's been a great journey with Ashara Ekundayo and also Omo Misha McGlown from Irwin House Gallery for those listening in Detroit.

Both of these women, all of us are born in Detroit, raised here and lived between Oakland, California and Detroit or Harlem, New York and Detroit.

So we are all here, and this is how it started, and this is how it sort of spread into the, Ashara named the show, by the way, "Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin" that you can see now at the Charles H. Wright Museum up until February 28th.

- Yeah, so one of my favorite things about Baldwin is what I'll call complication.

It's not just that his struggle was about being African-American and male in a society that didn't value him for that reason.

He had struggles on many different fronts.

And I think when we do write by him, we tell that story.

We tell the story of those complications, of that nuance.

When you were hearing from him, from this poltergeist, what did he say to you about complication, about that nuance?

- Well, I didn't really, I just felt his spirit.

And when I draw him, I feel like I've baptized myself and his image enough to know his eyes, his expressions, his voice.

When I walk in a room and I hear a recording and I hear it's his voice, I'm like, whoa.

So I think my job is to reopen a portal, if you will, so that he can reenter in this time.

He's never really left.

And during his physical time here with us, there were no awards given to him.

And there were lots of activists who felt like he was using his platform's star power to just be seen in the moment.

But he really was concerned about what it means to be Black in this country where he would say things like, "I picked the cotton, I built the homes, I tilled the land."

And have a country that doesn't think of you as this important being.

And so I think having his visual image and also augmented reality in the museum will allow people who've forgotten who he was, what his words were, and how he walked and left a very solid footprint here with things that were happening then back in the '50s, the '60s, and now it's still happening here in how we value beings less than we value man.

And so with him dying at 63 years old, and I know he died in 1987, and I was very pregnant with Mario.

And so Mario will be 37 this year, and I will be 57 this year.

And so just thinking about the time that he went through between 1924 and his timeline of 1987 and what he witnessed.

And so when you ask a young person who may be much younger than Mario who James Baldwin was or is, sometimes they'll go, "Well, I've heard of him, but I don't really know him."

So I think bringing his image back, celebrating his centennial life, adding the augmented reality will allow them to hear his voice, will allow people to see his face and think about his political views, and him as a poet who also told the truth about who we were in this country and how he had to leave this country to go away to find out who he really is.

Sort of when you're running away, you really are running to find yourself.

And you are always with you no matter where you go.

So I think that journey to Paris gave him enough quietness to find who James Arthur Baldwin was.

And so I think he said to me, maybe not in words, "I'm coming back," I'm coming through your work and through the work of these co-curators in this museum and these journeys that we've had from Harlem to New Orleans, from New Orleans to Oakland, from Oakland to Chicago, and now in Detroit, and then to Paris, how we can hold this frontline prophet up and say, "Hey, he did some work here and I think we need to revisit his CliffNotes."

Because he said some things, he even told kids in Oakland, "You can be the president, maybe not in this lifetime as history is right now, but within your lifetime, you can be the president of this United States."

And so when the hens come to roost, it just makes me happy that he was definitely prophesizing on his truths and what we need to do together to make this place better than what it is and to stop the craziness that's happening - And the othering, yeah.

Sabrina Nelson, again, always great to see you.

Really looking forward to this exhibit being at the Wright through next February, right?

- Yes, February the 28th.

- The Marygrove Conservancy in Detroit is holding its annual campus Summer Fest on Saturday, August 10th.

The free community resource fair provides a day of fun for the entire family with live entertainment, campus tours, health screenings, food games, giveaways, and much more.

I got all of the details from the Conservancy's Director of Programs and Engagement, Turkessa Baldridge.

It's great to have you here representing the Marygrove Conservancy.

Such an important place in Detroit and such an important institution.

Tell me about Summer Fest at at Marygrove.

- Absolutely, so Campus Summer Fest is now in its third year.

And this is an opportunity for Marygrove, our partners, and our tenants to come together and be very intentional about inviting the community in formally.

We always say that Marygrove is the community's campus, but we want people to know that they're welcome there.

And not only that they're welcome there, but we want them to know and understand all of the wonderful things that are going on at Marygrove with our tenants and a lot of the organizations and people who partner with us in the work.

So it's definitely a day of fun, it's a day of resources, it's a day filled with community.

- The relationship between Marygrove and the community of course dates back to the founding of the college.

But talk about how you maintain that as the conservancy and how you make those connections, especially with the neighborhoods right around the campus.

I mean, one of the great things about Marygrove is it's right in the middle of several neighborhoods.

- It is, and so that's part of what I do as the Director of Programs and Engagement, I'm often out in community connecting, not only with organizations, but with the residents.

I attend the local meetings, the different block club and community association meetings to connect with the residents and inform them about what's going on on campus.

So that's something that I do in my job.

We're very intentional about getting the word out.

We have a newsletter, and so we don't only share about what is going on on campus, but we collect information from the community and we inform our partners, our tenants, and those who subscribe about what's going on in that area.

So it's a great relationship and a lot of those community organizations will actually be at Campus Summer Fest talking about the different block clubs and what they do and the partners and the people in the area are always invited to come and join in.

- What about folks who show up?

Talk about some of the things that they will see and experience at Summer Fest.

- Great, so one of the most important things is connecting with our educational partners.

A lot of organizations around the community.

We also have Michigan Humane, and that is a partner of ours who will be there.

And outside of the wonderful resources, which is the main reason, there'll be a lot of fun.

So we'll have a DJ, we'll have live entertainment.

One thing that Marygrove does is we're very intentional about supporting arts and culture.

And we have some of those organizations on campus, different dance programs and performance groups.

The Detroit Youth Choir is a tenant of ours, but we'll have the dance groups performing.

We'll have a DJ, we have a favorite clown who comes that the kids love.

So there'll definitely be entertainment.

There'll be games of all ages.

We have a group that's specifically gonna coordinate gaming activities.

There'll be a game truck, there'll be bounce houses, there'll be horseback riding.

So there'll be a ton for people to do while they're on campus on August 10th.

- Let's talk about what's going on with Marygrove now that it is a very different institution and how that's all going.

There's a lot of things that are happening there, and I'm not sure everyone quite knows all of the things that are going on there.

- Yeah, and there's just a lot.

And that's one of the reasons why we have these annual events to invite people in.

Because when they come, they can connect directly with the schools who will be there for Campus Summer Fest.

There is a P20 partnership that we have, the Marygrove Learning Community is housed at the Marygrove campus.

And what that is is a prenatal through college and career partnership.

And our partners include Starfish Family Services that runs the Marygrove Early Education Center, the Detroit Public Schools Community District, and they manage the school at Marygrove, which is K through 12 education.

And we're also in partnership with the University of Michigan Marsal School of Education.

Their teachers in education actually do their residency there, is kind of formatted like a medical residency in the way that it's structured and they student teach there, also in August, so about week or two after Campus Summer Fest, the University of Michigan will officially launch the LEAPS program.

So the University of Michigan will have students that will be housed at Marygrove and they will be starting LEAPS, which is Learning, Equity, and Problem Solving for the public good.

So there's really a lot between our tenants, our P20 community, our annual events, which we have four signature events.

So there's always something new and exciting going on at Marygrove.

- Talk about the things people can find on campus.

- Absolutely.

So we have the Detroit Breakfast Club, and that's a collective of Detroit area artists that come together to show their work, to talk, to learn from each other, to present.

And they meet at the Marygrove campus every Monday.

And it's a few hundred people who meet on campus every Monday at 5:00 PM and they didn't have a home.

So Marygrove, we made campus available as a meeting place for Detroit Area artists to come together for support and to showcase their work.

We have a theater on campus, a beautiful theater that seats- - An unbelievable theater, right?

- Yes, yes.

It seats almost 400.

So we have a lot of organizations coming in bringing different types of arts to the stage.

There's always activity going on around arts, culture, and dance, and we have a lot of tenants who are artists at Marygrove and some of them may come out and present some of their art at Summer Fest.

- And finally today, a new program at the Downtown Boxing Gym in Detroit is helping young people learn their way around the kitchen.

In addition to playing sports and getting help with homework, the students are getting a lesson in the culinary arts from a local chef.

"Bridge Detroit's" Micah Walker has more on the nonprofit's latest initiative.

- [Micah] Every day after school, hundreds of kids head to Downtown Boxing Gym on Detroit's east side to shoot some hoops, get help with their homework, or hit the boxing ring.

And they're also having fun in the kitchen.

- Rice balls.

So you can do that for all of them and then you'll come around and do it.

- [Micah] That's Molly Mitchell, the new Associate director of Culinary Arts for the Downtown Boxing Gym.

She prepares fresh from scratch meals and snacks for DBG students each night, totaling more than a thousand meals per week.

Mitchell is also teaching kids how to cook nutritious meals and is developing a culinary arts curriculum for the organization.

Downtown Boxing Gym serves students ages eight to 18 across Metro Detroit with continued mentorship and support through the age of 25.

Mitchell was the owner of Rose's Fine Food on Jefferson which shut its doors last year.

- When I closed Rose's last year, I was really interested in like going into culinary education in some manner.

And so it just like really worked out for me to sort of get in contact with DBG at the same time that I was closing Rose's because they were ready to like really flesh out their program, their cooking program because they just opened this amazing commercial kitchen.

The timing really worked out for me to come here and I'm able to pursue my passion and also like help them out with their commercial kitchen.

So it's just like a really good match.

- Molly, what has it been like creating this culinary arts program?

- I'm really inspired by the kids at DBG because they're super into cooking, and so I've really let them take the lead on what they're interested in and I'm just trying to like shape it in terms of having like a very complete culinary education.

So learning about food safety and like sauces and roasting meats and everything in between.

So it's been great.

Oh yeah, that looks great.

Three more decisive chives, yeah, put it in.

- And what kind of healthy meals are you preparing for the kids?

- We have breakfast for dinner sometimes, we have tacos, we make braises.

I'm really trying to get the kids into vinegarette.

We also make ranch sometimes, which is really the most requested.

I'm just like trying to like find out what they really are into and then also just like throw some wild cards in.

- Tastes different.

- That's good.

- [Cook] Awesome.

- I know kids can be notorious for being picky eaters.

How do you make making healthy foods fun and simple?

- So that was actually like my biggest fear starting here, that the kids would be so picky that I would really be like hindered in what I could make for them.

And to my surprise, like the kids are pretty open-minded about trying most things that we make.

I would say like about 85% of the kids at dinnertime are game to try whatever we make.

And then there's like a smaller percentage that do have like, well we have kids with dietary restrictions and allergies, but also some pickier kids.

And I just try to like maybe work with them and have like some planer options available when we do serve dinner.

- [Micah] And Molly has some big plans for the curriculum, including a guest chefs program.

- They'll teach a class, and then it's my hope that they'll give us a recipe that we can actually make for dinner just to have even like a broader range of point of view for the kids to try new things that like I wouldn't have thought to make as well.

But we're also working on a garden outside, like a kitchen garden near the soccer field that we'll be able to have like a teaching space within the garden where we'll be able to grow food that we can harvest, bring in here so kids can see everything from seed to meal - For Downtown Boxing Gym founder Khali Sweeney, teaching children how to cook and where their food comes from has been a priority since the organization started in 2007.

Why did you wanna add culinary arts to the curriculum here?

- Food brings people together.

It's also the fuel that our body needs to get through the day.

How can you go to school and function at a high level if you may have only had a bowl of cereal or something, or there's no lunch program at your school.

So I wanted the gym to be that space where you can come get a healthy meal, learn about eating healthy, and just being a healthy overall person.

- And why was it important for the kids to get outside and see how food is grown?

- Learning how to grow food straight from the ground, no preservatives, none of that type of stuff, that's a wonderful skill to have.

And just getting back to nature and learning how to farm and stuff like that, that is a life skill.

I thought it was important that kids were able to do that.

- We're just gonna make a quick coleslaw, but we can eat this for dinner with our pizza.

- [Micah] What's something you learned to cook here with Molly?

- We learned how to make smoothies, pancakes.

We frosted cakes.

- You see yourselves having a future doing culinary arts?

- Yes, I wanna be a chef when I grow up.

- Are you gonna open your own restaurant?

- Yeah, I'm gonna try.

- [Micah] And I even got to join in on the taste test.

- Let's taste it and see if it needs something.

- [Cook] All right, let's see.

- More lime juice?

- Spicy.

- What are your goals for the culinary arts program?

- My goal is to really like build out a program that is not only really informative and like if somebody wanted to go get a job in a restaurant, they could after taking this program.

But really I'm trying to just cement an excitement for food that can be like a lifelong passion, whether you're working in a restaurant or you're just learning how to cook like really amazing meals for yourself and your loved ones.

- Tastes different.

- That's good.

- [Cook] Awesome.

- And that's gonna do it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org and you can connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Announcer] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Announcer] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation, and viewers like you, thank you.

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