Honoring Men of Color

This year Community Celebration of Place explored new creative processes in developing this year’s theme, Honoring Men of Color. Our students were young male men of color who had the opportunity to hear and honor Elders Edgar Young Jr., David Branch and Reverend Richard Coleman at Lucy Craft Laney Community School. The entire creative process was captured by innovative filmmaker ADDAM in “Honoring Men of Color: Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song.”

We developed new artistic alliances with some of the great young talent in the Twin Cities area. Toki Wright, noted Hip-Hop artist, came in to teach and help create musical works with Julia Sewell, founder of SWAG (Scholars Working to Ascend a Generation). Jeremiah Bey, visual artist and storyteller, worked with the young men to create drawings depicting the lyrics of their original songs.

The students recorded their original works at the Harold Mezile North Community YMCA recording studio, an event that was a delight to the young men involved.

These recordings with the student based artwork are now featured on the following YouTube videos:

It’s Difficult to Go From A Boy To A Man

We Are Rich People

Just Be Proud

All three songs were published in a beautiful book, Honoring Men of Color by Young Men of Color. This book, along with audio CD, were featured at a school celebration that reversed our usual approach and honored the students.