and Men of Courage program manager, Justin Kimpson.

So I think this is a really interesting program and I love the tie between the contest and the exhibition.

I think that's a really innovative way to draw attention to these stories and these men, but let's start with the museum exhibit, which is part of a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian.

Neil, tell us about Men of Change.

Yeah, so Men of Change is, as you say, a traveling exhibit was developed the Smithsonian.

It really looks to change the narrative about what we think about Black men and how those stories are told and relayed in the media and other areas of American life, and I think what we loved about it, bringing it to the Wright, was both the notion that there were some very prominent names in the exhibit, James Baldwin, Muhammad Ali, Du Bois, Kendrick Lamar, but also that it paired these stories with artists who were doing similar things in their own artistic practice and work like Nina Chanel Abney, Derek Adams, Robert Pruitt, Devan Shimoyama.

So these, that combination was really attractive to us, and also the notion that, you know, there were very prominent figures, but there are also some people that aren't well known, but when you hear their stories, you're inspired by the work they're doing within their own communities.

I think that, and you know, the exhibit is also a part of the Wright's initiative to really start to bring more technical innovation to our exhibit design.

And so, the work, the way it's presented in the gallery is it's really spectacular, you know, the sort of scaffolding and the way that you go through it is really fun and exciting.

And, you know, it uses a lot of great of new devices that we're seeing in exhibition design.

So that's the exhibit.

It opened, when did it open?

October 10th, I guess.

Yes.

Be available through the end of the year, actually through early next year.

It closes the first week of January.

And telling these kinds of stories about African-American men, you know, you would think in 2021, we wouldn't have to look hard for opportunities to do that.

But Neil, one of the reasons that the museum is so important, that the space there and the dedication of that space is so important is because we still struggle to get these stories out there.

We really do.

You know?

It's amazing in 2021, that this is still, to some people, a new story, a fresh stories, a revelation, if you will, that there are these men doing these incredible thing.

Again, well-known but not well-known that are just everyday, you know, sort of hitting the pavement, if you will, trying to make their communities better, contributing to American life.

And, you know, it's just been the story of course, of African-Americans from time immemorial.

You know, our stories are really undertold a lot in the American historical narratives that we hear, but this is an important part of the work that we do is just sort of bringing these kinds of stories to light, right?

Yeah.

So Justin, this fits into this larger national effort, really, to draw more attention to stories, positive stories of the African-American men.

Tell me about Men of Change in a general, in a more general sense.

So Men of Courage- Men of Courage.

Yep, it's a tongue twister sometimes.

Men of Change is the exhibit.

Men of Courage is the project.

Right, but we work, you know, the beauty of it is that we work together hand in hand, So Men of Courage, as you know, started in 2015, sponsored by and created by the Ford Motor Company Fund, ultimately, to change the narrative regarding African-American men.

And so, the early rendition of Men of Courage, we went around the country and hosted summits, intergenerational summits with African-American men to storyboard, to visionize what it means to better their communities.

And so since that time, we've been really, really busy.

And at the beginning of 2019, we launched a barbershop challenge.

We created a national leadership forum that we travel in companion with the Men of Change exhibition.

So we've been to over, I would say, this is our fifth city to date.

And so, we are really excited about just the stories, because that's really where you get the true essence of what it is to be a Black man, to learn these different stories about Black men across the country.

And there's one commonality that I found as I've traveled across the country is that we're all the same.

You know, we may live in different communities and different cultures, but we want the same things.

We want our stories to be told.

We want to be heard because we have contributions that we want the world to know that we exist and we're relevant, and we are strong and we are ready to make our mark in this world.

So talk just a little more about the barbershop challenge.

I love the idea of rolling the barbershop into the middle of this.

It's a place that as African-American men, we know as a place to talk about things and discuss stuff that maybe we don't get an opportunity to do in other spaces.

Why choose that context for this contest?

Well, absolutely.

So, Stephen, so the idea actually bubbled out of our Ford Resource Engagement Center here in Detroit, where we made and created a pop-up barbershop.

I'm sitting in the space now, and so from that idea, and then the community programs that we were already doing in the space, it was a natural fit.

And so, as we traveled the country, the barbershop challenge is really simple, in essence, because we're leveraging our platform to uplift the work that these barbershops are already doing.

We know that this is the safe space for Black men to come in and talk about all of these different issues.

But sometimes, the barbershops don't have the resources to handle some of the issues that actually come into the barbershop, right?

I was just in Baltimore yesterday because we're launching the same thing in there over the next couple of months, and one of the barbers was saying, Hey, I need some resources because I'm equipped to handle certain things and certain topics, but when it comes to like mental health and things related to other health-related issues, I need some expertise, and so you need resources to bring in those type of partnerships sometimes.

And so, this challenge is really focused on uplifting that narrative within the barbershops.

So what you have currently here in Detroit, there are two barbershops that are competing and they have to host six events over the course of 90 days.

And ultimately, the winner will be determined by who puts on the best community engagement events and where it, and really, where the creativity comes into play, right?

So we've ran through a couple of these challenges so far.

So you can't recircle the same type of events that have happened across the country.

You gotta think outside the box.

And so that's what they're doing.

They're currently a month into the challenge.

And our two contestants currently is Shears and Shaves on Livernois, it's Dawn Sanford, who is the owner of that barbershop.

She's a female.

This is the first female barber contestant, and then Duane Greathouse in Southfield of Greathouse Barber and Beauty.

And so, they're competing.

They've come up with some great events so far, they've hosted some truck or treats.

They've had some political discussions with candidates.

You know, the list goes on and on of the just innovative programming that they're putting on it.

And I'm excited to see how they're gonna close this challenge out.

Yeah.

Neil, it strikes me also that the idea of conversation, the idea of exchange of ideas, the idea of exchange of ideas around the African-American experience, that has a home at the museum too, that people may not always associate with it.

It's not just about exhibits, it's a place that we gather and that we talk.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you know, everything that we do, exhibits, you know, some of the performance work that we do, all of it is accompanied by educational material, often curriculum for schools and teachers, et cetera.

So this notion of really getting the ideas underlying an exhibit or exhibition or anything that we do out there is an important part of our work.

And, you know, even this notion of having conversations about important topics has become increasingly important at the Wright.

I'm gonna be launching, actually, a series of conversations after the new year with various kinds of speakers, artists, you know, other kinds of figures in our community to really uplift some conversations about Black culture, our art, the sort of environment we're in now, in terms of the politics of today.

We're not supposed to advocate about political issues, but we will have some conversations about them, you know, so that's gonna become more and more a part of what we do, but it's always been at the root.

At the root, the Wright is an educational institution that really uses art, culture, history as its vehicle, right, to deliver important information about, I think, topics and issues that are important, not just to our community, but particularly in this moment, to the community writ large.

And the COVID disruption, I feel like, adds a new challenge to this idea of bringing people together to do these things.

Neil, I know that you guys have struggled through COVID and of course, through the storms this summer, which inflicted even more kinds of physical disruption on you guys than normal, but well, talk about the comeback from that.

How do you bring people back together?

Yeah, you know, we actually reopened relatively quickly in the sort of whole COVID pandemic timeline, if you will, in that, I think it was July 10th, 2020 that we were allowed to open, but only with 25% capacity, distance, you know, social distancing requirements and all of that.

Not a lot of people coming out at that moment and not a lot of people coming out through the fall, really.

The unfortunate thing for us is we had a beautiful exhibit from the collection of C.C.H.

Pounder that had just been installed before the shutdown.

So that exhibit sat in our building for months with nobody really able to see it.

In July, we had another month for that before it had to travel on to its next site.

So, you know, increasingly we've been able to get more and more people in.

We still have a timed reservations system where you have to call and make a reservation for a time that you want to be in exhibit.

We still require masking, social distancing throughout the building.

There aren't a lot of restrictions on capacity right now, except I would say people's reluctance to be in these sort of large gatherings with lots of people.

So even the things we've done in our theater, which holds 320 or something, we probably have limited the capacity to about half of that.

And then the opening, actually, of Men of Change was done as part of our annual fundraiser, which was in-person and hybrid.

And the in-person event was limited to 150, 200 people, where we'd really normally have double plus that at that event, you know, so.

Those are some of the things that we've kind of weathered.

It feels like more people are coming in.

Some of the groups are starting to return, but it was touch and go, you know, as we hear more and more about the health risks inherent, in the various COVID variants now.

It's something we have to keep an eye on, and particularly in our community that's seen so much devastation from COVID, being particularly sensitive to people wanting to be in a safe environment and still participate and partake in the work that we do.

Yeah, yeah.

Justin, I wonder if you can talk just a little about the subject matter that you're hearing from people who are involved with Men of Courage, what do they want to talk about at these barbershop events?

What kind of issues are they gonna convene around?

You know, Stephen, I'll take one step back because it goes in conjunction with this.

The day before the Wright had their annual gala, we hosted the Men of Courage Detroit Leadership Forum, and so we had a panel discussion featuring the Lieutenant Governor.

We had Bakari Sellers, we had Jason Wilson, Dr.

Ken Harris, and they talked about the state of the Black male, and so we talked about mental health, entrepreneurship, how can we survive in today's society?

And so they really just dropped a ton of different jewels and nuggets about how we, as Black men, need to come together in order to move social and economic values in our communities.

Outside of that, we focused on how do you build your personal brand?

How do you develop ideas into actual business plans, and then ultimately, exploring the power of leadership?

So all of these different topics bubble up in and out of the barbershop all the time.

So this is just second course because we're bringing these ideas and these conversations to the forefront, and it's really exciting to see Black men come together and dialogue and not sit in their individual silos, but really come together and say, hey, this is what I'm working on, this is what I think, and this is my perspective, but what about yours?

And so, creating that back and forth where you can really get some things solved.

Okay, Justin Kimpson and Neil Barclay, congratulations on the work, but of course, thanks for joining us here on "American Black Journal."

Absolutely.

Thank you, Stephen.