- Coming up on American Black Journal, Detroit Public School Superintendent, Dr. Nikolai Vitti talks about the state of the district.

Plus, outgoing Forgotten Harvest CEO, Kirk Mayes, talks about his future and the nonprofit's impact on the community and a look at the historic houses and contributions of Detroit's Black fraternities and sororities, stay right where you are.

American Black Journal starts right now.

- [Narrator] 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 & Edsel Ford Fund for journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Presenter] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of American Black Journal, in covering African American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and American Black Journal partners in presenting African American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

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

(upbeat music) Welcome to American Black Journal.

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

The new school year is well underway and districts are still recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Nikolai Vitti, who is superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools community district during One Detroit town hall at the school at Marygrove.

We talked about the state of student achievement and future plans for the district.

Here's a portion of that conversation.

So I wanna start here.

You are back, full-time in person.

Every school, every child, it's been a long time since we were there and a lot has changed.

We lost a lot of ground during that time.

Talk about the opening of school this year, the challenges ahead and how you're facing them.

- Yeah, well, you know, last year all of our children were back in person.

All schools were open, with the exception of about 2,000 that were in the virtual school.

But a lot of stopping goals last year.

You know, surges, infection rates high, close contacting, quarantine.

So although we were back last year, it just didn't feel normal.

We were managing COVID.

I would say 80% of my job and probably teachers, principals, just heavy on COVID.

This year when we opened, you know, we've been open now for about over 20 days.

It just feels a lot better.

- Does it?

- It feels more normal.

We're still dealing with the challenges or lingering challenge of the pandemic, but it feels better.

It feels more normal.

And I think that there's an energy, a positive energy of just now seeing the momentum and a clear pathway forward to just get back to the student achievement work.

- Yeah, we lost ground here in Detroit.

But that doesn't make us unique because most school districts had a hard time with it.

But, things visit on our kids, our families, our community really differently than other places.

Talk about some of the things that happened that really, you have to focus on and maybe have your concerns still- - Yeah.

- As we go forward.

- Well, when you look at just running the district and what are the challenges that we're facing, so one, enrollment.

So we lost about 3,000 students when you look at where we were when the pandemic hit.

March, 2020, we are at the highest level of our enrollment.

First time we saw an increase in two decades at about 51,000 where we just turned the corner at count.

It looks like we are now down maybe 2,000 to 1,500 compared to our peak before the pandemic so, enrollment.

Other issue is just disrupting the normal flow of attendance, just last year over with online learning, you know, devices, parents feeling comfortable, young children not going to school, not being comfortable online, a lot of disruption in coming to school on a day-to-day basis.

So last year, even though we were in person, 80% of our students missed 18 or more days.

And so, just sort of the regularity of coming to school every day was highly disrupted.

The surges, online learning, but also just close contact and quarantine.

Students that weren't vaccinated had to quarantine for 14 days, even if they weren't sick.

And then that got dropped to 10 and then all that negatively impacts student achievement.

- I wanna talk about the $700 million that is coming in through ARPA to help with infrastructure in the schools.

Principally, I've covered schools for a long time in the city.

I don't know that we've had many bond issues that have brought us more money at one time to do that.

So talk about what you wanna do and why it will matter to kids every day.

- Well, I think that the biggest impact for children and staff will be air conditioning.

You know, right now only about 20% of our schools have air conditioning and people will say, "Oh, well, I went to school, we didn't have air conditioning."

Well, it's, you know, 2022 and air conditioning is sort of part of our life.

And when you get into June and even, you know, certain months in August or days in August and September, it can be hot.

We have to close schools or go half days, and it gets uncomfortable when it gets warm.

So that's significant.

But, you know, going back to neighborhood schools, investing in a brand new Pershing building, brand new Cody.

Building, a new building in southwest Detroit with probably, an arts focus to feed into Detroit School of the Arts.

So on a day-to-day basis, just buildings that are not going to disrupt learning around just better HVAC systems, better roofs and sort of mundane day-to-day things that can be highly disruptive to learning.

But beyond that, innovative in some new school buildings, especially to preserve some neighborhood schools.

- Yeah, I wanna talk just a little about the future, right?

Things are getting back to normal.

What are your expectations or what would you tell a parent their expectations should be for how quickly we recover from everything that's happened over the last three years?

- There'll be long lasting negative impacts of the pandemic.

I mean, I think I'm dealing with it.

You know, it was not easy managing the district during the pandemic.

And that affected our teachers, our principals, our parents who lost loved ones, our children.

So there is no magic wand to say, you know... We have to live with that history.

But I'm confident and I would tell any parent this, is that by the end of this academic year if you send your child to school consistently, we're going to not only show a year's growth, but probably two years of growth and be even closer to being at and above grade level performance.

It's not a matter of, "I wish, I hope," in 1819 we did it.

We moved the needle, academically.

It's not about doing things radically different, it's just going back to the work that we were doing.

And, I think adding and filling some gaps that we had around mental health and some broader holistic approaches to supporting families, which I think we're doing a lot better as a district.

So the average parent needs to know that at the end of this year, we're going to see improvement in student achievement.

We just need parents to do their part by sending their children to school on a day-to-day basis.

- And you can see my entire discussion with Dr. Vitti on the One Detroit Facebook page.

We turn now to an interview with longtime community leader, Kirk Mayes, who received this year's Eleanor Josaitis Unsung Hero Award presented by the Detroit Free Press and the Metropolitan Affairs Coalition.

Mayes is stepping down as CEO of the nonprofit food rescue organization, Forgotten Harvest, at the end of the year.

He sat down for a wide ranging conversation with BridgeDetroit's, Orlando Bailey.

- Recently you made headlines all over the city of Detroit announcing your departure for December, 2022.

- Yeah.

- At the end of the year.

You're leaving Forgotten Harvest.

- [Kirk] Yes sir.

- You've been here the last eight years.

How does somebody know when it's time to go?

- Hmm, you know, that's a great question.

You know, everything does have a divine order to it.

And you know, I don't think it's as much like knowing when it's time to go or knowing when it's time to make a transition.

It's always being prepared for any kind of change that's coming in your life.

And when it's coming, you should be ready for it like it was meant to be.

- So, eight years, you've done a lot.

What are you most proud of?

- For my accomplishments here?

- [Orlando] Yeah.

- I would say the team that we have, the place our team is right now, far as the morale, as far as our focus.

The people who make up the team here, their dedication, their commitment to the mission.

I've witnessed them demonstrate their capacity as heroes during a crisis in our community and held strong.

They've been stressed by not only the need to step up to our responsibility, but also, you know, the ambition of a vision to do more for our community.

And they've been working 100% plus, you know, the whole time.

So amongst everything here, I'm really proud to have served next to the people that make up Forgotten Harvest.

- That's amazing.

We're sitting in the warehouse of Forgotten Harvest's brand new facility.

I wanna ask you about what it feels like to have something go from idea to actualization?

What does it feel like to be sitting here?

- I feel powerful.

I feel like this is one of, and the last proof and evidence that I need that anything that we can conceive, we can achieve in our life.

And whether it's been through, you know, working through some really, really critical times and trying to figure out how to pivot a community in Brightmoor or coming here and dealing with the multiplicity of needs and responsibilities as a leader in this kind of a dynamic, you know, situation, being able to have a vision through this and take the time to organize other people's minds and visions around where that vision can actually take us towards our holistic mission.

It feels good to know that the power to manifest is within my hands.

And I'm really excited about figuring out a way to take that to the next step in my future and envision the greatest possibilities for the rest of my life.

- You've always seemed to sort of be a leader that's, you know, on a cutting edge, the things you did with Brightmoor and the things that you've done here.

How do you stay fresh?

- I'm always taking in information, constantly, more than a normal... You would probably.

(Orlando chuckling) More than you'd probably see a normal person doing it from.

Whether it was reading books, articles, sucking in information quickly.

If I hear a concept or something I'm interested in, and go straight to the YouTube on it and try to find the different pathways of understanding what the concept is.

And then once I'm really interested in something, I wanna know about the entire linguistics surrounding the definitions.

I wanna really understand it and then begin to form my own opinions about it.

And then I just lock the information away and then we'd be in a conversation- - And it comes out.

- Yeah.

It'd be a conversation, somebody be like, "You know what?

Here's a relevant thing that I actually heard about that."

And I just love sucking in information and knowing what's going on in our world right now.

I think it is an essential attribute for me for leadership if I wanna know what's coming and I'm responsible for a mission.

You know, a big project or, you know, initiative that has to be addressed.

And people, if the leader doesn't know what's supposed to be coming tomorrow, who's else responsibility is that?

- So after the announcement of your departure, you posted on your Facebook page this link to a landing page, iamkirkmayes.com.

And let me read something back to you.

It says that, "Kirk Mayes," on the landing page, "is a consultant, a speaker, a humanitarian, and an author."

- Right.

- We getting a book from Kirk Mayes?

- Right, I got a couple more months to the end of the year to continue to focus on being the chief executive officer for Forgotten Harvest.

And that's what I'm gonna be doing.

Once I complete this role in my responsibility here, there's a lot of things that I've been wanting to do that I could say, will allow me to spread my wings and chase some of my dreams as an entrepreneur and fulfilling and becoming the full vision and I think purpose, for who I can be in this world.

And I think all those things that you see there are a part of the beginning of that journey.

- Only the beginning?

- Yes.

- Okay, so... - I gotta tell you, everything I've done so far is just the beginning.

- Ooh, so you're still becoming?

- I am still becoming.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Wow, do you know what you wanna write about?

- I haven't even started yet.

(Orlando chuckling) For real.

- All right, so I gotta ask you just some questions that folks really wanna know.

- [Kirk] Yeah.

- Are you running for mayor?

- That's not my immediate plan.

However, a lot of people have asked me that question and, you know, I'm not a politician, man.

I don't have the ambition to be a politician.

I'm somebody who really believes in action and getting things done, not sitting up here politicking and putting signs up and have that kind of stuff.

I'm not the linguistic activist.

I'm an action-oriented type of individual and I'm a servant.

So, if there's some work to be done and I'm asked to answer a call, I don't know what will happen if that comes around, brother.

But at this point, I'm looking at consulting, authoring, public speaking, and helping people around the world as much as possible.

- Of course, of course.

Can I park here though for a minute and ask you about the weightiness that comes along with being called?

I recognize that sometimes folks are called to do something that is really against what their aspirations are for themselves.

If I know Kirk Mayes, I know that he would take a call to serve seriously.

Are you being called?

- To what?

- Serve as mayor?

Or to make a run for it?

- I don't know, brother.

That depends on if that's a question or request.

- No, it's a question.

- Okay, so I have not been called as yet, in my opinion.

I think what is happening at this point in Detroit politics has for the most part, moved us forward.

You know, I sat down just this week, you know, having some lunch, planning on some things for the future and took some time and looked up into the skyline and saw all those cranes and saw the development that's happening downtown.

And it's really encouraging to see where we've come from.

On the same token, you know, I have had some interesting conversations with people as well about our quickness to complimenting TIME Magazine about coming here and telling us that we some best city in the country, when I was on the ground, fighting on the front lines, trying to figure out how to make this thing happen.

And they, you know, bought a house on Parker Street and took some time to actually analyze everybody work.

They ain't talked to none of the folks I know that was on the ground.

- Me either.

- But they wrote a cover story about the tragedy of Detroit and everybody now is just talking about some, "Oh, we so happy that TIME writing good stories about it," so I'm like, "Yo, where are the people who was here then?"

It feel like everybody that's actually, you know, recognizing that kind of a story is kinda new, if you don't remember how it felt when they slapped us in the face before.

Nobody wanna talk about that?

So, you know, there are things that I feel like are still being unaddressed in the old pain that, you know, Detroit's turnaround started with.

And, you know, I think it has to be addressed.

It has to be something that has to be faced.

But I'ma tell you, I'm really also, at the same time, encouraged by all the leadership that we do have with the generations that are coming, you know, behind me, not necessarily at a certain level, I'm saying I'm of the top level or nothing like that.

But I'm just older than most folks, you know what I'm saying, that's in the work right now.

I'm 46 years old, and either I've been here longer than you have or I'm just literally, physically older than, you know, what you are.

But there's so many amazing people.

You're one of those examples.

Charity Dean, Dwan Dandrige, Dwan's older than me, but Dwan's impact in the work has been amazing.

You know what I'm saying?

So I feel like we are in good hands.

We got incredible talent in the mayor's office with a lot of the team members that are in there and that kind of stuff.

And if we get to a point where, you know, my city feels like I need to take on a more active role, then my ears are open.

Well, I gotta tell you though, we all need to be paying attention to the world that we sitting in and not just our city too.

- If you know Kirk at all, you know he had a lot more to say and you can find the entire interview @americanblackjournal.org.

And finally, today, the story of The Divine Nine Black fraternities and sororities is featured in the new PBS documentary series, Making Black America:Through the Grapevine.

We asked City of Detroit historian, Jamon Jordan to provide a brief lesson on the historical houses and contributions of some of the local chapters of the Black Greek letter organizations.

He teamed up with American Black Journal producer, Marcus Green for this report.

- African American Greek fraternal organizations and sororities have been a major part of African American history for over a century in the United States.

But not only have they been important in United States history in the African American history in general, they've been a very vital part of Detroit's Black history.

We going to take a tour of this history in these historic places in the city of Detroit that are tied to these African American, Greek letter fraternities and sororities.

We are now at the home for the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity house.

So the chapter is the Gamma Lambda Chapter in the city of Detroit.

Now, Alpha Phi Alpha, of course, is the first African American collegiate, Greek letter fraternity, founded in 1906 at Cornell University.

But Detroit's chapter will be founded a few years after that, and not only will they be founded, they'll be led by some of the most prominent African American Detroiters in history, there's been two mayors in the city of Detroit who were part of Alpha Phi Alpha, Kwame Kilpatrick and Dennis Archer.

The Alpha Phi Alpha, Gamma Lambda chapter moved into this house in 1939.

They are the first African American fraternity, Greek lettered organization to own their own house in the city of Detroit.

At 269 Erskine, we have the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity house, another African American fraternity founded in 1911.

They're right around the corner from Alpha Phi Alpha's house at 239 Elliot.

Also, in Brush Park, one of its most well known members is a man named Dr. Ossian Sweet.

And so, Kappa Alpha Psi has enjoyed an important history in the city of Detroit, and they've owned their fraternity house in the city of Detroit since 1945.

At 235 East Ferry Street, we have the fraternity house of the New Omega chapter of Omega Psi Phi.

Omega Psi Phi is the second African American Greek letter fraternity to own their own home in the city of Detroit.

And they own it in this cultural center neighborhood in the city of Detroit, a couple of blocks away from the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit Historical Museum and the campus of Wayne State.

And they buy this home in 1942 and they would get their home being the second Black fraternity in the city of Detroit to own their own home in 1942, just three years after Alpha Phi Alpha.

At 24760 West Seven Mile is the Detroit Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta's Center.

In 2010, they moved from a smaller building, a few miles down the road to this 50,000 square foot building.

They moved into this car dealership, transformed it to a event center, headquarters, meeting place, office building, and really brain trust of the Alumni Chapter of the Detroit Delta Sigma Theta.

They've been a vital force in the city of Detroit, and they've been in the city of Detroit for years, for decades, and they've owned their own house.

But they've moved from a house to a center, a 50,000 square foot facility that is a major part in the city of Detroit at 24760 Seven Mile Road at Seven Mile in Grand River.

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated is the oldest Black Greek letter sorority in this country.

So as we are at the 100th anniversary of the AKAs, the AKAs, of course, are profoundly involved in Detroit's history.

Although they do not have a sorority house in the city of Detroit, the Alpha Rho Omega Chapter, the Detroit chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority has a foundation, and that foundation has a headquarters in downtown Detroit at 1525 Howard Street.

It's been there since 1987.

So for 35 years, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, at least the Alpha Rho Omega Chapter, has had a building that houses the headquarters for their foundation.

African American Greek letter fraternities and sororities are a major part of American history, a major part of African American history, and a major part of Detroit's Black history.

One of the major reasons why is because in... What these organizations represent is, scholarship.

These are people who have gone to college, who are in college and come out and become leaders.

They become leaders in medicine.

And so, many of the African American doctors come out of these Greek letter fraternities and sororities.

They are leaders in in law.

Many of them end up as attorneys and politicians.

Of course, two mayors of the city of Detroit have been members of African American Greek letter fraternities.

And they have been a major plank in Black leadership and Black success.

And so, as the African American community looks at these organizations, they're looking at people who have excelled in college, people who have excelled in business, people who have excelled in their careers and professions, and people who have excelled in political leadership.

The fact that these organizations still have houses, speaks to their determination and their ability to weather the storm.

And they're still around in the city of Detroit to this day.

- And you can watch Making Black America right here on Detroit Public Television every Tuesday in October at 9:00 PM.

That's gonna do it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests @americanblackjournal.org and you can connect with us anytime on Facebook and on Twitter.

Take care and we'll see you next time.

(mellow music) - [Presenter] 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 & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Narrator] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of American Black Journal, in covering African American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and American Black Journal partners in presenting African American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

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

(gentle piano music)