Building BLAC Power in Detroit with Dexter Sullivan

On this episode, Donna and Sam sat down with Dexter Sullivan, founder of the Black Legacy Advancement Coalition (BLAC) to discuss how they’re building Black power and continuing Detroit’s legacy as a Black city. 

The roots of BLAC began to take form in the heart of its founder, Dexter Sullivan, in the early 2000s. Then, in 2020, the world stopped as black residents were impacted at a disproportionate rate. Under the conditions of lockdown, we could no longer numb ourselves with the routine obligations of life and career. Instead, we were forced to reckon with the physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual ramifications of actively witnessing black lives destroyed without the responsible parties being held accountable. 

As a coalition, they are driven by passion, healing and legacy-creation. While they strive toward a bold and powerful vision, they are clear that their efforts will require a commitment that spans decades and, perhaps, generations. Still, they are committed to creating a world that builds on the legacy of our ancestors who fought and died for centuries in an effort to secure our civil liberties and equity.

To learn more about Black Legacy Advancement Coalition (BLAC) and their work, click here. 

FOR HOT TAKES:

TERMINATION THREAT OVER DETROIT IMMIGRATION ARREST ANGERS MICHIGAN CONSERVATIVES

INTERNAL POLLING SHOWS BENSON LEADS JAMES AND DUGGAN IN RACE FOR MICHIGAN GOVERNOR

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Episode Setup
• 2:16 Honoring Orlando And Passing The Mic
• 5:10 DPD, ICE, And Detroit’s Policy Wall
• 14:15 Racism, Policing, And Community Impact
• 20:13 Governor’s Race Polls And Strategy
• 30:05 Political Memory, Media, And Power
• 34:56 Note: Skipped To Maintain Sequence
• 34:56 (Removed - Use Next Valid)
• 38:36 Break And Community Announcements

Transcript

Welcome And Episode Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Up next, Authentically Detroit welcomes the founder of the Black Legacy Advancement Coalition, Dexter Sullivan, to discuss how they're building black power and continuing Detroit's legacy as a black city. But first, this week's hot takes from the Michigan Chronicle. The termination threat over a Detroit immigration arrest has angered Michigan conservatives. Internal polling shows Benson leading John James and Mike Duggan in the race for Michigan governor. An internal poll produced by Mike Duggan's campaign suggests otherwise. Keep it locked. Authentically Detroit starts after these messages.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

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SPEAKER_00 1:43

I'm Sam Robinson.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:44

And I'm Donna Givens Davidson.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Thank you for listening in and supporting our efforts to build a platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate, and subscribe to our podcasts on all platforms. We're here today with the founder of the Black Legacy Advancement Coalition, Dexter Sullivan, to talk about how they're building black power in Detroit. Dexter, welcome to Authentically Detroit, man. How are you?

SPEAKER_04 2:06

Sam, what's up, bro?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Not much, man. Another day, another nickel, man. We're living, we're surviving and thriving.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

Absolutely.

Honoring Orlando And Passing The Mic

SPEAKER_00 2:12

We want to get into hot takes where we're going to run down some of this week's top headlines from the city.

Donna Givens Davidson 2:16

Can we can we just take a moment? Yeah. I want to talk about this weekend on Saturday. It was a really special day celebrating, honoring Orlando. And we're going to have pictures on our page. You can just see how wonderful it was. One of the things that excited me was all of the Eastsiders who came out to welcome and to celebrate the Son of the East Side, Orlando Bailey. It was really, really beautiful. It was like a family reunion in here with so many community leaders that I've worked together over the years. And then some younger people coming in and really coming together around this idea that black voices matter, that black people matter, that our community matters. And Orlando, nobody did it better than Orlando. But it was also a beautiful opportunity to pass the mic. And we did give Orlando dropped the mic plaque. We also gave him a sweatshirt. And we also read him a testimonial for governor from Governor Whitmer honoring his leadership. So it was great. And then the mic was passed to our new co-host, Sam Robinson. Woo woo. And when I tell you that people were asking me who is Sam, we don't know who he is. We had pictures on the tables so people could see. And then he took the mic and he let people know who he was. And I have to say, you did a great job.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Put me on the spot. I walked in and you're like, come on up. I said, All right, no problem.

Donna Givens Davidson 3:35

I have put you on the spot for as long as I've known you, and you should have been ready for that.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

I keep rising to the moment, I suppose.

Donna Givens Davidson 3:40

You do, you do. That's what I appreciate about you. No, it was it people needed to hear from you and they did and they loved it. And I think what it speaks to is a continuity of leadership, of voices, that we're not creating a platform for myself and Orlando. We're creating a platform for community voices to be heard.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 3:57

And so um I'm here, Sam's here, when I leave, somebody else will step in. When Sam leaves, somebody else will step in if we're doing it right, because that's what institutions look like, right?

SPEAKER_04 4:07

You said something um something to the effect of in your spot. And I've watched at a distance um the way that you've created space for people to have a spot. It's a lot more difficult to make an impact if you don't have a starting point. And you've created starting points and connecting points, and for some people, they've turned into checkpoints and they've been able to move forward. And so I just salute your authenticity of leadership and the posture that you've taken to really translate leadership through the voices that have been given to you. It's pretty brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

It is, it's not what you do for yourself, Donna, it's what you're able to do for other people.

Donna Givens Davidson 4:49

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm over here blushing, but y'all can't see. I don't know if the the camera's gonna pick that up, Michael, but I'm really touched by that. Thank you. I appreciate hearing that. Um because I know I talk a lot, um, but I also want to make sure that people are heard a lot, not just me. And so I'm glad to know that that's what's coming through.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah, certainly is.

Donna Givens Davidson 5:07

Go, Orlando.

DPD, ICE, And Detroit’s Policy Wall

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, yeah. Shout out to Orlando. Um, we're gonna talk about this DPD situation. You see, these uh well, at least one of the police officers is being uh there's a go fund me for for the officer. They're not gonna get fired anymore. Uh Todd Bettison has has done away with his threat of termination. But Republican lawmakers and conservative groups slammed Bettison. He's the Detroit chief of police last week after department leadership disciplined officers who broke city policy when they detained someone downtown last week and then contacted Border Patrol. The coordination between Detroit police officers and customs and border patrol uh leading to a potential deportation was observed by Detroit Free Press reporter Violet Akonamova. Uh, she was near Grand Circus Park downtown Friday. Detroit's welcoming city policies. Remember, we are not a sanctuary city. Uh, our our policies on the on in place currently prevent police officers from asking about immigration status during traffic stops, and they prevent police officers from assisting federal officers without a detainer warrant. DPD does honor judge signed detainer requests by ICE, and that allows agents to um, after they've captured somebody for a crime, um, you know, forward their case on to uh whatever Department of Homeland Security unit, whether it be ICE or um Customs and Border Patrol. Now, Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said at the latest police commissioners meeting last week that the department plans to terminate uh the officers. He has gone back on that um in recent days. Uh Bettison defended Detroit's policies aimed at protecting undocumented immigrants. He said the two officers uh were suspended after traffic stops that happened uh two weeks ago and then in last uh month, excuse me, in December. We're already in February. His comments have been slammed, Bettison's, by conservative pundits and politicians, uh, Matt Hall, Eric Nesbitt, and the likes across Michigan are criticizing Todd Bettison for saying the officers would be terminated. Um, you saw ICE and the Department of Homeland Security actually on their social media pages say, hey, you know, well, you know, we would welcome these Detroit officers. Violet Iconomova um recently on social media just just dug up something on at least one of the officers was involved in some sort of uh civil um um litigation that resulted in a payout of over a hundred thousand dollars. Um so you know, we we we are getting a better sense. We know these officers' names. I don't off the top of my head right now. However, um there seems to be a um, you know, uh a debate internally within the Detroit Police Department among officers over whether they should be interacting with um customs and border control or ICE. Obviously, they are not allowed to, but feel that federal law supersedes the local ordinance.

Donna Givens Davidson 8:01

Well, they feel as though whiteness supersedes justice is really what we're talking about. Um there's data that would suggest that the majority of people who are arrested based on police stops are actually by ICE and detained based on police stops are not Latino, they're actually black. And the disproportionality is significant. The disproportionality of abuse and custody, the disproportionality of then um immigration, um deportations against black detainees is great. And it's interesting because a lot of us in the black community don't think it's happening to us because we don't know and it's not publicized in the news. So I just want to point out that what is happening is not them um stopping people who look and sound like Melania Trump and saying she's gotta go, okay? They're not asking people who look and sound like Melania Trump for evidence that they belong here. It is based on appearance, it's based on a perception that this person looks different and I'm going to get the ice involved. Um, I think anybody who watches television news or reads the newspaper, I don't watch television news, reads the newspaper just is on social media, understands that racism is inherent, is embedded in police departments everywhere. And just because you have a black police chief and also even having a black police commission and black people who are um, you know, in the you know, the officers, I mean the sergeants, whatever, the command, black majority black command, does not mean that the people who are on the streets making this dis these decisions care about us or even know about us. A lot of people have talked about the fact that when residency was ended by the state um many years ago.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

1999. 1999, right?

Donna Givens Davidson 9:47

Right. So when residency was ended by the state, we have a lot of police officers who come from outstate, come to Detroit, get their training, and then leave and go other places. And they don't come because they want to figure out how to protect Detroit residents. They come because they want to figure out how to exercise their understanding of what the law should be in the city of Detroit.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

A lot of them are are so-called adrenaline junkies, as one police officer told me recently.

Donna Givens Davidson 10:13

You know, it it what this speaks to on so many levels is um the distance between what the command structure says and what's done on the street. I don't believe Bedison is not telling the truth. I don't believe Bedison has control of that. And then I think you also have to look at the role of police unions and insulating police officers from the consequences of their action here and other places. So um it's a political issue. Um and the people who are protesting this are people who want to see people fill up the warehouses that are being built all over the United States because it's scary to me. We are building capacity to house so many people. Why?

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Why?

Donna Givens Davidson 10:49

What happens when you fill it up? And how do you get those people? You can't get them without harassment, without searches, without slave catchers calling themselves ICE in our cities wearing masks and hiding their identities while they are violating actually civil rights. And by the way, everybody who gets deported is not uh is not an immigrant. There are people who are native-born people who are being pushed out because they could not document their right to be here. Because we have to document our right to be here. It's not assumed that we're here. You know, what is the saying? Innocent until proven guilty, but we're guilty until we can prove that we belong.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yes. And um so Yeah, the Supreme Court made it a lot easier for that to be the reality right now, um, sort of allowing racial discrimination. When you see some of these incidents, um, perhaps in other places that aren't Detroit, I don't think we've seen this explicitly in Detroit. We've we've read about it, right? I mean, I think the Detroit Free Press report was that there was this officer encountering somebody that didn't speak English, and instead of calling the city translation services, which you know folks say, hey, we're supposed to have this office of immigration to ensure that this uh that that people that don't speak English um, you know, can still be use city services and can still go to police and report crimes, right? Even Mike Duggan, who is taking a more conservative approach to his independent campaign for governor, said he agrees with activists who say that you know uh it's dangerous when undocumented residents don't feel like they can trust the police. It's more dangerous.

Donna Givens Davidson 12:28

He he agrees with that. And at the same time, he did not um take the kind of affirmative steps that Mayor Sheffield has tried to take under her administration. Um and I think it's also helpful to note that we don't read about most of what's happening. ICE has been in southwest Detroit and they have been harassing people and causing them pain for years. This is not new, it's in it's increased. People are talking about it more. Um the immigrants have fewer rights than they used to have. I think right now they're talking about even if you have applied for a green card, they're gonna detain you while you're waiting for your green card to be approved. That's a new policy. It's horrible. But ICE has been here, and we know ICE is in Southwest Detroit. But I I I challenge all of my listeners, everybody who's listening to us, to tell me where um African immigrants live. Where are the Haitians?

SPEAKER_04 13:18

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 13:19

They live in places we don't even know what's happening to them. Unless we talk to, and we probably should bring on somebody who represents African immigrants and people from the diaspora. We don't understand that ICE does what it can get away with. And sunlight is the greatest disinfectant. We've got to raise these things up and not assume the news media is aware. I was not aware about what ICE was doing until I got here and I went to an event in um Southwest Detroit in 2017, and it blew my mind what I was hearing then in 2017. It is now nine years since, and ICE never stopped. Now, I will admit that what I understand is that under Biden ICE got better, but they're still here.

Racism, Policing, And Community Impact

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, I mean uh Mike or excuse me, Mary Sheffield, uh the new mayor, doubled down on the city of Detroit's policy preventing local law enforcement from collaborating with federal units of the Department of Homeland Security. Charles Fitzgerald, uh, he is the first assistant chief, spoke at City Council uh last week on Tuesday and said that you know police are not in the immigration business. He says we never have been, and we never will be. They do honor detainers and then work with them to put, but they're not in the immigration business. Um they don't, I guess, I guess they don't profit off of it like ICE does. I want to go to a different topic. We're talking about the race for governor. John James is the Republican candidate in this race. Jocelyn Benson is a Democratic candidate in this race, and guess what? Michigan has something that is interesting, and all of my reporter colleagues obsess about it because they feel like it's has good national play, and so they'll just talk about it all day, every day. Mike Duggan's independent uh campaign for governor. A recent poll uh released last week surveying likely voters in Michigan governor's race has Democratic candidate for governor secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, up over John James uh with independent former Detroit mayor Mike Duggan trailing. That poll from last week was conducted by Impact Research and it was commissioned by Benson's campaign. It shows Benson uh it was up on John James by three points, Duggan taking about a 20% of the vote total there in that poll. Um that was from February 9th to the 16th. Uh the poll had a margin of error of plus minus three and a half. And so Benson, you know, she's the Democratic front runner. Obviously, we got still Chris Swanson is also running. Um she is taking these internal polls, as we had already had with John James um a little bit last year. Duggan has already done one internal poll. This was a big deal um last week because you know, Duggan's campaign was saying, This is an internal poll, this is an internal poll, this doesn't mean anything, and now we know why they were saying that was because Duggan had their own internal poll that released today that actually showed him at 30%. And I think it was a Glenn Riff poll. Again, the legitimacy and credibility, validity of these polls is you know part of the reason why I, as a reporter, you know, personally do not put all that much into this because you understand that each campaign will hire a firm that you know will do favorable, um, you know, they'll target their base.

Donna Givens Davidson 16:40

They will. And I know Doug talks about his path to victory. Um, and I think it's like threading the I have a needle with my glasses off. It's just not likely to happen, but it can happen. Um, there's so many reasons. And one of the uh reasons actually is his approach. His best argument would possibly be to try to peel um Democrats away from Benson.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

But he's not he's not doing that, right?

Donna Givens Davidson 17:06

But by yeah, by showing he shares concerns that are common to many Democratic voters by showing empathy and by really showing a willingness to stand against some of the things we we're afraid of at the federal level.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

His strategy has been to appeal to conservatives instead.

Donna Givens Davidson 17:22

Yes. His idea is well, listen, I can get these anti-Trump conservatives to vote for me. Did you see that ridiculous letter in the free press last week where the I voted for Trump, I'm not a racist.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 17:34

Yes. Um, but I and I do it again. And I do it again because he's been good for the economy. The way that Trump voters, many of them, can rationalize what they do is crazy. And here's what I think I think even those who are not happy with Trump right now won't cross the aisle, they'll stay home. The greatest threat to John James is stay-at-home Republicans who vote with their feet but cannot bring themselves to betray what they consider their values. If I don't know, and I I could be mistaken by this, I don't know that Benson is a wildly popular person in many communities. But I think every time Mike Duggan opens his mouth, more people think, yikes, this is who he is. When he got up there and he started um talking about the reason that um that certain legislation did not happen in the last recess, um, House Senate recess, was because Democrats were trying to push transgender sports. And there was no basis for that. But it's a cold word, it's a trigger. It's actually something that set a dog whistle to right-wing people to say, hey, I'm on your side. For many people, throwing that out when they understood what was at stake, um, is a problem. And so I I I think he's he's overplaying his hand. Now I'm not saying he can't win, because um, maybe I'll put my glasses on and bring the needle right close to me and change my, you know, my my tactics. But he's gonna have to do something different, I think, if he is going to peel away Democratic voters. And if he can't, if Democrats, and if he can't, then he's not gonna grow. I've heard people who supported him at one time say they think that he has reached his ceiling, and that may or may not be true. Um, but if I had to choose my poll and which one I believed, I would not choose um Duncan's internal poll.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

And govern governors' races are much different politics. I think understanding this state and how diverse it is and how diverse it is not, is important to the approach. Um I really I really hope that we don't end up wasting our votes with this one. We can't afford it.

Governor’s Race Polls And Strategy

SPEAKER_00 19:49

You know, Joe Tate the other day at the um Detroit Policy Conference, which is put on by the Detroit Regional Chamber, who which has endorsed Duggan, um their chamber PAC, endorsed Duggan. Joe told me that he felt that Duggan would peel votes away from Democrats more than he would Republicans. And I I think there's sort of this bubble that exists in Southeast Michigan, you know, as a type of Democrat that would vote for Mike Duggan, and most of them do, I believe, from the reporting that I've done across the state asking folks about Mike Duggan for the past however many months. You know, I I think it's a little bit different outside of Southeast Michigan because a people that watch ABC 12 or Channel 3 or you know up north uh Traver City News, they're never everyone, they're never hearing about Duggan.

Donna Givens Davidson 20:45

I I I think I'm not gonna ask Joe Tate about where he thinks politics is heading. Okay, because I I I have a feeling that he miscalculated his own race and had to withdraw. Now, am I reading recalling that correctly? I think the challenge is that you have a whole lot of people who are trying to litigate 2015 politics and 2026. We have hospitals closing all through the state. We have people being laid off of jobs all over the place. Housing is unaffordable, people are struggling to purchase food, inflation has gone up. There's so many things, not to mention the blatant, undeniable racism that is coming out of the White House right now. You can't hide from it, okay? They're not even trying. And so in 2026, I think people see some things maybe they didn't before. I think there's, you know, there was this plausible deniability for people who wanted to deny it that Trump was not racist. Now, even his own people are like, Oh my goodness, apes? Chimpanzees? What are we doing here? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

When you see the Florida GOP right now, I mean, there it's just open racism happening on one of these candidates. I'm not even I'm gonna say his name to put him into the ethos here on this platform, but there's a candidate doing like you know, Gen Z forum racism as a uh as a platform. And he is calling the Republican, the black Republican congressman Byron Donald. He is referring to Byron as Byron.

Donna Givens Davidson 22:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Publicly and openly.

Donna Givens Davidson 22:22

Yeah. And so it's getting harder and harder to deny. And I said this last year. I still believe it. I think times change. We act as though politics is always the same thing. There was a time when saying you were conservative was embarrassing. When I was a girl, when I was a little girl, nobody wanted to call themselves conservative. Ronald Reagan had to make conservatives cool again. Up until then, people were moderates or liberals. Liberals were cool when I was little. And liberals were not liberals today. Liberals were like really fighting for what we call progressives or liberals. The needle started moving to the right. If you look at the history of U.S. politics, and I'm a policy, I major, um, so I have looked at a whole lot of this over the years, but if you look at the history of politics, you have people moving to the right, and then they go too far, and they go to the left, and then they go too far, and you have this going this back and forth. I think we are kind of at now, some people say it's in-stage capitalism because this is the worst we've ever been. They forget that slavery was worse, okay? Um, we've we've had some dark moments in our history to say the least. A hundred years ago, Herbert Hoover was president. Super racist guy, didn't believe in providing any kind of housing for people. They built tent cities all over the nation, called them Hoovervilles, okay? A hundred years ago, that's what was happening. And then we got FDR. And FDR brought the New Deal and social programs and social security and all of these new um ways of taking care of the population that had been so abandoned by the people before. And so, again, I'm I'm not even trying to be optimistic. I just think that we can't look in the past 20 years and think that that represents the history of the nation.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

I want to go back to something that you said. Are you are you suggesting that liberals are now uncool?

Donna Givens Davidson 24:12

I'm saying that what happens is the other side begins to poison the word. And the word liberal becomes something that it was never meant to be. And now we don't like it, right? And even progressive isn't good enough. Now I don't know. Maybe I'm radical, I mean, because what the other side is always good at doing is that.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

Yeah.

Donna Givens Davidson 24:32

When I was young, you have to remember, I was how old um when Nixon was in, I was I was like in high school. No, I was in middle school when Nixon was um impeached, right? And before that, what we don't talk about was Spiral Agnew, his vice president, who was way more corrupt than he was. It was like Spiral Agnew was straight up corrupt. You have to read about him. Rachel Maddow has a nice show where she talks about him. So, you know, this was in the 70s. This is a man who broke into the Democratic headquarters, and in you know you it's the dumbest crime. It was it's there's a you know, there's a mini-series that documents just how ridiculous these people were. Um how quick we forget. How quick we forget.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

And so I mean they elected Trump again. Quick, there's a quick forget.

Donna Givens Davidson 25:17

And we're forgetting. But you know what happened was again, the Democrats, I I believe this is my opinion, right? I believe that after Trump won the first time and then Biden won, the idea was we've got to figure out how to appease these folks. Yes. So we're not going to alienate them by going after Trump. If we go after Trump, we'll alienate them. But instead, what they did was they kind of undercut their arguments because if he's so bad, why didn't you prosecute him? How come the courts didn't do anything?

SPEAKER_04 25:47

Well, I think we're also not always acknowledging, and I say this especially to educated folks, we're not always acknowledging the de-education of America and how many foreign thoughts have infected the populace to where we have voting people who are out here voting against their own interest.

Donna Givens Davidson 26:10

But there's always been people who aren't educated. Absolutely. And there's always been people who remember we had McCarthyism. McCarthy isn't the Red Scare. Remember that? We interned, and I say we, the United States interned all the Japanese people and took all their stuff.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

You know, but I'm I'm saying the people that we used to think we could count on. And when I think of the politic moving like this, I think now there's also a motion like this, where the the normal rhythm of education indoctrination that you kind of expect, you know, people to follow a pattern. I'm just noticing, specifically with black males, I'm noticing um a de-education that's different. Um where I mean they're just they're voting on things that appeal to the worst parts of them.

Donna Givens Davidson 27:00

And and they are and this that's always happened. I think if we are really clear about our history, here's what happens, right? And I mean I'm not saying it's not different now. There's difference now, right? But the people we used to count on are a hundred now, and they're still in power.

unknown 27:17

Okay.

Donna Givens Davidson 27:18

And the people who are in their 20s aren't seen or cared about, they're neglected, things are falling apart around them, and the hundred-year-olds aren't talking. I'm exaggerating, obviously. They aren't talking to them. And so if you're not gonna talk to the people, guess who's gonna talk to them? All the people you ignore.

SPEAKER_04 27:36

Period.

Donna Givens Davidson 27:37

And also, you have paid people to come here and you implant paid people, you know. Um, but Count Til Pro. That was the, you know, taking over. That's that's how we got rid of the Black Panthers and so many black. That there's always been counter movements to disempower us. Our leaders, the people who represent us, have got to do a better job talking to the least of us. Because if we don't do a better job talking to the least of us, and they have the right to vote, then one of two things will happen. Either they will vote against you or they'll stay home. And there's a lot of people who are even angrier at black elites than they are at white people because they feel betrayed by black elites, not by Donald Trump. And so there's also um there's there's there's we have trauma. And that trauma, I'm not, I'm not letting them off the hook. But I'm not letting the people who refuse to hand over the reins of power off the hook either. You know, nobody, um, I love Maxine Waters. She's done such a great job that somebody else can now step in her shoes and do take it over. It's insane to me that she refuses to give up the gavel or whatever it is. Um, and and it happens all over and it's angering young people and it's exposing all of us to something bad. Look what happened with Mount Dami. The the the establishment Democrats came out against him. Anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:59

We've got a momentum that I think we really need to understand, and I think we have to do a better job of listening to people that we need and understanding where they're coming from. Why are they voting the way they're voting? Why are they not voting the way they're voting? And how do we get them engaged?

Political Memory, Media, And Power

SPEAKER_00 29:17

One thing you said reminded me of just like being on Twitter and and seeing all these right wing large accounts that have 500,000 and a million followers. And I think there was just news maybe a few months ago. Um, well, no, it was Twitter changed its um um its settings, and you could see what country that all these accounts are from, and then you start to see like some of the some of the biggest accounts being shared on the right-wing, you know, ecosystem are in Malaysia, are in the Philippines, are in Russia or or you know elsewhere. And when you talk about, you know, what are the motivations for our politics in this point, right? And and who is being um paid by by who to spread these messages, and you know, who controls the the platforms that these messages are dispersed on, right? I mean, currently right now, we're we're watching this sort of um antitrust nightmare happen with uh Paramount and Netflix and all this, you know, certainly with CBS News, the takeover by Larry Allison and um sort of um you know, uh anointing this uh conservative, moderate conservative Bari Weiss, um, who is certainly you know ushering in a new era of CBS News, one at one time the most illustrious, non-biased, you know, professional, rigorous journalism outfit that there was.

Donna Givens Davidson 30:44

Yeah, but so you didn't grow up when I did. When I grew up, there was Walter Crankite.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Sure.

Donna Givens Davidson 30:48

Okay. Walter Crankite said it, that was the truth. Um before that, you had other people. I want to just say a couple more things. McCarthyism was not just a thing. Um The United States went to war World War II, right? And we were there to theoretically fight the Nazis, right? So they became war criminals. There were sitting Republicans in the US House of Representatives who were fighting on behalf of Nazis then, accusing U.S. soldiers who had gone to Germany and risked their lives of war crimes for holding the Nazis accountable. The level of Nazism we have live in a nation where you not only had the Civil War, where people seceded and said, I will fight you before you take away my property, which is human beings, right? And then you had the crisis of 1876, where there was uh an agreement reached because the Democrats at that time, who represented the racist Southern planters, would not accept the results of the election until the Republicans agreed to remove the troops from the South. And all of the stuff that was said then, all of the lies that were told, everything that helped animate the KKK and then the Black Legion, we have to understand this nation of ours. Because when we say times have never been this bad, it's because we're not teaching our history. And we have got to understand our history for two reasons. Number one, to understand that things have happened before, and number two, so we know they can be defeated. If we believe that we now have less power than we did a hundred years ago, I'm here to say, No, we don't. I just want to say one more thing. I know we got to move on. Um, they're looking at me funny, but I just have one more thing to say. 1999, Tupac Shakur releases a song, Letter to the President, where he says, Listen, Mr. President, you're when I'm no matter who's president, my and I'm the I'm I'm paraphrasing, deeply paraphrasing, listen to it. It's a really good song. But my my hood, the hood is still the same. Doesn't matter who's president, who's president then? This is at the tail end of two terms of Bill Clinton. And you asked many black people, he was the first black president, everything was great. But Tupac Shakur was wrapping this in 1999. So we have to understand these things aren't new. We have to understand ignoring their issues is not new. And so here we are in 2026, feeling betrayed by them.

SPEAKER_04 33:30

Anyway, you better reclaim that power. I love it.

unknown 33:33

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

We're gonna take a break and then uh when we come back, we're gonna talk to Dexter Sullivan about Black, the Black Legacy Advancement Coalition.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Eastside Community Network is proud to support Rise Higher Detroit, a transition guided by community built on collaboration. Mayor Sheffield wants to hear from Detroiters and your input in this citywide survey will help shape what comes next. Stop by ECN and ask for Juanita to complete the survey in person. Or take the survey today by visiting our website at ecn-detroit.org. Winter classes have started at the Stadomer Wellness Hub. From chair yoga and strength-based fitness to nutrition, cooking, and wellness-focused classes, there is something for every person and every starting point. At the Stotomar, our hope is to offer movement, nourishment, and community to support you throughout the cold season. Learn more at ecn-detroit.org/slash classes. Or give us a call at 313-571-2800.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Welcome back, everyone. The roots of the Black Legacy Advancement Coalition began to take form in the heart of its founder, Dexter Sullivan, in the early 2000s. Then, in 2020, the world stopped as black residents were impacted at a disproportionate rate by two pandemics: COVID-19 and anti-black racism. Under the conditions of the lockdown, we could no longer numb ourselves with the routine obligations of life and career. Instead, we were forced to reckon with the physical, physiological, emotional, and spiritual ramifications of actively witnessing black lives destroyed without responsible parties being held accountable. Still haven't been held accountable. Against that backdrop, a group of black minds gathered seeking the comfort of community and fueled by a desire to move from protest to reform. With that conviction as its driving force, the Black Legacy Advancement Coalition was born. In addition to convening black Americans and their allies to create systematic change, they also hold space for individuals to use their unique skills and talents to generate sustainable solutions that will lead to lasting change. Further, they provide the tools, resources, and opportunities people need to shift from outrage to action. As a coalition, they are driven by passion, healing, and legacy creation. While they strive toward a bold and powerful vision, they are clear that their efforts will require commitment that spans decades and perhaps generations even. Still, they are committed to creating a world that builds on the legacy of our ancestors who fought and died for centuries in an effort to secure our civil liberties and equity. Dexter, how did this come? How did this come about? Tell it, take me back to the beginning in the early 2000s. How did you come up with the name? And how did you say, you know, I'm tired of being tired, let me try to fix it.

Break And Community Announcements

SPEAKER_04 36:46

You know, I think for us ever to tell the truth, we have to look as far back as possible. And when I think about my beginnings, especially when it comes to racial awakening and reckoning and blackness and power, I think about my grandparents, uh, who I'm still blessed to have, who are 92 and 90, uh still living here in the city of Detroit. Um, I think about educators that have shaped and formed much of who I am as a man. I think about my parents who fought for me to maintain my dignity and essence in black spaces, and then also made sure I was uh complex enough to be able to show up with people who look nothing like me. Um and I also look at major disturbances in my journey. Um the Black Legacy Advancement Coalition is really a 2.0. Uh we first started in 2010 formally programming this work, but prior to that, I was working with young black men being recidivized into society and coming out of prison. Uh that was a big part of my work um in college. And then in 2010, a good friend of mine, Ishmael Ali, uh, who I grew up with here in Detroit, was uh shot and killed, murdered here. And that was my inflection point that I had to do something significant. Um and out of that, thousands of young men uh received mentorship and scholarship and education and empowerment. Uh, ten years into that journey, the board. Um, I'm so thankful for many of those that have helped us to build this work. Uh, Tiffany Johnson, David Walker, Colton Barnaby, Dr. TJ Bradford, Adam Errington, Taquem Brookens, and the list goes on and on and on and on. Um, these individuals lent their genius, their intellectual prowess to make sure that we were putting the resources on the ground that were going to be relevant for the next generation to thrive. And it is together that we, the voices of many, were able to frame something that would help push the narrative forward. And there's so many organizations. When I walked in the doors today, here at Eastside, um, you know, this is a place of transformation. Detroit is blessed to have beacons of hope all across the city and all seven districts: East Side, West Side, uh, you name it. We have it going on. Um, and it's because of those that we'll champion the cause and lift those torches that we're able to move forward. So um we're just getting into the the journey and hopefully doing our part.

Donna Givens Davidson 39:28

Yeah. Well, um, I I was working with Kwine at the time that you soon soon after you formed, and so I was aware of your work and I'm certainly aware of hers. Um it's exciting to me to see you were talking today, and you said that you used to be young, or you're you're not as young as you used to be, or something like that. I was young once. We we all were, right? And I remember I used to be young. I think the reason I'm so passionate about fighting for young people in power is because when I was young, I didn't have any. And I remember my voice being marginalized, and so I'm still fighting um, you know, 40 years later for what I needed when I was 20. Come on. And um, and I think we all have to, but I I you are certainly a younger generation, bringing a new spin to the work that we're doing. Can you talk about what differentiates you from what came before?

SPEAKER_04 40:17

Wow. I would say different pain. I think about my parents and the struggles they faced, the hurdles that they crossed. Um, you know, I'm leaving here headed to my grandparents to give them their money. I went to the bank for them earlier today. And um, you know, there's no way you have a conversation with someone who lived through segregation and Jim Crow in the rural south, and great migration brought them to Detroit, and you don't learn something about endurance and resilience. It's just not possible. And so my pain is not that experience. They ensured that it would not be. But I have my own uh layers of uh pain, not in a sense of victimization, but in a sense of breaking new barriers that I think defines the construct of how you show up in your work. And now I'm learning from those that I have the privilege to serve about what is forming them because their challenges are very different than what my challenges were. And when I think about being a child in Detroit in the 90s, it's a party every day. Are you kidding me? The 90s in Detroit was lit. I don't care what nobody says. Um, and just, you know, going to the grocery store or the pet shop or the bank, and every clerk, every teller, every owner is black. You know, when I left Detroit in the early 2000s and moved to the rural south, you know, that was confusing because I was like, where are the black people thriving? What is happening down here?

Donna Givens Davidson 41:59

I I do have a question about that. I want you to continue your story, but I do have a question about that. I think that there's a generation of people who are your age who grew up hearing the stories of your grandparents and even your parents. And um, you grew up and you went away, and what you didn't really understand racism. Right. And you didn't understand that it was still so potent.

SPEAKER_04 42:22

No.

Donna Givens Davidson 42:23

And then you get there, was there a sense of betrayal when you found out, wait a minute, they didn't tell me this was still here? Like I thought you fixed the South.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

You know, my first experience, my first memory with racism, my parents would send us in the summers, they would send us to programs at Cranbrook, and then on Saturdays we had to go to the hood, and we did um our our cultural work and our arts, all of that happened in the in the city. And I can remember as a boy having this experience, I won't go into it because it takes too much time, and knowing for the first time that blackness was different. Um, and then I can think to the first time in a private Christian school being called. Um, I would say it, but I'm on your program, I don't know what my rules are. The N-word. And I immediately reflex was shut it down and try to do it without violence. But then moving to Oklahoma and starting my life there. Now I'm coming into racism that is more tolerable and black people that have become more placid to it and are actually kind of complicit in the way that they show up. And so that was very different for me because I'm like, oh, absolutely not. If you call me boy, we got a problem.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

You know, I went to Reminds me of Byron Donald's.

Donna Givens Davidson 43:47

I went to I went to um I went to high school in Farmers and Hills, Mercy High School, and so I knew racism, okay, because I absolutely in where it was like, you know, a favorite. Um, go back to Africa, you know, first. Okay. My grandmother said, tell them to go back to their caves. Okay. Um is what people fought too, right? But I went to South Carolina, to Charleston, South Carolina to a conference. Come on.

SPEAKER_04 44:12

That's where Sullivan's Island. That's where we're really from.

Donna Givens Davidson 44:15

So I'm in Charleston, South Carolina, and this man is walking me around. We walk to the market, and I find out it's a slave market, and I see all the black people there sitting outside in the heat weaving, looking like they were still on a plantation. Yeah, but they they didn't let them have air conditioning, okay? All the people inside were white and they were selling these dolls with watermelon faces, you know, the old, I mean, every kind of Jim Crow relic was in there. And so I was appalled. So then he took me over to an antique store and I'm looking up, and there's Bills of Cell framed of um of slavery deeds. And I lost it. And so I was like, excuse me, sir, the owner, who buys this? And he's like trying to do this. He said, Well, you know, lots of people went, but why? How could anybody put that on their wall? This man pulled me out of the store and he took me back to the hotel. He said, She didn't go act right. Exactly. This one they said, but you can't be coming down here acting like this. And I was like, I don't know why.

SPEAKER_04 45:13

I am screaming inside.

Donna Givens Davidson 45:15

But you know, and and and at that time, I looked down on them and it did not, I did not understand at that time that these in so many instances were beautiful people who were brilliant and accomplished, but they knew how to wear another face in public and they did not fight fights they could not win. Maybe they read the art of war. And so I understood that that was my northern ignorance, not really come on, you know, respecting who they were. And so I this is my apology to the people of South Carolina because I was mad at y'all for a minute. And yeah, you were mad at me. Like, girl, you can go home, take all this outrage with you. We're here.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

Now, what you're saying, I'm resonating with so much. My godmother, um, if I said her name, you wouldn't know her, very accomplished, um, here in the city of Detroit, took over a network of hospitals in Diversity in South Carolina, and those folks about ran her out of there. It was so brutal. They did not want it. And I think when you show up in a space where you have individuals like the program you were on talking before with uh Dr. Charles H. Wright and the work that he trailblazed and the rules that he changed through his intellectual prowess and ability to push the envelope. There are still places in this country that we will never understand the battles fought and the wars won that show up in a context that we may not be connected to. And it doesn't mean just because their progress isn't our progress that they don't have progress. But it looks different, it might be at a different stage.

Donna Givens Davidson 46:57

Our progress isn't our progress either. You know, talk about that. We look at things, but we have privilege, right? There's a whole lot of people living here who have no more privilege and sometimes less than the people we look down on in the South because racism is systemic and it's institutional, it's not geographic. And, you know, I'm sure I I'd love to hear your grandparents' stories. I am a fan of the great migration stories. You know, they came and they left pushed out of a place that, you know, so they were really refugees from a land that was not theirs, and they came here and faced a whole nother set of challenges in Detroit, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_04 47:31

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 47:31

Before you go on, and I I apologize because you were going somewhere in the story and I had to ask you that question. What what were your grandparents like? What what skills did they bring? What did they do when they got here?

SPEAKER_04 47:41

Oh my gosh. Well, I have to talk about my great-grandfather, Ivy Johnson, um, in his late 20s, he purchased 150 acres of land in rural Georgia. And within one year, he made his investment back by selling the front 15 acres to a white man who opened the juke joint, the Lacanga Castle.

Donna Givens Davidson 48:05

I'm hearing sinners now.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

And you know, 11 girls, two boys, he kept trying because he needed help with his farm. He got all girls. Um, you know, they made a living on that land. And then all of the kids worked in that restaurant and ran that restaurant. So by the time they started migrating north, they wanted a different quality of life. They lived well, but they wanted something different. They were coming here with business skills and cooking skills and uh all kinds of ingenuity that was almost game-changing for them. Um, some people know uh the club TV Lounge.

Donna Givens Davidson 48:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 48:46

Um, that's my cousin Tree. Oh. So Tree's mother and my grandmother are sisters. They came up here together. Um, 555 East Adams, where the Tiger Stadium is, that's where they started in a boarding house there. Um, and so when they were coming into the melting pot of Black Bottom and making their way, you know, it they worked harder than everybody around them. Because that's country strip. You don't know about country strip. That's different than city strip.

Donna Givens Davidson 49:13

You know, Isabel Wilkinson writes about that in her book, The Warmth of Other Sons. She writes about the fact that, you know, because migrants are usually the people who have the most drive and the most ingenuity and the most vision, migrants a lot of times push the envelope even farther. And so a lot of times when you think of migrants, we're thinking about migrants from other countries. But my grandmother used to say that she was, you know, born in another country. She's born in Memphis, Tennessee, in Alabama, rather. She said south of the Mason-Zixon line. That was a whole nother country for her, right? And so they brought that other country mentality with them to Detroit.

SPEAKER_04 49:46

And we hold that. I mean, my grandfather is 90 now, and he's from Alabama, Tuscumbia, Alabama, you know, Sticktown, uh, the eldest of 23. And the strength that he still has, when you walk in the door, everybody gets the handshake. When he shakes your hand, you better have some good knuckles because they're about to be crushed, okay? And I I mean, just the epitome of strength in our family growing up. Um, when I hear him tell of the things that he endured, his mother died when he was seven years old. He lived from place to place, you know, he found his way to Detroit, served in the Navy, came back and worked at General Motors, did the thing, raised the family, you know, uh, bought the car, sent him to college, all of that. Um, led in his community. We threw him a birthday party, I think it was for 85 during the pandemic, and cars just lined the blocks coming by to just salute this man whose life is.

Donna Givens Davidson 50:45

Eastsiders, Westsiders, where are you from?

SPEAKER_04 50:47

Westside, tiremen in Wyoming.

Donna Givens Davidson 50:49

She said, That's all right. I listen, I'm I'm a Westsider by birth. I I work here. Yes, I'm a transplant.

SPEAKER_04 50:55

They started over here. So east side to the west side.

Donna Givens Davidson 50:57

So we switched sides.

SPEAKER_04 50:58

Period.

Donna Givens Davidson 50:59

All right.

SPEAKER_04 50:59

Yeah. Um, but I I I look at his strength and the things that they've institutionalized in our family. You know, we walk around, there's hundreds of us here now. And I look at so many in their different spots, and they have those ingredients. They have that rural south making. Um, and sometimes you don't even know, Whitney, your own strength. And there's a it's coming from something connected to a very deep line that makes you who you are. You're showing up. Um, as Maya said, you know, there's many. Um, it may seem like one, but there's many.

Donna Givens Davidson 51:35

Well, I I I could talk to you, but I I want to meet your grandparents. I'm serious. Oh, I I am, I think it is so important for us to honor our ancestors. And I think that what I really love about what you're doing as much as anything else, is because you were using the word legacy. And you started out by acknowledging the importance of people of all ages coming together around things. The way I see it is I'm still in the game. I'm just not running the ball, okay? I'm just, you know, pointing out the way, calling some place. Right, but uh, but but but but with the tools that I have, I had to get an injection in my knee so I could walk. I'm not running anything, other than that, I felt better. And I said, I can run a marathon now. But no, I mean, you know, I think it's so important because that's really I always like to envision in my mind when I think of what's healthy, what our people were like on the continent.

SPEAKER_04 52:20

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 52:20

Before, you know, capitalism, before colonialism, and all those things happened.

SPEAKER_04 52:25

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 52:26

Living in a village where everybody had a role and everybody mattered, and everybody's kids were everybody's kids.

SPEAKER_04 52:31

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 52:32

And then the hierarchy was not the kind of hierarchy that left people out. Um, I've read books I've about, you know, people who are severely disabled and are still part of the community. You don't throw away people.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 52:46

And um, I think a friend of ours, um, Lauren Hood. Do you know Lauren?

SPEAKER_04 52:50

Lauren.

Donna Givens Davidson 52:51

Lauren has um started the the Institute for Afro-urbanism is her book. Yes. I mean her her her route. And she's doing a study on on black thriving. And at first I thought she was doing a study on black capitalism. I was like, girl, leave me out. But that was me mistaking thriving for capitalism, right? And wow, you know, I think the thriving.

SPEAKER_04 53:15

All these mics just hit the floor. That was that was good.

Donna Givens Davidson 53:18

Well, that was Lauren telling me, right, girl. No. Um, but it's the the way that we I I look at the Black Legacy Coalition Coalition as possibly being the engine that brings us together. And so, you know, the question I have I pray that happens.

SPEAKER_04 53:36

I pray that's true. So, how do we make it true? You know, you did something in your motioning as you were acknowledging African uh leadership at Paul Robinson Academy, uh, Dr. Ray Johnson, on time, on task, on a mission. I am somebody. Rest in peace, uh, Mr. Jackson. But uh they oriented us to some of those cultural practices. And anytime I've gone to the continent and I get to sit with native, native people that are still connected to how it has been done for generations, they orient to problems where everyone is in a circular motion, and that is how you ensure that no one is left out, and we are inclusive of all voices, but those straight lines get us in trouble because somebody has to be at the back of the line, and that's a problem. I think finding the circle, finding your tribe, finding your people. Um, I had a bunch of our young people over for dinner the other night, and I was the oldest person in the room, and I'm you know, we have to get used to that. Been there done that. Um I'm listening, I'm I'm the one facilitating that night. But even my form of facilitation, I'm I'm listening. Um, I'm I'm using methods that include them as the lecturer. And hopefully they're catching that so that when they raise up the next generation, that they too are listening and learning and growing together. And I think if we can find more of that, um, there will be so many solutions that we find.

Donna Givens Davidson 55:12

Shout out to Ray Johnson, shout out to Ralph. Oh my god, shout out to all of the people who are at Paul Robeson Academy, right? Because they changed your life, you were saying.

SPEAKER_04 55:21

Forever. There's no way I can be the same after having experienced empowerment. When you empower someone's life, whether through a book or inspiration, education, the music, the arts, your business, your craft, that person's life is forever impacted and it can't be reversed.

Donna Givens Davidson 55:41

You know, I I've got three sisters. I'm the only one who's as radical as me, but I'm the only one who had Miss Griffe in second grade, right? Miss Griffey had us singing Black Liberation songs. We were, you know, she opened my eyes in second grade, and it changed who I am. And it reminds me to remind people that your impact is so significant, even when you don't think it is. And the way I see it now is we're planting seeds. And the seeds don't grow everywhere. But when they do, look what happens. And so they planted some seeds in you, and you brought the Black Legacy Coalition together. What do you do?

SPEAKER_04 56:16

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 56:17

Talk about what you do.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

Pragmatically, uh, our work lives in two pillars: economic justice, social responsibility. We also find a lot of our work living job skills, life skills, affordable housing, and job placement. So in 2022, we were blessed to launch the Ali Legacy House, our first brick and mortar space for young men of color, transitioning. And that looks different. I mean, we have young men that are um college graduated and looking for the right opportunity. We have young men exiting prison and trying to find their path. We have young people coming out of foster care and trying to figure out what it is to live in family, um, all kinds of layers. And when you come in the room, you see uh somebody um that's earning six figures and thriving in their career that just still needs community and support. You got uh somebody walking in with J's you ain't never seen before. You got somebody walking in this um on hard times, but we all find our unity in the brotherhood. And this, I don't know if you'll believe this. When I was at Paul Robinson Academy when I started there, and I have a photo of this that I'll send you after this, in 1995, Dr. Ray Johnson commissioned a group um of men, and these men were mentors, they were supporting the school. And it was it was phenomenal. I remember them being around, but I didn't have any way to really internalize the messaging behind all of what they were about. Well, 10, 20 years later, I am now um in college and we start the man-to-man project, and that was just the name that came to me, man to man. And so we're going, we're doing this work, and I'm talking to Dr. Hubert Massey one day, and he says, Do you realize that what you're doing is the same thing that we were doing? And he sends me a picture, and on the picture is written man to man, and it was the same motto, the same ethos, the same work. I was six, but it marked me at such a level that it came back out of me. And um, I think that those are the things that you can't always plan for that happen. So that space, those brothers, I'm just so proud. We um celebrated 15 years last year. We had 500 brothers come out for our men's uh reunion and we honor Dr. Johnson giving him the legacy award, celebrating his life and leadership and legacy and what it means to so many of us who are still here. Um the Estella Boyd Home for Women, we opened in 2025 uh as a refuge for women to find healing and community, and they are they trying to show us up, okay? I'm just saying what it is. Women do it at least twice better. And so um their space is gorgeous. We're so proud of them.

Donna Givens Davidson 59:06

I am blown away because I didn't know about this, and I I admire what you're doing so much. It's like I could almost cry right now. This is so needed. Who funds this?

SPEAKER_04 59:16

That's a funny question. We still figured it out. Um, you know, we're not um we don't follow anybody's playbook or rule book. And my motivation and my drive is my faith. I I I wake up, um, I center, I ground, I pray, I talk to God, and we try stuff. That's literally what this is. And um, you know, we've never really followed the money first. We always, you know, found the vision before the money. But the money comes.

Donna Givens Davidson 59:48

You know, I used to work at the Federation of Girls' Homes and they they were founded. Delta House was founded by Deltas, you know, many years ago. Um before the government paid paid money. The Deltas funded these types of charities. And if you go back and you look at the settlement houses and the many things that were self-funded, not by the founders, because you don't have enough money yet. I mean, you'll you'll be a millionaire one day, but until you get there, you know, how does the community show up for this work? Um the community has to know and you have to create pathways for us to give. I think there's a lot of people who would contribute, and the most important money is the money you control, you know, where you don't have to write a you know evaluation report to explain why somebody hasn't changed the way you said they would, so you could get the money. Um I would be happy to, you know, just sit down with you guys because it's such important work. And again, you know, our ancestors survived worse than this, we know. Our ancestors behaved differently than this, we know, because they wouldn't have survived if they didn't. And so the question is what do we do at a time such as this when we know we're not loved by the people who run our government, the federal government? Well, we know the people who do love us in government don't have the power to fix what's broken, then how do we show up in a community level? And I I just think what you're doing, the self-help, the self-agency that I'm just gonna get out there and help people is simply beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:15

I gotta chime back on that because the word you use prominently was love. And when people ask me what we do, I say we're giving love away. That's how we do it. I'm taking that love that my grandparents, my parents, my family, my educators, my friends, those that are no longer with us, that love that they left, we are blessed, broken, and given. We are giving that love away.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:01:43

So your parent, your grandparents played a large role in raising you, didn't they?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:46

You know, huge. They would tell you if you go over there, I ain't gonna tell you the address, but if you go over there, they'll be we raised him. He's ours.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:01:54

You know, I the reason I say this, I've I can always tell when somebody's been raised by their grandparents, they act different. And you know, that's the argument for the um extend extended families and the value of extended families is bringing grandparents into the fold. I can see them in you, even though you are not close to their age. I can see them in you and the way you express yourself and honor them.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:15

She's saying I'm old, Sam.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:02:18

I'm not, you know, I told this, I told Orlando this. I said, Orlando, I know you were around some old people.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:24

Period. Okay. That's my brother, but he is an old man too.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:02:27

He is. Yes. Yeah, some exciting news for Orlando, but I'm not gonna break it. But yes, he's an old man. Yes, but he's you know, you I can tell. And I see it, I think it's beautiful. Did you have old you were with your grandmother?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

My she's born in 1929, the same year as Ann Frank and Martin Luther King. Yeah, um, her husband died in 2007. Um, and so yeah, I was not raised by them, but my mom actually moved me back from Baltimore to Midland so I could be, you know. Well, I mean, that's they could raise me, yes. Yeah, you know, she's 96 years old today. Um, and yeah, I think what a gift. I know, I can't believe it. Every day is just like I get to still call my grandma. I'm almost 30. Who would have thought? My grandma has been a you know, AARP senior above 65 my entire life.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:20

I don't think that we acknowledge um enough what a gift that is and how that changes. A lot of the young people that we serve don't have relationships with their parents, dead or living. You know, they don't have the layers of family and those breaks. Um, you know, there's a scripture in the Bible that says he sets the lonely in families. And we really, you know, they say you shouldn't necessarily use family in nonprofit because then you set people up for expectations and they'd be disappointed. And you know, we tried to be real safe with it. But at the end of the day, we're extended family. And when you need something, you find it.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:03:59

They say a whole lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

They do.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:04:01

Um, I think we have to be very careful about what we listen to. Um, I when I was at um the Federation of Girls' Homes, we were told that we had to have boundaries, and I'm around 15-year-old girls who were taken out of their homes because they were sexually abused and had no parent to love them, and they got connected to me. And the um the or old the person who ran the place would not let them see me anymore because she told me I violated boundaries because I cared about them. And I said, Ask me how it's ever wrong to love somebody.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:34

And how do you control that?

Donna Givens Davidson 1:04:35

You if you love somebody, that does not necessarily mean a promise. I promise to love you. I mean I promise to house you. I mean, I promise to, you know, and sometimes that love is enough. Sometimes, but I love you even so. So I think that love is not something that we should ration out. That's a very Western concept, and I'm not with it. I'm with, you know, trying to show love however I can. And when you give love, you receive it. And so I think that that's what you're doing. I know that the people who are part of your organization absolutely must love you. Um, what is your day job?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:09

This is it. Um, you know, I made a decision when I turned 30. Um, I'm 37 now, and I made a decision. I said, I've given the best of my years, I'm a young man, but the best of my strength to institutions that don't value me, and I'm trading what I have with an institution that's not going to give what I'm giving out the right way. I can't do this. And so I took a year, I packed my house up, I got in my car, and I traveled the perimeter of the country, um, just detoxing from capitalism and praying for a community that I could plant myself. And I had come home for the holidays and I wasn't trying to come back home because you know, sometimes you come home you feel like you failed or you know, that ain't big enough. And um I would be home all the time, but I was like, ah. Probably not gonna come live there. And just you think through um family long term, you know, putting my parents in a warmer climate, all that. So I'm here visiting. Um Thanksgiving. It was about 10 minutes into the visit. We hear rustling at the door. Someone tries to break in. Um, God gave us a miracle they couldn't breach the doorway, but they went across the street. Our fri our neighbors were having a um party and they shot the grandmother and the grandson. Grandson died fatally. It was horrible. And um my family that served on the police force said, You all were intended targets. You need to get her up out of there. So what started as like a three-day visit ended up being three months. And um during that time, I really started doing some soul searching and was like, I need to come home. I need to be here for a bit. And I came kind of kicking and screaming, but I finally came. And then I say life tricked me because the pandemic happened, and then I was here, and uh, we were hosting these conversations, and through them is really where we navigated to Black Legacy.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:07:09

That is amazing. Listen, we're gonna have to have you back because you and I could talk forever.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:12

But Sam has that ain't even what you asked me. I never asked you.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:07:15

No, no, but Sam has Sam has Sam has a heart deadline and we do.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

I want to get to sharing love. I want to talk about every week we do shout-outs. And this week I have a very personal shout-out to all of the people that supported Detroit One Million, all the people that continue to support Detroit One Million, uh, my local news website, 100% community supported. People asked me, Sam, why don't you, you know, approach businesses and you know, uh get ad revenue and do it the easy way, and why don't you ask, you know, Doug Song to give you money? I said, you know, I'm I think I I think the people are gonna give you the money, and they powered the purchase of my first home. I'm now a permanent, true, real e-sider. Let's go. Um I disclosed yeah, last week and moving all my stuff into my house. And it's amazing, it would not have happened without um all of the folks um from all over, not just Detroit and Michigan, but the United States, Canada, Mexico. I had people subscribing in Japan and China. But that's Australia.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:08:21

But that's because of you, Sam. It's not because it's because of you. And both you and Dexter have done something amazing, and that is you stepped out on your belief in yourself and what you can do. And I just really admired that. Um, you you lost your job.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:34

I did, yeah, I was working at Cushy Tech Company based in DC.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:08:38

Right. You what you could have done.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

That's Axios.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:08:40

Axios. But what you could have done is try to figure out how do I assimilate myself into a newsroom. Instead, you went hard for the people, and the people saw you speaking out. And the reason you can't work for corporate is because corporate will tell you to be quiet, and I know you can't be quiet. So um, we'll just have to keep on paying.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:58

Um, you have a shout out. Oh my gosh. I want to shout out my sister friend, Tiffany Johnson, who has been a thought partner with me in the evolution of this journey. And we've been knowing each other since we were children. Um, but her intellect um and her spirit, just the brightness, the light, and the brilliance that she is, is a big part of my journey. Um, and then our entire board, everyone individually. Um, we have board members here on the ground and those that are not, and all of their leadership helps me to be um able to be empowered to run with the vision daily. So yeah.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:09:42

Well, let me shout out our um communications team with Eastside Community Network. Come on. Okay, Eastside Community Network, they are transforming Authentically Detroit into audiovisual, they're transforming it into bringing other podcasts, um, putting in the hard work and the thought partnership to really say what can this be? And then um they yet on Saturday, they organized a party for Orlando, and you know, it was beautiful. So I, you know, it is now run by a team at ECN. Wow, and it makes all the difference in the world. I'm really excited for what's coming this year. And so, oh, let me name them Deanna Solomon, Michael Johnson, and Sarah Johnson. Woo!

SPEAKER_00 1:10:23

Yeah, and shout out to Griffin too.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:10:24

Oh, I'm sorry. Oh my god. Can't see him because he's behind the in our studio right now. I was thinking about Saturday. I was not thinking about Griffin. I am so sorry. Griffin Hutchins is our engineer, he does it every week, whether he's in town or out of town. He does such a great job. He makes it sound good and look good. I am so sorry, Griffin.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:46

Oh my gosh. I just want to acknowledge something again. Um, Orlando, I love him dearly, and I just so enjoy watching you all's um complimentary leadership. Um but the fact that Sam is here has taken the reins and is taking it to the next level, and we're still speaking well of him speaks to the healthiness of the organization and what you've built in the invisible that will make this possible when you're not even here anymore.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:11:19

And I had to think about that. When Orlando said he was leaving, I thought it's over. Is it gonna be over? How are we gonna be able to maintain it? And so um I went through my, you know, sadness. And then I said, go big or go hard. Come on, let's do it. I knew Sam was gonna be the co-host, but it's like, how do we continue momentum? How do you grow it? And it's like we can't, it's not gonna be what Orlando and I were, because Orlando and I were here at a certain place and time, right, and times have changed. And um, so let's make it into what it can be with bringing Sam, his personality, his gifts, and his um abilities into the table. And again, expanding the team because when you expand the team, that's how you institutionalize the work.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:03

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:12:04

All right, and I know we have to go, and I'm so sorry for being so talkative.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:07

Dexter, I'm gonna get your number um before we get out of here, and I want to connect with you on uh some stuff for Michigan Chronicle. I know you were awarded recently or honored by Michigan Chronicle. Was that last year or two? I don't even remember what shout out to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:19

Um Thank you, bro. Shout out to you, salute to you. Uh we're pushing for you, and anything we can do to support as you continue to go up, we got you, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:30

Well, thank you guys so much. We want you to like, rate, and subscribe to Authentically Detroit on all platforms. We will see you guys next week. Thanks for listening.