- We got a lot of great stuff coming up for you on the next "American Black Journal."

The annual day to show pride in Detroit takes place next month.

We're gonna get the details on the ARISE Detroit Neighborhoods Day.

Plus, it's a milestone anniversary for the African World Festival.

We're gonna hear what's planned for this year's event.

And we'll see how the Detroit Food Academy is teaching more than cooking skills to young Detroiters.

Stay where you are, "American Black Journal," starts right now.

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

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

The 17th annual ARISE Detroit Neighborhoods Day arrives on Saturday, August 5th.

More than 100 events are gonna take place across the city including community improvement projects, school supply giveaways, art and music festivals, and resource fairs.

The events are organized by block clubs, community groups, and churches.

Hundreds of volunteers take place in this massive community service day.

I spoke with the man who came up with the idea for Neighborhoods Day, ARISE Detroit executive director, Luther Keith.

Luther Keith, I look forward every year to talking to you about Neighborhoods Day and the work that you're doing at ARISE Detroit.

Welcome back to "American Black Journal."

- Great to be back.

Thanks for having me, Steve.

- Yeah, so exciting event coming up again.

Remind me what year this is for Neighborhoods Day.

- This is the 17th consecutive year for Neighborhoods Day in Detroit.

We started in 2007, and a lot of people don't know this, Steve, but actually in 2007, then Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick issued a proclamation, officially making the first Saturday of every August, henceforth, as ARISE Detroit Neighborhoods Day.

So, it's actually a observable date for the City of Detroit and its residents.

- Yeah, yeah.

So let's talk about, for people who maybe don't know, what Neighborhoods Day is and why it's become so important.

- Well, Neighborhoods Day is a community-wide, city-wide community service day like any in the nation.

What's unique about it is that it involves literally more than 100 events, churches, block clubs, (indistinct) having events in their own neighborhoods, not at Belle Isle, not at Hart Plaza, not at a big golf tournament.

Nothing wrong with that, but this day was created strictly to appreciate the people in the neighborhoods, so they can feel appreciated and respected.

And so this day we ask all the churches and block clubs and community groups, which this day it'll be August the 5th, to have their own event to show how they're making a difference in their neighborhood.

Some people do clean-ups, some people have festivals, some people have school supply giveaways, resource fairs, job fairs, concerts, things for kids and activities for kids, old-fashioned block parties, meet and greets.

So each group does its own thing.

One of the unique things about this, Stephen, we started Neighborhoods Day, when you hear about it, the first thing that he says, "Where is it?"

Well, it's where you want it to be.

- It's everywhere.

(laughs) - What do you wanna do?

How long should we do it?

How long you wanna do it?

So it's totally...

The neighborhood people are empowering.

It's not coming down on high from some executive's office or some foundation or some corporation.

People in the neighborhoods, the little block clubs all over the City of Detroit and the churches, and we have many churches involved and businesses as well.

So that's what's unique about us.

So, you can get in your car, ride, as I do every Neighborhoods Day, all over the city and see all these incredible events.

The thing that I see wherever I go, people are smiling and they're happy.

And there's so much other type of news that (indistinct) with that this is a day to take a break, but I want to emphasize Neighborhoods Day is not about one day because this day people do this work all year long, but on this day, and I think I've used this with you, Steve, and it's a good one, so I'll use it again, your parents love you every day, but on your birthday you get the chocolate cake, and Neighborhoods Day is a chocolate cake for all the people and the neighbors of Detroit who do all this work this day, but we put the spotlight, and you and media play a very important part because this media coverage, again, is inspiring (indistinct) to get involved.

We have hundreds and hundreds of volunteers involved in these good old neighborhood groups all over the city.

And so somebody do something, they'll say, "Oh, why aren't we doing that?

"Why can't we do that?

"How can we get involved?"

And so the whole idea is to motivate people to not just sit on the sidelines, but to get involved.

And I think I've said this, I've used this analogy a lot, you know, Jesus is coming, but He's probably not coming tonight.

Okay, that means we have to be the calvary.

And so, the amazing things that hundreds of people, thousands of people, all of the Detroit believe in this every year.

So, by this Neighborhoods Day, we're there marketing over 3,000, think about it, over 3,000 community events since we started in 2007.

- Wow.

- Over 3,000.

You know, sometimes why aren't people do anything about the neighbors, the neighbors this.

Well, this is the day four people in the neighborhoods if you're serious about the neighborhoods.

Some groups form block clubs, you know, as a result of Neighborhoods Day.

And even if you don't have a block club, you can register as an individual by going to our website arisedetroit.org.

And for the $50 registration fee, you're gonna get banners, t-shirts, we've got a sponsor, we'll underwrite $100 of supplies for your cleanup and beautification projects.

All the events are posted on our website arisedetroit.org.

You can go right now and see each of it in real time, and the list is growing every day.

So that's a long way of answering your question, Steve, but this really is a special day, and we look forward.

I like to call it an iconic day, an iconic day because they aren't doing this in New York.

They are not doing this in Chicago.

They are not doing this in Los Angeles.

In Detroit and only Detroit like this.

- So one of the things that I think is really important, the message that's really important about Neighborhoods Day is when we're organized in Detroit, when we organize with each other, when we decide for ourselves what our neighborhoods are gonna be like and how they're gonna function, things go much better than when we're not doing that or when we let other people do that.

And Neighborhoods Day is really a celebration of that, I feel like, almost more than anything else.

- Yes, absolutely.

People ask me, "Well, Luther, what's a good neighborhood?"

Nine times outta 10, it's a organized neighborhood.

There's somebody there driving that car.

It doesn't have to be a big neighborhood association.

Sometimes it's a small little neighborhood, one little block.

But somebody has to say, "This is our block, and this is not even, "but we're gonna love it, "and we're gonna form a committee.

"We're gonna have (indistinct) coffee "and figure out what we need to "about the garbage pile up here "or a car driving too fast through the neighborhood "or public safety issues."

And one of the things we like is that we got a lot of cooperation from the city of Detroit.

Ron Brundidge who's head of the City Department of Public Works, he arranged for special pickups after the people who are doing beautification and cleaning projects.

They arrange for special pickups to drive through and pick...

Some people think we're the city of Detroit.

I have to remind them we are not the city of Detroit.

We don't have trucks to do that, but we have a good relationship with the city of Detroit and been very helpful with us in terms of making this day possible.

But you're absolutely right.

It's about taking kind of control of your destiny and not just saying, "Why don't they, why?"

You listen to the radio sometimes, "Why don't they, "why don't they, why don't they?"

Well, why don't you?

And so you don't have to do a big huge project.

You can do something small.

One of our board members, Toni McIlwain, who for years ran Ravendale Community Detroit, has an expression I think is very true.

She says, "Most people are waiting to be led."

Most people are waiting to be led.

So if you get up and start doing something, somebody else will start doing something.

And the whole idea is to be actively involved and engaged.

And that's the most important thing we want to happen happen on Neighborhoods Day, people say we are going to take control of this work.

Now we can't do everything, but we can do a lot.

You know, the mayor's not coming to my block, the governor's not coming, the president's not coming, my congressman is not coming, most cases.

So we're there.

So we had to take some ownership of that.

And the most inspiring thing is, Steve, to see these people, and I've made so many great friends all over the city, and you never know how you're touching people.

I can be in a grocery market and somebody will come say, "You're that community guy.

"What's that thing you do?"

And I say, "Really?"

People are paying attention.

So for me, it's very heartfelt and rewarding for me just to know that in some small way I can with all these other people out here 'cause it's really not on me.

And ARISE Detroit, you know, we are a very small organization, and we had the NAACP or (indistinct), we've got a paid staff of two people and some volunteers and the board of directors.

And all of us, strategically, we have put together this formula where we are motivating other people.

We are not trying to reinvent the wheel.

We don't have to create a literacy program because there's literacy programs all over Detroit that we can support and help.

You know, we don't have to create a gardening program 'cause there's gardening programs.

If we could give more visibility, more volunteers, and through exposure like this with you, then it helps raise all boats.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So we really are all in this together, and our thing is just, you know, you want a better Detroit, I want a better Detroit.

How can we work together to make it happen?

And that's all we are concerned with.

We aren't concerned about politics or, you know, who you vote for, all that.

We're concerned about one thing, better Detroit.

And if your heart is open to a better Detroit, that's how this happens.

And so, this day tells you that Detroit is full of good hearts all over this neighborhood.

People you may have never heard of or never will hear of, but out in their neighborhoods they're doing things.

What this day tells them, say, you are special, what you doing is special, and we wanna recognize it.

And we've been very blessed that the sponsors have come forward every year.

The people have come forward every year, and it's worked every year.

Now every year there's challenges.

Like even through the pandemic, we had people stay in your house and do something on your front porch.

Even with that, we still had over 100 events in the pandemic year.

So then we'll have over 100 again this year.

So, it's an amazing thing that Detroit should celebrate and be proud of.

I call it a day of neighborhood pride and neighborhood power because work's getting done.

There's parties and picnics, but also a lot of work too.

And it's like the old days of... We had old fancy barn raising, and they raised the barn, and then after the barn is raised, everybody sits around, has a good meal and (indistinct).

And that's gonna be happening all over Detroit on August 1st.

Now registration deadline is July the 15th.

But you can go to our website arisedetroit.org.

There's a $50 registration fee.

For that, you're gonna get your custom made banner with the name of your organization.

You're gonna get some nice t-shirts.

If you're doing a cleanup project, you're gonna get a voucher worth $100.

You can walk into a store, say, "Give me my $100 of supplies," and all the events are on our website, and we work with the local media.

I hire a video team.

I hire reporters, and I hire photographers.

So we chronicle all those things.

If you go through our website arisedetroit.org, you can find videos and everything of past Neighborhoods Days, so, it's a day where the work is done and also the work is celebrated, and the work is seen, shown, and heard.

- Yeah, yeah.

Luther, it's always great to have you here with us on "American Black Journal."

Congratulations on 17 years of Neighborhoods Day, and we'll hope to see you around the city.

- Okay, thank you, Steve.

Thank you supporting, and thank you everybody else out there viewing this, all your support to make this day possible.

- Detroit's African World Festival is celebrating a really important milestone anniversary.

This is the 40th year for the event, which will take over Hart Plaza on the weekend of July 14th.

The festival is put on by the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and it celebrates the arts and culture of the African Diaspora, "American Black Journal" contributor, Cecelia Sharpe of 90.9 WRCJ spoke with festival director, Njia Kai about this year's event.

- I am here with dear and respectfully called Mama Njia Kai, the authority on event production here in Detroit.

So, if you say Noel Night, Campus Martius concerts, Beacon Park, the dearly missed Detroit Festival of the Arts, African World Festival, you are the woman behind making those events happen.

So before we jump into the African World Festival, how did you get into event production?

- I graduated Cass Tech High School, went to DC for Howard University, and I moved myself from the pre-law program into the film directing program, and I really found myself there, and I lucked up on this little ad and it just a two line ad and said, you know, they were looking for a programming coordinator.

Then I thought, well, I can produce a film.

I'm sure I can produce an event.

I ended up with the University Cultural Center Association, and that's how I got involved with Detroit Festival of the Arts.

And I'm literally now completing maybe about at least 25 years as a consultant with what is now Midtown Detroit Inc., had been the University Cultural Center Association, and was the producer of Detroit Festival of the Arts, which was an event I just loved.

I'm so grateful to have been associated with that.

What's better in life than to do what I really love to do, and then it actually is a service and is appreciated and supports, you know, folks moving forward in their careers.

And I love when it does feed somebody.

- We have the African World Festival coming up, celebrating 40 years of the African World Festival.

Who were the minds behind the creation of the African World Festival.

Why was it so important for the African World Festival to be created in Detroit and how has it evolved?

- The first festival was held in August of 1983.

Catherine Blackwell, who is a revered ancestor from this city, she was the first chairperson for the very first African World Festival.

And I even saw the registration form for the first craftspeople who were making up the marketplace, and it was Ibn Pori Pitts who was the chair for the craftspersons.

So it was just a number of persons.

We are gonna definitely have all their names available at the event.

You know, we are really looking at the history this year, and we're going to actually have an installation, a big display on Hart Plaza during the festival weekend that the public can check out, the whole 40 year history of this event.

So we've been deep in the archives, and it has just been so thrilling to really recapture the story of its evolution.

- For those who are wondering what the experience is like at the African World Festival, take our hand and walk us through the tastes, sounds, and smells and sights of the African World Festival coming up this year.

- So this is a cultural arts event with something for everyone.

We have the Watoto Village, which focuses on our youth.

Watoto means children in Kiswahili.

We have Elder Village where we treat our elders as they should be respected.

We have Generation Next, which is where we really favor our older teens and young adults.

We have African cuisine, Caribbean cuisine, African American foods.

We have vegan and vegetarian foods.

We have specialty drinks.

And so we really look to focus on all of the arts, the theater, spoken word, dance, musical performance, both vocal and instrumental.

So we have all that going on, and we really work to bring a lot of different representations of the African world.

- I know that we have some internationally known, locally grown talent presenting and performing at the African World Festival.

- Of course, there's the main stage where Friday night as we're celebrating our 40th, we thought who else kicks off with the notion of a Afro future?

'Cause we're saying we're 40 years, but we're not stopping.

We plan to keep zooming.

And so who is that?

And sure enough, we were able to land Parliament Funkadelic featuring George Clinton.

We're really happy this year that one of our local internationally known groups, Underground Resistance, which is a organization that has fostered techno and hip hop all across the world from right here in Detroit, they're doing a special presentation on Saturday night to close the main stage.

And then our own Jessica Care Moore is curating the Friday night close of the Pyramid Stage, and she has Drey Skonie and The Clouds, and she has Somi who is not from Detroit, but a sister whose voice is so beautiful, we know that Detroiters who don't know her are gonna fall in love with her.

So I say the food, the entertainment, and the marketplace, those are the soul of the African World Festival, but the heart of the festival is the annual reunion because people come every year, bring their friends and family, and it's just a joy.

It's a beautiful spirit within this festival.

It's just an absolute pleasure to be able to provide opportunities.

And I'm that bridge.

I figured out at some point that I'm that bridge between people who have a talent or a skill or an interest and somebody who needs or wants that talent, skill, or interest, and I can plug it up and we can create something really beautiful.

- Finally, today, I look inside the Detroit Food Academy.

The nonprofit organization teaches culinary and entrepreneurial skills to teens and young adults.

BridgeDetroit reporter, Micah Walker, sat down with two of the instructors to learn more about how the academy uses the art of cooking to inspire young Detroiters to become community leaders.

- The Detroit Food Academy is a nonprofit that works to inspire youth, young Detroiters from the age of 10 to 24 through culinary arts and food entrepreneurship from cooking delicious healthy meals for friends and family to facilitating complex community conversations.

And our mission is to make sure that we build holistic leaders that are connected, they're healthy, and they're giving back to the community.

- And what made the two of you interested in joining the organization?

- I actually was approached by a friend who was a part of Detroit Food Academy already, and they told me that they can use more men inside the organization.

And I had the capacity at the time.

I had went to culinary school.

I wanted to find ways to kind of be more engaged in my community through culinary in particular.

And Detroit Food Academy kind of fit like a lot of the little things that I wanted to do with myself moving forward.

- And in 2020, I was furloughed from being at the restaurant.

And so I kind of didn't know what it is that I wanted to do.

Had did some meal prep for my own business during that summer, and in October of 2020, had the opportunity to come on board although we did have a common friend that had been working here already.

- What's cool about our particular curriculum is it's very much set up like an actual culinary school.

So we kind of start with the basics, then we go into different segments, so whether it be different proteins, fish, chicken, beef, we go through breads, we go through veggies.

So, each month we kind of focus in on a different part of culinary, and the students have the opportunity to create dishes based off of what we're studying at that point in time.

- Some of the items that the youth said that they really, really loved was making tortillas from scratch.

They always wanted us to do french fries.

Once they knew like how easy it was to make french fries, they're like, "We're never buying frozen potatoes again.

I'm going to make my own French fries.

We started with a theme and the youth threw out tons of but then came down to being like, We actually want it to be let's look into Detroit food and what you about what Detroit food means.

And so from there we started to have the Detroit anime themed - Yeah, the Coney bao bun was probably the most popular thing that I would say throughout the entire year, which was a bao bun that we cut in half and made into basically a Coney dog, and we topped it with some collard kimchi.

That was by far the students' favorite dish.

- [Micah] I know you guys run the Advanced Leadership Program.

What does that entail?

- Months and months of planning.

But our Advanced Leadership Program is actually where our youth who've been in the program for two years, they have the opportunity to come to the advanced side where we do more life skill focus based learning, as well as deep culinary skills.

- So these students have the opportunity to kind of further their culinary skills.

They've been with DFA for a while.

They've learned a lot of the basics, a lot of the knife skills, a lot of the culinary terms.

And at that point, we give them the opportunity to bring it all together.

And I actually do dishes more regularly.

So we cook once a week as opposed to once a month.

- As the program is running, probably about six months, we kind of give them the lead where they start cooking the meals themselves, and we kind of take a step back.

The youth for the advanced, they get the opportunity to do a a capstone project, but this year, thanks to Mr. Booze, we actually were able to develop a relationship with Frame.

- What is Frame?

- Frame is a- - Pop-up rotating restaurant establishment based outta Hazel Park.

They bring in different restaurants every month, and they also have pop-ups on weekend.

And they allow for people to kind of like basically do stages or monthly basis where they get to come in, excuse me, and operate their business out of Frame.

So it culminates in us having a five course dinner at Frame.

It's put on by the students.

So essentially the students come up with a menu, they came up with a theme, you know, we come up with the dishes, the actual ingredients.

We scale up the recipes to make 'em fit, feeding 50 people.

- There were a lot of different elements that we added in there too.

They created their own cookbook based on the recipes that they had developed for the Frame dinner, as well as one of our past events.

It was really much a lot of fun, and especially as we were curating the menu, we tested each dish.

-Its Beautiful -And so to have the youth go from, "I'm not for sure if I actually want to make that" to being like, "This is so good, "I can't wait to show my mom and tell my friends about it," it was like just to see that that level of engagement, that level of excitement just takes your heartstrings in a whole nother direction.

- So do many of the kids wanna go into culinary arts after taking the program?

- Out of our 20 youth, only four of them want to pursue culinary arts.

The other ones are just make making sure that they have those life skills.

- And we have one student who wants to become a master chef, right?

She wants to be the first black female master chef.

And to know that DFA and our advanced class provides a space for her to kind of develop those skills early, so before she goes out and gets a job or goes into culinary school, she kinda already has this foundation laid for her.

- So Jermond and Vee, what's the highlight of working at Detroit Food Academy?

- How Booze and I approach it is, what didn't we have as youth that we can use to infiltrate our youth to make sure that they have that and be well-rounded.

And so the highlight is being able to see them develop, being able to see them being powerful, being able to see them using their voices.

- Planting seeds for the future with them, knowing that you are investing in them in a way that will help develop them to be their best person down the line.

And then also watching them in community, watching them develop relationships, and watching them blossom.

- That'll do it for us this week.

Thanks for watching.

You can find out more about today's guests at americanblackjournal.org, and you can connect with us anytime you like on Facebook and Twitter.

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

(upbeat jazz music) (upbeat jazz music continues) (upbeat jazz music continues) - [Announcer] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

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

- [Announcer] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of "American Black Journal" in covering African American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and "American Black Journal," partners in presenting African American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

- [Announcer] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you, thank you.

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