- Just ahead on "American Black Journal", Detroit's Charles H. Wright Museum is celebrating 60 years.

We're gonna talk about the museum's founder and its legacy.

Plus, we'll tell you about a new play from Teen Hype that examines the challenges faced by young people here in Detroit.

You don't want to miss today's show.

"American Black Journal" starts right now.

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(upbeat music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal", I'm Stephen Henderson.

This year marks a major milestone for the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

60 years ago this month, Dr. Charles H. Wright and 32 members of the Detroit community agreed to support the creation of a museum about the black experience.

In honor of this anniversary, the museum is holding a free day of family activities on March 8th.

Here to talk more about that event and the museum's history is Kevin Davidson.

He is the Wright's longtime Director of Design and Fabrication Services.

Kevin, welcome to "American Black Journal".

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

- It's a pleasure to be here.

- So let's start with your history with the Wright, which goes back quite a way.

It's not quite 60 years.

- Not quite, 2/3.

- But to the majority of that, right?

How did you come to the museum?

- I actually was introduced to the museum in 1980, and I was on loan, placed on loan to the museum from the Detroit Council of the Arts at the time to work on an exhibit that focused on black insurance companies.

And we completed that project, and I went on and I got a call from the museum in 1982, and Dr. Wright wanted me to come in and work on an exhibit on black voting rights.

And so I met with him and he gave me a book and said, "This is something that you're gonna extract your script from."

I remember the author's name was Holt, I can't remember his first name, I think it was Robert Holt.

And so from there, he kind of paired me with one of the longtime volunteers, Margaret Zarif.

And she collected images, I did some additional research and designed and installed that exhibit on voting rights.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And he loved it.

- And he hired you.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) - And you've been there since.

- Right?

He invited, he said, "I need you to do one on Charles Drew."

And I did that.

- Oh wow, wow.

- And then he asked me to redesign the mobile unit, which traveled over all around the state.

And so I did that and he said, "Well, you know, you may as well stick around."

- Right, "We're gonna keep you here."

- Yeah.

- So it's really interesting to hear you talk about the things you were working on then.

You know, an exhibit about black insurance companies.

- Yes.

- An exhibit about voting rights.

- Yes.

- That really does sum up range of Dr. Wright's imagination - Yes.

And vision about what this could be, the full gamut of the black experience.

- Absolutely.

- And that's really a good way to describe the museum.

- Yes, yes it is, yes it is.

- Yeah talk about in those early days though, what the museum was like and how different it is now.

I mean, now it's basically like a monument, right?

- Right, right.

- I mean, it's this wonderful physical space back then it was a little more understated.

- Yeah it was located first in the basement of a three row house on West Grand Boulevard and Warren, right on the corner.

It was Dr. Wright's residence, you know, he and his family lived there.

And so when he founded the museum, he set up exhibits in the basement.

He eventually moved out, moved downtown and basically went in and converted all of those spaces to gallery spaces.

So when I started, part of my job too was to convert some spaces so I worked with a carpenter and we went in and you know, tore out walls and you know, did some plastering, and I converted some spaces, and so I started installing exhibits.

It's a house, it's a three row house.

So, you know, when we had tours, you know, you had to take 'em up the stairs into the gallery, back out and into the next building- - [Stephen] And the next one.

- And back out and then into the next building and back out.

Dr. Wright's sister volunteered with us at the time, Pearl Battle, and it was the two of us.

You know, conducting these tours through the building and you know, we went from that to a structure that we built from the ground up in the Cultural Center that's occupied by CCS now, on the corner of Frederick Douglas and Brush.

And even before we moved into that building, plans were already underway for the Phyllis facility we're in right now.

- [Stephen] Yeah for the museum itself.

- [Kevin] Yes, yeah.

- [Stephen] That everyone is so familiar with now.

- [Kevin] Yes, yeah so Dr. Wright had his vision and then Coleman Young had his vision.

- [Stephen] Yeah that's right.

- And so they kind of merged and Coleman Young came up with the funding to support the construction and to maintain the facility.

- Yeah so, yeah talk about the difference between making exhibits in the basement of a three row house and the space you have now.

I'm thinking of the Jefferson exhibit that was there just a few years ago.

- Oh yeah.

- The wonderful art and the costume exhibit that was there last year.

- Yes.

- I mean, these are large scale- - Yes.

- Kinds of exhibits now.

Very different from being in a basement.

- It's a different world.

You know, everything had to be put together by hand.

And I'm taking little litters and creating, you know, these introductory panels and everything had to be constructed by hand back then, more time consuming, you know, we were doing key lines for prints and all of that.

So it was different world.

And of course, you know, when you compare just the space you're talking about, you know, a bathroom versus a mansion.

- [Stephen] Right, right.

- You know, so.

But along with the change in facilities, you know, you can bring in contractors.

And so that's part of what I do is, you know, do the elevations and floor plans, and construction drawings and they take those and you know, build these platforms.

- [Stephen] Create these, yeah.

- Cases, and- - I mean, they're experiences, right?

- Yes, yes.

- I mean, I always feel like you're walking through the subject matter.

- Yes.

- When I'm there.

- That's our goal.

- Yeah.

- You know, and I worked on our core exhibit Being Still We Rise and we wanted to make that fully immersive.

And so we certainly achieved that with that exhibit.

And you know, we continue to pursue that.

- Yeah, let's talk about March 8th and this celebration at the museum.

What will people find when they come to the museum?

- Well, it's called History in the House.

And it's a free event open to the public.

We've got the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater coming through, they're have a conversation in our theater and there's a VIP reception that's also a part of that.

And we have a whole list of programs going on throughout the day, including gallery talks.

And we're inviting all of the Wright babies.

- Yeah Wright babies, right?

- Some 7,000 of them.

- Yeah, right?

- To the museum.

- I happen to be one of them.

- Yes, we can celebrate that.

- Yeah no, there's so many people.

There are so many people, especially my age.

- Yeah, yeah.

- African Americans in this community who were delivered by Dr. Wright.

- Exactly.

- His name is on our birth certificate.

- Absolutely.

- That's a huge part of his legacy.

And I always feel like in some ways that was part of the inspiration for him, that he was helping to perpetuate and create the black community here through his work.

And that the museum is a way to preserve that.

- Absolutely, I love that perspective.

- To memorize, and remember, and celebrate it.

- Yeah and, you know, whenever he had patients come through, they got a spiel.

You know, I got this museum, I want you to support it.

- I want you to help with this, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- He was always- - He was always doing that.

- Was always pushing that idea and... And this 60th anniversary, you guys have a lot of other things as well for us.

- During the course of the year, we have these conversations with our President and CEO, Neil Barkley.

- Yes.

- One of the standout conversations is gonna be with Regina Carter, who is from Detroit.

- [Stephen] Yes one of my absolute favorite Detroiters.

- Me too.

- I'm just in love with her.

And her music is unbelievable, right?

- Yes, it is.

- Yeah.

- Yeah and so she's got this incredible presentation.

That focuses on Black Bottom Paradise Valley, you know, and so she's playing and it's beautiful.

And so she'll be here engaging in that conversation and performance in May.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And so we have those types of performances going on throughout the year.

We're looking to have this culmination of the gathering of Wright babies take place sometime around the gala.

And at the very least, we're looking to photograph as many those- - As many as you can.

- Yeah who get registered with us.

So on the 8th we'll have these little cards with QR codes, you'll be able to input your name and then we'll make contact with you and you get to participate in the programming we have going on throughout the year that's dedicated to that as part of our 60th.

- Yeah well it's a, it's a huge milestone.

And of course the museum is such a rock in this- - Yes it is, absolutely.

- In this community.

Kevin this is really great to have you here.

Thanks for joining us.

- Oh it's my pleasure, thank you so much.

- Yeah all right up next, we're gonna hear about a play that was produced by the organization Teen Hype.

But first, here's a clip from a 1997 "American Black Journal" conversation between Dr. Charles Wright and host Darrell Wood.

- You and I, several years ago talked at the prior home of the museum.

And it was at that time that it became imminently clear to me, that what was most important to you was that the Museum of African American History be an institution supported by black people for black people.

- Correct it's still true because I think there should be a feeling of ownership belonging to it.

And you get that by building such institutions from the ground upward rather than from the top downward.

- One of the things I remember at that point, was that there seemed to be quite a struggle to get people to come on board as individual contributors and donors in the black community.

It was a task that was a bit akin to pulling teeth.

Did you find that that was the case all the way through up to this point?

- No you know, before we moved into the Cultural Center, we had about an 18 year history on the corner of West Grand Boulevard and West Warren.

And we received very little in the way of donations.

The Black United Fund and other organizations did help us a lot but a lot of the money came from the people.

I went to Dr. Jefferson and the public school system and suggested that we have a buy a brick campaign with the school kids.

He was reluctant at first but we talked him into it and he decided, go ahead.

This is a poor system but we'll see what you can do.

So in about eight weeks we brought in...

I mean, when I say we, I mean the teachers and the other people, they're related, $86,000.

He was flabbergasted, he didn't know what to make of it.

- Nonprofit organization Team Hype is putting on its 19th annual theater production on March 14th.

The play is titled "Two Detroits", and it tells the story of two teenagers from different walks of life and how do they navigate the realities of living in our city.

Here to tell us more about the play and the organization is Ambra Redrick.

She is the CEO of Teen Hype and she is joined by cast member Omega Clemons, who is a student at the Detroit School of the Arts, where we film "American Black Journal".

Welcome both of you to "American Black Journal".

- Thank you.

- Yeah so one of the things I love about Teen Hype and the whole idea, is I feel like what you're doing is helping young people find their voice.

And not only find their voice, but also find where and how they can use it.

- Absolutely.

- And it's such an important thing to do when you're a young person.

- It is, it is, I'm sure you can remember those years during your teen years.

- Sometimes fondly, sometimes not so fondly but I remember.

- The importance of having space to do that.

That when you have those moments of self discovery and you are trying to find out who you are is such a beautiful moment as you kind of stumble upon that.

It's one of the beautiful things about teenagers.

- How did you come up with the idea for Teen Hype?

- Oh I wish I could say I took credit for an idea, co-founder, but it was a very like divine order thing.

We started our work many years ago in a hospital actually under public health.

And we quickly discovered how important youth voices and those young people actually came together, created a council, a young person said, "I've got an idea for a name, how about Teen Hype?"

And things just kind of took off from there.

We did a lot of work in the community early on with young people.

And one day we got a call for a larger audience and realized we couldn't do a normal, like, didactic presentation.

And we had to come up with this idea of trying to do theater.

- Theater, right?

- And that is where theater was born.

- Yeah and the number of young people who've gone through this program is phenomenal at this point.

- Yeah we are going into year 21, so we are approaching adulthood also.

- That's right.

- And it feels like, I can't believe that we've served well over 30,000 kids.

- It's incredible that number is just mind blowing.

- Yeah it is and still feels very small enough to see young people come to through the door and still recognized them by name, and see young people that have gotten married and are doing wonderful things.

- Yeah, yeah and Omega, you are a member of of Teen Hype and you're playing a role in this new production.

Tell us about how you got involved with Teen Hype and then tell us about what you're doing in this play.

- Well, how I got involved was, first I didn't know anything about Teen Hype but at the time I was homeschooled and I was really looking for somewhere to, you know, express myself and be myself, and discover who I was.

My father, actually, he recommended Teen Hype to me.

And I became interested and I was just drawn to the opportunities that they were giving out.

Like I saw the singing, the chances of poetry, the chances of dancing and acting and that really spoke to me.

And I ended up signing up and we went to the interview, 'cause the interview process before you are admitted, like actually in Teen Hype.

And I passed the interview and I was just greeted with so many like, friendly people.

And I just felt like I already had a community without actually like getting to... You know, without having the bonds yet.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- There was already something there - [Stephen] That's really powerful.

- And I would say that's how I got involved in it.

Was just that.

- Yeah.

- My father was like, "You should do it."

I'm like, "I should."

- "I'll try that out, right?"

So talk about this new play and the role that you're playing in it.

- So with the role of the play, I have a role when it comes, not really acting wise, but a role as in helping with the message of the play.

I'm a YAC member is a Youth Advisory Council.

- [Stephen] Okay.

- And we get together and we discuss ways to help out with community, spread the message because we have the play, you know, that's for awareness, but we discuss like how to actually put that into the community and how to actually make it a lot bigger than us.

So that is mainly my role when it comes to this play, is to put that message out there.

Is to really help people change their perspectives or give them a new perspective and give them a new idea of what's really going on.

And just being able to use my role to make a change in the world.

And to make a difference when it comes to teens and when it comes to even the adults, 'cause everyone has a voice and everyone has, you know, everyone learns new things so.

- Ambra, let's tell viewers about this, more about this play.

"Two Detroits", it's a phrase we use a lot in this city these days and it is how a lot of folks feel about the city and the things that are happening and so much change.

So many things are changing but talk about this play and the story it tells.

- So this play explores the story of two young people who are siblings and how they are navigating two very different paths being raised by different parents.

And it is a tale that we all know, that young people that are under-resourced live one path, and sometimes young people who have better resources and opportunities have a different path.

And that when you have less resources, there are different struggles and how hard it is to navigate life, particularly here in Detroit.

- Yeah.

- And I think our young people have done a phenomenal job of uplifting some of those challenges.

- Yeah.

You allow the young people to kind of set the direction they do for all this.

- They do.

- I mean, as Omega was saying, she's part of this use advisory council.

They figure out how to stage this and put the message out there.

- They do, they look at a variety of topics, they take their job very seriously.

And I pushed back and they pushed back against me and we went round and round a few times around gentrification and I was like, "Why is that important?"

And they gave a lot of rationale and talked about like why we needed to talk about this now to make sure that they just wasn't picking, you know, some term that they heard.

They are passionate about the things that they believe in.

Rightfully so and so as you can imagine, once we kind of move over and allow young people to have a voice they take off.

- Yeah, yeah and the play was written by a Teen Hype Alum, is that right?

- It is, Mallory Childs, Mariah Burton has put in some work into this play and so I'm excited to see what they're gonna bring to the stage.

- Yeah, yeah so Omega, I wonder what in this play speaks to you, this idea of two Detroit's, two siblings growing up in different households.

Why does that resonate with you?

- It resonates with me because, you know, growing up I had different siblings in different households and I grew up like that.

Also, the effects of, you know, living in a world where, you know around us, the world is getting more and more expensive and everything is, you know, changing.

But yet it is hard for us to adapt because we're so accommodated this lifestyle.

But then there's another lifestyle that's building around us and it's hard to adapt to that.

And you know, living different lifestyles with two different you know, parents and different households 'cause I grew up with that.

You know, I grew up with older brothers who were in different places and I was here in Detroit and they were in other places.

And just the fact that just living in a different culture where you know, being in a world like Detroit, Detroit is always developing.

It's always, there's new things happening every single day.

But at the same time, it's hard to adapt to that when we're not at the same speed.

- Yeah.

- So I say it resonates with me in that way when it comes to, you know, the rapid changes of the economy and the rapid changes of- - You feel that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's really great to have you here and to have you talk about this amazing work over such a long period of time.

Ambra and Omega, thanks for being here with us on "American Black Journal".

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- And it's gonna do it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org and you can connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care, and we'll see you next time.

(lively music)