Chiante' from SHARE, the Society for History and Racial Equity, talks about the importance of dialogue within a community and breaking down prejudice.

- Well, I'm here talking with Chiante' Lymon, who's the executive director of Society for History and Racial Equity, also known as SHARE.

Thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- Yes, thank you for having me.

- So Chiante', let's talk about the mission, okay.

I mean, what's your mission in Kalamazoo?

- Well, SHARE has a dual mission.

In 2012, we decided that we would tackle two things.

One being racial equity.

I think that right now, of course, it's a really hot topic in community.

But we were thinking about this, you know, 10 years ago around racial equity and what that means to have shared conversations with people at community, no matter your race, no matter your age.

And just really how do we find the common humanity in each other.

And the other part of our mission is collecting oral histories from African Americans here in our community.

- So, SHARE, I love the acronym because it's about bringing people together.

And you do so many different community events, right.

One of them is Taste of Jazz.

- Yes.

- And yes, right.

And so, tell me about, like, what is Taste of Jazz all about?

- Yeah, the community gathers, they come together.

We talk about jazz music, we talk about the origination of jazz music, how it has affected our culture, how it affects people on a daily basis.

It's really bringing together the arts, culture, music, opportunity for people to gather.

People kind of take it as an opportunity to kind of let their hair down, right.

Like have an opportunity to just gather with each other, you know, have some music, have some fun.

We have CEOs and CFOs of organizations, down to community members, activists, just people, and community.

So we have a wide range of people that participate.

- You think that jazz best represents Black history.

Why is that?

- For me, jazz music was the beginning of, when we think about the Harlem Renaissance, when we think about what we have today and how we listen to music and how we feel music today, it's where it all began for us.

I think even here in Kalamazoo, there's a rich history.

When we think about like the Velvelettes that have come from the Kalamazoo community, Battle Creek area.

Just thinking about all of the bands and people that are from Kalamazoo, that's really where it originated and how we got where we are today.

- When you think about the arts in general, right, how does having access to the arts, having the arts in a community kind of help break down people's prejudices and barriers?

- For me, as a board member also of the Black Arts and Cultural Center here in Kalamazoo, it's a pivotal, important piece of community.

When I think about, like right now, we're in Downtown area, having access to community and people that come Downtown to our community, being able to see all of the amazing art, the community here in Kalamazoo has a plethora of people that are doing amazing things, all the way down to the youth.

And even think about like, comic and comic books and things like that.

Making sure that we help young students and youth get to a place where they understand what art is and where creation starts.

Even myself, you know, my own experiences when it comes to creativity and where that really lives.

And in this world, unfortunately, we don't get much opportunity to be creative because we're always, you know, working and trying to get to the next thing.

But to live and be in a moment where you can just create something and call it your own, it's just an amazing opportunity for anyone.

- Talk a little bit about the oral histories, because to me, that was just fascinating.

- For me, I think one of the people that really stands out to me is Phyllis Seabolt, which is someone that's on our website.

She was the first African American teacher here in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and she talks about her experience, right, when Western Michigan University was Western Normal School, she wasn't able to room with people in her dorm, right.

Things that we don't even think about.

Me, I attended Western and even thinking about the history of me becoming the first Black woman president, that's 103 year history.

And to think, I know there were many qualified women long before I came along, but for it to be the opportunity for me in 2017 was something that I think just, you know, I'm standing on the shoulders of all these women that have broken those barriers for me to be who I was at that time, and to continue to be who I am.

So I think just making sure that that history doesn't get lost and just making it a more innovative way, right, for people to learn.

We know not many people of this generation, we only have your attention for 23 seconds.

- And then to be able to digitize it and share it with people who are young, who have never known those stories.

- And that's just been one of the bigger projects that we've been working on in collaboration with the institutions in this area on how do we digitize this information and get it to the community, and make it something that it's not just in the folders in our office, but it's, you know, we're also looking at how do we make sure that we put this out community.

Maybe some touch and go learning opportunities in community that people can touch, and see, and feel, and learn, and do some talk-back.

- Chiante', tell me about the Summit on Racism.

- The Summit on Racism is an annual summit that we do for communities, like, we mentioned the youth summit, but we also have an adult summit.

Definitely understand that racism is prevalent in all sectors.

It's a systemic problem for community.

So we're healing that trauma, right.

And we're having shared conversations about what does eliminating racism look like here in Kalamazoo.

Through that, we're inspiring people to take action.

- You even do this thing called the Reading Race Book Club, right.

What does that look like?

Like, what do those discussions look like?

What books are you reading?

- It's been happening within community since about 2017, 2016.

And it's in collaboration with the Kalamazoo Public Library.

So this was a collaboration that happened before I got into SHARE and has continued to go on.

We do bi-monthly book clubs.

We just read "The Three Mothers," which is about James Baldwin's mother, Martin Luther King's mother, and Malcolm X's mother.

We did that for Mother's Day, so in May.

So we had an opportunity to really just have shared conversation about the women behind the men that we look at as heroes and as as people in our community, right.

Just about what's going on in history, and what has happened, and where we are today, and where do we wanna go, so that we're not reinventing the wheel, but maybe improving the wheel in which we already have.

And I think that that's really where Kalamazoo is progressing towards.

- What role do you think that the arts play in the African-American community?

- Arts is so important, whether it was on purpose or whether it was on accident.

I definitely think that the African American community has to create its own way.

Even the simple thing of like, you know, barbecue and family reunions, and just how all of those things have become a part of our history, soul food, right.

Whether it's given to us, whether we take it, whatever that looks like.

How do we take what we have and make the best of it in community wherever we are?

Like you mentioned, like me being from Detroit.

How do I bring a little bit of Detroit with me, right, here to Kalamazoo and support and create something that people will love and enjoy?

(upbeat bright music) - [Narrator] Support for "Kalamazoo Lively Arts" is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich