Just ahead on "American Black Journal," we're gonna tell you about a new museum exhibit and Detroit barbershop contest aimed at changing the narrative about Black men.

Plus we'll take you to a powerful new art show at a Detroit gallery.

And we'll remember African-American trailblazer Barbara Rose Collins.

Stay right there.

"American Black Journal" starts right now.

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Thank you.

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

I'm Stephen Henderson.

The Ford Motor Company Fund, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History are teaming up to advance positive stories about Black men.

Ford's Men of Courage initiative has launched a Detroit barbershop challenge that's designed to build communities by promoting conversation and outreach.

That contest runs in conjunction with a new exhibit at the Wright Museum that's called Men of Change, Power, Triumph, Truth.

It's a Smithsonian traveling exhibit that celebrates Black men who've changed history and culture.

I got all the details from museum CEO, Neil Barclay, 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.

Thank you, Stephen.

It's been a pleasure.

The Irwin House Gallery in Detroit has a new exhibit called Triptych: Stronger Together.

Artists Jonathan Harris is the curator of the exhibit, which features his oil paintings and the works of two other emerging artists.

One Detroit's senior producer, Bill Kubota spoke to the artists and the gallery director about the meaning behind the show.

(group chattering) I had this idea of having a show, Triptych, featuring Crystal Starks-Webb, Terrell Anglin and myself at the Irwin House Gallery.

We're here at Irwin House Gallery, and we've continued to produce shows and programming, and just really tried to work with and support as many Detroit local artists as we can.

And we had been speaking with Jonathan about doing a solo exhibition of his work, but he saw this as an opportunity not just for himself, but to also bring in two other emerging artists.

I met Crystal first 'cause she participated in an exhibit we had curated downtown, and her work was special to me because it was sincere, like painting your children in those powerful positions of kings and queens, it was special.

And people wanted to see more of it.

Terrell, his work is also sincere and it is, it's different, and the world needs to see it.

I think all art is inspiring.

You can get something that you love from each piece, from each artist.

We're different, but that energy that comes out of the artwork allows me to use that same energy and into my pieces as well.

I'm a pyrography artist, so it's totally different.

It's the use of heat and I use a blow torch, and then I use acrylic paint to paint the background.

I actually had to do some research to kind of go with what I wanted to display.

So it took a lot of time, but I was patient about it.

Nelson Davis is Harriet Tubman's husband, her second husband, and I thought to myself, what kind of guy you had to be to be married to an abolitionist, someone who led our people to freedom.

You know?

So my piece is based on that.

This is a piece of my, well, my family, It's my grandmother, and... She adopted me, so she was my abolitionist as well.

My focus is just telling a story through my art.

My daughter is honestly the one who got me into, back to painting, 'cause I honestly gave up on it, on art.

But a few years back, she had an incident at school, where they basically said there's something about her skin tone, and I was hurt by it, and then she got into this whole thing where she wanted to be lighter, and I wanted to show her that she was beautiful.

So the reason she's in my work is because she inspired me to just show her like, hey, this is how I view you.

And I want her to just see that she's beautiful.

When people see it, they're just gonna take whatever they see.

They're gonna see a kid sitting on a bench right now, in a garden, but they're not gonna know the story behind it until you see the other pieces, but still, sometimes a story can be seen in different views.

You can get different points from it.

But as far as the artist conveying exactly what it is, I think it's gonna be different for what people see.

This is a triptych, as well.

These are three pieces that work together to tell the story.

This is, at the far left, "Hear No Evil," the middle, "See No Evil," and the right, "Speak No Evil."

It's basically just telling a story about how I feel in America, these days, where it's so much of a negative influence everywhere.

And It can sometimes be difficult to navigate even your own life.

So that's why I had the stars and the red, white and blue in the back.

I wanted it to be beautiful, but still engaging.

And people want to try to understand what's going on here.

That's a picture of my friend, Kyra, the black and white painting.

That's actually oil enamel that I used on that, and it's a drip painting, and the story behind that is breaking the chain.

It's a series I came up with the idea for, to express everyday people breaking the cycle that probably contaminated their family throughout the years.

For this exhibition, I expect people are gonna be floored.

They're going to be moved by what these artists have been able to portray and express and just the range of their talent, the stories that they're telling through their arts, not only personal stories, but personal, but stories about, you know, Detroit life and about Black life in general.

And finally, today, we want to remember the life and legacy of Barbara Rose Collins, who passed away from COVID-19 at the age of 82.

She made history in politics, becoming the first African-American woman from Michigan ever elected to Congress in 1990.

"American Black Journal" spoke with Collins earlier this year at the Shrine of the Black Madonna for a special report on the role of women in the Black church.

She also appeared on this show in 1988, when she was a member of the Detroit City Council.

There are people on City Council, Clyde and Ed, who do seem to be against anything that the mayor proposes to better the economic climate in Detroit, and whether they're good projects or not, I've very seldom heard these people say, this is a good project, let's get behind it.

Now should I ask you the same question that he suggested and ask you to name names?

I don't mind, and you don't mind?

Mel Ravitz is one of them.

I think if the mayor paved Woodward Avenue with gold and had milk and honey on the sidewalks, Mel would say that he was upsetting the environment, perhaps, and littering the sidewalks with milk and honey.

That's one name.

Okay.

I think, though, that the mayor was incorrect when he spoke of vision on the council part, because the mayor is the one who tells us we're the legislative body.

We're not the administrative body, and that we are not permitted and it's not desired for us to have creative ideas and to come forward with programs.

Now I did have a program.

I had a very good program if you recall, Clyde, and that was for enterprise zones.

And I thought that that would really bring economic development, that would bring jobs to the city of Detroit and because of undue pressure from a segment of the community, which I shall not name, I pulled that back.

I did get it passed five to four, and because of the pressure on the council, they were going to reconsider it.

So to save face, I brought it back and said, I needed to study it more.

But truthfully, the city council was not created to start programs.

We cannot begin a program, we cannot see a program through because the charter forbid us to do it.

However, the mayor cannot either.

We have to approve whatever the mayor wants, and generally, five of us do approve it because we do have vision.

And as a Congress woman, Barbara Rose Collins was the first to introduce a bill in 1996 to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

We thank her for being an African-American trailblazer and public servant for nearly 40 years.

That's gonna do it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org, and you can always connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

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.

ANNOUNCER: Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

ANNOUNCER: 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.

ANNOUNCER: Also brought to you by AAA, Nissan Foundation, Inpact at Home, UAW, Solidarity Forever, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright music)