- Just ahead on "American Black Journal," The Central Park Five is coming to the Detroit Opera House.

We'll talk about taking this true story from the page to the stage.

Plus, we'll get details on this year's Small Business Workshop and how it can help entrepreneurs navigate an unpredictable economy.

Stay right there.

"American Black Journal" starts now.

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

I'm Trudy Gallant-Stokes, sitting in for Stephen Henderson.

A real life story about racial discrimination and wrongful convictions is coming to the Detroit Opera stage.

The Central Park Five opera tells the story of five African American and Latino teenagers falsely accused and convicted of assaulting a white female jogger in New York Central Park in 1989.

The performances are May 10th, 16th, and 18th at the Detroit Opera House.

Joining me now is the director of the Detroit Production, Nataki Garrett.

Welcome to "American Black Journal."

- Oh, thank you.

Thank you for having me.

- So this is a really unique concept and theme to have such a controversial and well remembered story in opera form.

Tell me about the backstory and how that came to be.

- Well, I'll tell you first that, you know, opera tends to be a pretty contemporary form.

So when the classical operas were written, they were contemporary in their day.

And so we have to always think about that as a form that allows for the continual telling of stories that are happening to people in this moment.

I'm not sure when this opera was first commissioned, but I think it was commissioned by the Long Beach Opera.

Anthony Davis is the composer.

The book was written by Richard Wesley.

And I think the beautiful thing about this as a modem for storytelling is this idea that the music can carry a lot of the emotional weight of the story.

I'm sure many of your viewers saw Ava DuVernay's film, "When They See Us," and there's a lot of, you know, emotional weight in that.

Imagine that being transformed into music.

And so there's something about the music and word together that sticks with you, that really does touch your empathy and your emotions in a way that watching a story can do it.

But there's something about the music that Koreys you there.

- So talk just a little bit about the story.

It was obviously a very poignant news story in '89 and a tragic story that had an interesting ending, but perhaps younger people might not know about it.

- Yeah, so in 1989, there was a lot of changeover in New York City.

So it's sort of the beginning of what would lead to, you know, the early '90s in New York.

And there was a lot of transformation in the Central Park, the upper Central Park West area.

And so you're looking at these neighborhoods that are converging, you know, this area that was Harlem.

Harlem starts to move uptown a little bit more, but these neighborhoods are still occupied by people who've been there for generations.

And there are new occupants that are coming in and bringing with them the things that they do.

And so in 1989, a white woman was jogging through the upper west side of Central Park and was assaulted.

And that night, several young Black teenagers were hauled into the precinct.

And within a few hours, they were charged with the crime.

And so what happened is a real miscarriage of justice.

The district attorney and the police officers and detectives at that moment decided that these were the five, that they were the ones that did it and got these young men, these boys, really, to admit to a crime that they didn't do.

- Forced confession.

- Yes.

After being held for several hours not being able to see their parents, no access to food or water, no access to the bathroom, they were held, and then really kind of pushed into, coerced into giving these confessions.

And once those confessions were received, both via videotape and also written confessions, the DA had their case.

- And it took years for them to be exonerated.

- Seven years for...

The first seven actually went through their seven years.

The oldest of the group received 13 years.

And so four were let out of prison after seven years.

They served their full sentences.

And Korey Wise was imprisoned with the perpetrator who admitted to the crime after he had gone through a series of transformations that led him to, I guess a space of confession.

- Amazing.

- And, you know, literally, he said that he found God, and that's why he confessed.

And the district attorney and the detective of the original case both fought very hard to hold the case against these boys, even though this other person admitted to the crime.

And so Korey Wise was allowed to leave prison, I think, six years after.

So I think he served 11 of the 13 years before he was let out of prison.

- So I could see that music, like you said, could tell a compelling story like that because I think people do think of operas being, you know, old stories from long ago, but there certainly have been some recent operas from Malcolm X and other topics that have told more contemporary stories.

So talk about the cast too.

- Sure.

Let me just talk about Anthony Davis first.

So Anthony Davis is the same composer who composed Malcolm X.

So, he composed The Central Park Five.

We have this tremendous dynamic cast of people who were deeply committed to making sure that this story is told in this amazing way.

And I directed this opera at Portland Opera, and Detroit Opera really loved that production.

And so they brought me along with a couple of the performers from that production here to Detroit, and then hired a cast of very well-known, world-renowned artists to fill in the cast that did not come with the production.

And so it's really, I mean, also, Anthony Davis worked on the orchestration for a much larger orchestra because Detroit Opera is one of the premier opera houses.

And so there's so much amazing new things that are coming with this production.

These really talented performers and this new orchestration is really going to knock it out of the park.

- Excellent.

So touch on who those other performers are and a little bit about your background.

- So, rather than go through all the names of the performers, you can go right to Detroit Opera site.

A couple of these performers have been with this production since the very beginning.

So the person who's playing, who's now the current president of the United States, who wrote himself into the story of The Central Park Five by purchasing an ad in the New York Times and publicly calling for the death penalty to persecute these boys.

- I remember.

- And so we have the person who played that originally at the Long Beach Opera version of this.

And then a couple of the performers, one of them who played Korey Wise for Portland Opera and also is here in Detroit.

So there are some pretty amazing people who actually have a long history with this production.

- So what do you want people to bring away from this experience?

Because I think that's what it's going to be.

It's gonna be an experience, not just like going to an opera.

I'm sure there's going to be so many emotions and feelings involved.

- Well, this is our story.

This is a story about, you know, five young Black and brown youths, you know, that happened in 1989, but it's happening to people right now.

You know, people who are being falsely incarcerated for crimes they did not commit.

I think the most important thing about the story is to understand what they went through, but also to understand that they were exonerated for their crimes.

- Very important.

- And so there is, the aftermath of the story is really about joy and it's about what happens, what do you do with your life after you have been put through something so traumatic and treacherous.

- And one has become a very activist politician, as I recall.

- That's right, that's right.

In this neighborhood, in New York.

And so... And they're all doing their own thing.

And they're in the middle of a defamation trial against the current president who still continues to pursue this idea that they were guilty even though they were exonerated of their crimes and the actual perpetrator admitted to their crimes.

- Unbelievable.

So you have a wonderful venue, three performances, and what else should people know?

- It opens on the 10th, which is the day before Mother's Day, the 10th of May, and closes on the 18th.

- Great Mother's Day gift.

- Yes, that's right.

Detroit Opera.

And you can go to their website to purchase tickets.

- And like you said, that venue and the orchestra pit, just, you know, the acoustics, everything, makes it wonderful.

- It's a lovely space, and we're excited to remount this in this particular space because of the size and the scope, but also because Detroit, there were so many Black people in Detroit, and it's really important that our audience shows up.

Everybody should come, but it'll be quite impactful to be in a house, you know, with the majority of us in the audience.

- Yes, absolutely.

Well, thank you for bringing it to Detroit.

We're very excited, and I'm sure it'll be well supported here.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me.

- Coming up next, details on this year's Small Business Workshop.

But first, here's a clip from a 1992 Detroit Black Journal episode about racial injustice following the Rodney King verdict.

- Dr. Johnson, I'm gonna start with you.

As president of the NAACP and as a member of the police commission, a unique position, your assessment of what it is we saw in Los Angeles, and give us a sense for the rage that erupted from that and where we are now, where we can go with that rage.

I know that's a big question.

- Well, we've seen, I believe, three important segments, so to speak, or three important aspects of a tragedy.

The first of which was the beating of Rodney King, which we all saw on the film of that incident.

And second was the beating which was administered by the jury.

To me, that was the second beating that was truly violent and it's insult to morality and to our sense of justice.

And I think it cannot be seen otherwise.

And were symptomatic or an example of how the system is used to administer a beating of the type that the officers did on the street.

The third aspect of the tragedy was what occurred after the verdict was rendered, and that was the violent eruption in Los Angeles.

The rather mindless violence that took place and the destructiveness that took place there.

Put together, they all represent a tragedy for the nation, as much as for Los Angeles.

- The 11th Annual Small Business Workshop presented by the Lee Group takes place on May 14th at The Corner Ballpark in Detroit.

This year's theme is "Thriving Through Uncertainty."

The Free Event provides expert advice, resources, and networking for small business owners.

Here to tell us more is Mark Lee, president of the Lee Group and a Detroit PBS board member, along with Dimitrius Hutcherson, president of First Independence Bank, a sponsor of the event.

Welcome.

- Thanks for having us.

- Thank you for having me.

- So this is an exciting event that you have coming up, and certainly very timely.

Wonderful that First Independence is a sponsor.

I'm gonna find out a little bit first from Mark about what the event will be like.

What will the day be like?

- Yeah, I'm so excited to say it's our 11th annual event, and it's a half-a-day event focusing primarily on entrepreneurs and small businesses.

And what we do is we have speakers from across Detroit, business leaders from across Detroit as well.

We have other entrepreneurs who will be speaking and addressing a key issue.

And so the issue this year that we're focused on is thriving through uncertainty, thriving through uncertainties.

Now, think about the times that we are in.

Detroit has 62,000 small businesses.

We're the fourth and largest city in the country according to the US Census data in terms of the number of small businesses.

And lot of those businesses are nervous.

A lot of them are like figuring out, what do we do, you know, with the administration, with certainly the talk of tariffs and everything that's taking place.

So this workshop will be addressing specific issues focused on thriving through uncertainty.

You will walk away with practical solutions and advice.

- Awesome.

So, Dimitrius, why did First Independence decide to support this event?

- Well, thanks for having me again.

We felt that the whole topic of thriving through uncertainty is important to bring these issues out and really put business owners at ease, given that, while there's uncertainty, we still have some things in place that we can offer our customers to be able to have solutions to work through the uncertainty and be sure that they have a banking partner that's here to assist them.

And Mark's message and the work that he's done in the community has helped so many other small business owners, so we're delighted to be a partner with him.

- Great.

So what are some of the highlights of the day?

What do you think that people will be looking forward to?

- We're gonna have the... We're gonna have a motivational speaker who will be coming in.

Again, lot of entrepreneurs are working on the island and they don't necessarily have that support.

So I want to change the tonality, have someone come and have an uplifting talk, essentially, motivate them.

They're gonna have an economist, and the economist is gonna come in and talk about the state of the economy.

There's a lot of conversations.

Is there gonna be a recession, what's happening with the stock market and things like that.

We're not gonna... We're not gonna be talking about the specifics within the economy.

In other words, how can this impact your business?

What are some of the strategies you ought to think about as you're refocusing on your business moving forward?

We're gonna talk about mind over business.

What we mean there is that mental health is a challenge, and we recognize that.

And so someone's gonna come in and give us a talk on the importance of taking care of yourself mentally, as well as physically.

And then what we talk about cybersecurity.

We're in era now where we have hacking that's taking place, and small business still are not protected in totality.

So someone's gonna need a conversation on cybersecurity.

And lastly, a panel discussion with business leaders from across Detroit that talks again about how do you thrive through uncertainty.

- So it sounds like you're covering all the bases.

- I think so.

- Excellent, excellent.

So, small businesses might not think about the importance of their relationship with their bank.

What are things that First Independence is able to do that maybe small businesses haven't thought about?

- Well, what we do is we provide alternative solutions to help them work through some of the questions and nuances that go on in economic cycles that occur.

We are here to be partners to provide alternative lending solutions in the event that they need options to consider and we will also provide financial literacy for folks that are really in need of that.

Financial literacy is a way of really providing folks with options and knowledge that really will enhance their ability to make decisions.

- So have either one of you found, are there particular businesses, small businesses in Detroit that tend to thrive maybe more than others, or what are kind of the popular areas or what are people involved in?

- You start to see businesses in tech industry beginning to thrive.

I mean, everybody's talking about apps, right?

The app business, development, they're beginning to thrive.

The traditional businesses, the suppliers continue to struggle because we're so dependent on the automotive industry here.

So we're finding some of those individuals, those types of businesses are, you know, they still have a challenge.

I wanna give a very special shout out to First Independence Bank.

This is a 55th year, and they have, you're talking about somebody thriving through uncertainty for 55 years.

And we we're gonna highlight and have a fireside chat, a one-on-one conversation with the First Independence Bank that talks about how they've been able to thrive for 55 years in the great city of Detroit.

- Absolutely.

I'm gonna just follow up on the one area.

When you talk about tech companies, give me an example.

What do you mean by tech companies?

- A lot of times, tech developers, right?

Those in cybersecurity space, those are the ones that are trying to help, in theory, should be helping businesses protect their business.

And so anything in that technology space, right?

Anything that involves computers, computer technology.

So I think really the growth area continues to be in the tech space and app development.

We're seeing, you know, the apps that delivers food, right?

So those types of business continue to thrive.

So, if people are looking at starting a business, still pull the landscape back, look at the entire landscape, pull the picture back, and look at the types of business that you think that you can really add value to the customers for.

- Do your homework.

- Do your homework.

- Absolutely.

So, as Mark mentioned, 55 years for First Independence.

I think that a lot of people don't realize the size of the bank and your reach because I know you also are now in Minnesota as well.

So talk about the reach and the types of services you provide.

- Sure.

So again, First Independence is gonna celebrate 55 years on May 14th.

We evolved initially as a bank that was formed as a positive outcome of the 1967 civil unrest.

And we were initially focused on providing financial independence for people of color.

We ultimately have evolved into a full service bank.

While we are Black-owned, we're not Black only.

You have the ability now to have a reach through not just a metro Detroit area, but Minneapolis, Minnesota.

And we have partnerships with some of the large global banks where you may have an ATM card at First Independence, but you can use it at any Fifth Third, J.P. Morgan, Chase, Bank of America without a surcharge.

And we have a full suite of products.

You can open up a bank accounts online at www.firstindependence.com.

You can business services, commercial lending, residential, a full suite of products that are catering to your specific needs.

So we've evolved into a bank that is for everyone, and our customer base has expanded.

- Excellent.

And I know you provide financial literacy services as well.

- Yeah, we do a great deal of that.

We have individuals that work in our branches in partnership with Operation Hope, where we have financial wellbeing coaches that help individuals that are trying to get that taste of the American dream, i.e, home ownership.

If they may have some blemishes in their credit profile, with Operation Hope, we help them remove those blemishes and position them for home ownership.

And we have team members that actually do financial literacy workshops and, in certain instances, myself as well.

- Great.

So, Mark, talk a little bit about the Lee Group and how you advocate for small businesses.

- Yeah, yeah.

The Lee Group has been around for 17 years.

And I started the company 17 years ago.

I was running a major organization from a marketing perspective.

And what I noticed in those days, people would pitch me their business.

They would, you know, I controlled a huge budget.

They didn't know how to pitch me, and I got frustrated.

And a lot of them were small businesses.

So when I moved back to Detroit, I made it a mission.

The mission of the Lee Group is to provide the resources to help small businesses grow and navigate to certain challenges.

And I'm very proud that 17 years later, we still stand here.

We started at the height of a recession in 2008 here in Detroit.

We have survived, obviously, the pandemic, and we're still standing.

And by the way, we are growing.

And if I could also say very quickly, the workshop is free.

It's free.

- Yeah, that's very important.

- I wanna make sure that people realize all this expertise, and it's free.

- Thanks to First Independence.

That's great.

- Thank you.

- So what are the kind of stumbling blocks usually?

What are the challenges that you see when you're talking to a potential small business?

- You know, that is, they still don't know how to market themselves.

You know, you have to have the ability to stand up in front of people, sell your idea.

- That elevator pitch.

- That elevator pitch.

Business is about building relationships.

Build a relationship with your prospective client.

It's okay to have a board of advisor.

People think I'm an expert.

I guess, respectfully, I am in certain areas, but I'm not an expert in everything.

I had to pick up the phone.

I call people all the time and say, "Hey, what do you think?"

The number one issue that comes up survey after survey, and Dimitrius can relate to this, is access to capital.

People have an idea, they don't necessarily have the money, so how do you finance your business?

And the last challenge is, people will have an idea, but write it down.

Write it down and develop a plan.

A lot of times, people will come to me and say, "Mark, I have this idea."

And I'll say, "What's your plan?"

"Uh, not exactly sure what I'm gonna do."

- Yeah.

- That's the recipe for failure.

- Good point.

So what's the best way to take advantage of this day, this free event?

How do you suggest, in addition to, you know, having a plan that people tackle this day and make sure that they walk away with what they want?

- They want to come in and have open ears.

Just listen, ask questions.

We set up time for businesses to network with each other as well.

So just come in, take notes.

Don't be afraid to ask questions.

People like Dimitrius and his team are willing to talk to you, they're willing to work with you.

'Cause the objective is for people to come through this, and we're gonna help make you successful moving forward.

- Awesome.

So you'll have a team on site as well?

- Yeah, one of our key individuals will be participating in a fireside chat and we'll make herself available to answer questions that some of the small business or fledgling business owners have.

- Great.

And I know you have an extensive website as well that provides information about your services.

- You visit First Independence, www.firstindependence.com.

You can apply for consumer loans, commercial loans, and you'd be lined up.

And we actually have a loan program for small business owners that is in participation with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

But that all can be accessed on our online website.

- Great.

Well, best of luck for the event.

And like you said, it's free.

Very important.

So, thanks so much and much success to you, and much success to the small businesses that day.

So that's going to do it for us for this week.

You can find out more about our guest at americanblackjournal.org.

Plus, connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care and we'll see you next time.

(bright 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 & Edsel Ford Fund for journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Announcer 2] 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.

(gentle uplifting music)