Black Nouveau

(bright music) (upbeat music) Welcome to Black Nouveau. This is our edition for November. I'm Joanne Williams. You may remember Dr. Robert "Bert" Davis as the head of the Milwaukee Zoological Society. He's now president and CEO of America's Black Holocaust Museum. We have a conversation with him and a tour. We'll preview this year's Fresh Coast Classic, one of the biggest events in local high school basketball. We'll back at this year's Fatherhood Summit, which was held for the first time right here at the Milwaukee Area Technical College. And Dr. Patricia McManus, Milwaukee's former interim health commissioner, gives us her first interview since leaving that office. We begin with "See Me Because," an art exhibit designed to change the narrative around black and brown boys in the media. Alexandria Mason has the story. (hip hop music) -

Antonio

Well my portrait is like a motivational speaker. And like I wanna learn how to speak like in front of big audiences and the public and try to like help out people within the speeches to motivate them to do things that they think they can't do. -

Alexandria

17 year old Antonio Ponce de Leon dreams of motivating others to aim to achieve the impossible. "See Me Because" I want to change the world. I want to speak to people like to touch their heart in order for them to do what they want without giving up. -

Alexandria

His portrait is just one of dozens featured in the 2019 "See

Me Because

Art Start Portrait Project." Each piece brings to life the bright visions the young men dream for their futures. (hip hop music) -

Johanna

Me Because

We talked about the idea of doing the portrait project specifically in Milwaukee because of some of the very like stark social disparities here, segregation, the education and the achievement gap, and educational gap, but also specifically to support young men of color in the city of Milwaukee. -

Alexandria

Me Because

The exhibition tells the stories of nearly 20 African American and Latino young men imagining their lives beyond the challenges and stereotypes. These narratives are brought to life through retouched portraits paired with the students' own words. Every time when we turn on the TV, it's always something dark. It's always either a young black or Latino youth either dead, hurt, or they committed a crime and something like that. And it's like it's just dangerous out here. And I wanted to show that like sometimes you don't see everything like good happening. And that's when like the light flashes on me and like a couple other creatures that you see, the impossible. -

Alexandria

Me Because

Milwaukee Public Schools' Department of Black and Latino Male Achievement joined forces with the creative arts organization Art Start to speak to one of the department's key goals, changing society's perception of Milwaukee's black and brown boys. -

David

Me Because

We're providing them a platform where they're free from that world of stereotype and they can really share like this is who I am and this is what I'm into and here's who I aspire to be in the future. The Art Start portrait project begins really as a program. And the program consists of connecting young people to Art Start artists and mentors through the BLMA program in creative spaces. Thus we'll have visual arts, writing, singing and rapping, interviewing, and they'll pass through the stations every time we do a creative session for a full day. -

Alexandria

Me Because

The creative sessions help students let down their guards before going through a series of intimate interviews. Toxic masculinity 'cause it is a real thing, especially among communities of color, black and Latino male communities to you know you gotta be guarded. You gotta be this at all times and don't show vulnerability. Don't show that because it makes you look weak. This does, it kind of strips that element for our young men and it allows them to be vulnerable in a way where they get real emotional. I could talk about myself to friends, express myself the way I haven't done before to other people. -

Alexandria

Me Because

For students like 14 year old Lenard Horne, it's their first chance to really talk about what's going on in their lives and how they're feeling. See me to be a better person to follow my goals and follow my dreams and support my family and be the best I can. -

Alexandria

Me Because

Being able to express themselves in a greater depth changed not only how some of the young men saw themselves but also their behavior. After being in this program, I will say he was more positive. So if there was an uprising, in one specific incident, there was an uprising in the cafeteria and he was like really upset and a colleague mentioned Art Start. He literally stopped everything he was doing after being like extremely angry and not using the best academic language. So I know that this program had a positive impact on his life. It impacted me a lot in a good way. Because like I was like growing up not many people used to like care about me within school and stuff like that. They only wanted to see grades instead of like seeing like how you feel. And that's what BLMA did to me. And I just remember when I first met Antonio, he was real like quiet, real reserved. I mean you kind of see it today like he takes initiative. He's a leader. Like to see his evolution, it means a lot to me 'cause it just tells me that this work it's needed. (hip hop music fades out) First and foremost, I just really want to thank all of you that understand the importance of fatherhood, understand the importance of family, and most important I believe our children and what this is gonna mean for the future of the city of Milwaukee. -

Everett

Me Because

These are scenes from the 14th annual Fatherhood Summit that was held over the first weekend in October at the Milwaukee Area Technical College's downtown campus. There's work and areas that are needed for fathers that have space to grow, to share, and to have resources that they know are available out there. You hear a lot of resources for the mothers and very few for the fathers. So this is an opportunity to bring all those resources and partners to a space where the fathers can feel comfortable sharing and seeing like-minded fathers trying to do better and improve the lives of themselves and their families. Basically looking for resources for me and my daughter. I'm a father with full custody and just want to reach out to some of the fathers that's here or maybe some of the resources here maybe could help me in the future. -

Everett

Me Because

Ronnell is typical of the fathers that attend to get information and assistance in a variety of topics and issues. I stood up as a father not knowing what I was going to get into with the custody battle and the nature of the thing, but having my only. This is my only child and I was like I want to take on the battle and I went up against the system and won. -

Everett

Me Because

In addition to offerings like driver's license recovery, child support, and parenting classes, the MATC location provided an opportunity for fathers to get information about career and employment training. In an electrical employment program, you'll learn how to use conduits and box sizings and you'll learn how to work actually with the services where the energy is derived from the electrical service. If you can read micrometers, they're gonna pull you in. They're looking for people. I mean we get people, we get companies coming to us saying "We want your students!" You know, "We need people!" And "I can hire 100 people today!" Oh okay. - So there are definitely, definitely jobs out there. -

Everett

Me Because

That was good news for James Singleton, a father and grandfather who came hoping to find some career options. I found out I like the CNC operator you know setup, something like that. So I'm gonna look more into that. -

Everett

Me Because

The number of participating fathers may not have been as large as in previous years, but there's a sense of growth among the participating partners. We must be intentional to be inclusive about our fathers in the city of Milwaukee. And as our partnerships continue to strengthen and grow, I'd like that same message to be related throughout their network and their constituents that they work with such that we include our faith-based community, we include our health community, and all of the fathers in Milwaukee see this as an opportunity for them. And I think that that's just something we have to be intentional about and move towards as a planning committee and as a summit. This year, Milwaukee's Fresh Coast Classic is 13 years old! Joining us to talk about what we can expect this year are alderman Russ Stamper and one of the organizers, Donta Holmes. Welcome both of you. - Thank you. Mr. Holmes, you started planning this when? Right after last year's event. -

Joanne

Me Because

The day after, right? The day after (laughs). -

Joanne

Me Because

And it takes that much time? Yes, absolutely, we're still in planning. -

Joanne

Me Because

Why does it take so long? Lot of things, you have to make sure you have everything so that the next year's event is just as good or if not better than the one that we just had so we want to make sure that everything that we missed that one, we make sure that we got it going right the next one. So yeah. So Alderman, gives us a definition of what the classic is. So the Fresh Coast Classic is a huge tournament between the elite, inner city schools and the elite, suburban schools. And they come together and clash to play healthy competition in the game of basketball. But not only do we do that, we promote education and we also are excited to launch our sports academy this year. So it's a classic, the biggest tournament in the city of Milwaukee and I think in the Midwest. And healthy competition, good basketball, very family-oriented environment. It is good basketball, I've seen it. And you have boys' games and girls' games? Yes, this year we have two premier girls' basketball games. King is an elite school and what's the other team? King plays Arrowhead, which is always a good, has a pretty good girls' team. So they'll be playing each other Friday night. And then Saturday, we have two premier local, Northside schools, the Milwaukee Academy of Science, who has a couple of Division I prospects and Milwaukee Washington girls' basketball team who always also has a pretty good team. It is always fun. In previous years, there's been a college fair. But you're not having that this year. What's replacing it? The sports academy. So Donta and I do a lot of conversations and presentations and motivational speaking to young people. And as we go to the schools and try to motivate them to become successful, we ask them, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" "What do you want to do with your life?" And 80 to 85% of the time, they always say basketball player, I wanna go to the NBA, I want to go to the NFL, or I want to be some type of rapper. (laughs) So we took that and decided to build off of it and say hey let's start a sports academy and then teach the young people that you don't have to be LeBron James or Kevin Durant, but you can be in the industry around sports like a sports agent or a therapist or a communication guy or statistician, all different types of jobs in that industry to be around the sport that you love. So we're excited about that this year. So how is it going to run? How are people going to participate in this academy? Sure, so we are partnering with the Milwaukee Bucks this year. And we're going to, they're actually allowed us to utilize their facility to host some youth from the city. We're going to have them come in and they're gonna speak to individuals from the sport operations and also the business sides of the sport industry. Now where is this all going to take place? -

Donta

Me Because

At the Pfizer Forum. Really> Yes. They have a beautiful training facility or practice facility as well. So we'll hold workshops in there and different people from their respective jobs will come in and talk to the young people about what they do. Will this also be going on at the same time as the games or before or after? No we're looking, we're actually looking to solidify the date now, but it's probably gonna be the week before. So it'll probably be, we're looking at the Friday before, which is the 22nd. But we're looking to do it like the week prior to the actual classic. So the academy will be November 22nd. -

Russ

Me Because

Yes. And the classic will be what dates? -

Russ

Me Because

The 28th and the 29th of November. -

Donta

Me Because

29th and 30th. -

Joanne

Me Because

29th and 30th. - Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving weekend! Get you some turkey and some dressing. Then you get up and come to the Fresh Coast Classic. -

Joanne

Me Because

And it's gonna be played where? -

Donta

Me Because

At the Novak Family Field House at Brown Deer High School. -

Joanne

Me Because

Okay and it starts - Thank you to Brown Deer and shout out to them for partnering with us this year. All right, that's the Fresh Coast Classic. Yes! The 13th year of the Fresh Coast Classic. Congratulations for having that many successful years and I hope you have a successful one again this year. Thanks very much for joining us! Thank you! - Thank you so much Joanne. (upbeat music) When you're an ambassador, you say this is important to me and it should be important to you. My time in Milwaukee was very well spent. I had the opportunity to work at one of the county's primary assets and that is the Zoological Society Milwaukee, which is the business partner with Milwaukee County Zoo. I enjoyed the nearly 11 years that I was here and was very, very happy to know that we successfully touched the hearts of thousands of students. Now millions of visitors, but more specifically, thousands of students. So this first initial exhibit talks about the cradle of life and where life began, which we know is the continent of Africa. -

Everett

Me Because

Dr. Robert "Bert" Davis is back in Milwaukee as the president and CEO of America's Black Holocaust Museum. It is significant and it is relevant that we re-emerge this museum not only in his memory but in the fact that America needs this. And this is America's Black Holocaust Museum. This is just not Milwaukee's Black Holocaust Museum. -

Everett

Me Because

Since leaving Milwaukee, Dr. Bert served as president and CEO of two Iowa organizations, the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquairum and the Dubuque Historical Society. He's a board member of the Association of African American Museums. He was recruited for this position at the museum. One of his main objectives is to educate and enlighten. But when I told my friends the legacy and the story of Dr. Cameron being one of the only known survivors of a public lynching and then the only person in the United States to ever write about it, their reactions to the person is "What?" And their second reaction is "How did I not know about this?" That's why I'm back. -

Everett

Me Because

He gave us a brief tour. Some of the exhibits reflect the horror of the Black Holocaust. Okay, this is by far the most significant exhibit of this entire museum because this brings Dr. Cameron's book, "A Time of Terror," illustrated through a campaign of terror exhibit to life. So this is a depiction of what his actual experience was being one of the only known survivors of a lynching and then to write a book about it. So this is significant for not only chronicling his life, but it's also very significant because it demonstrates that throughout the United States for a period of at least two to three generations, not only were people of color, especially black people, denied certain unalienable rights, they were terrorized to a point that they couldn't, we were not able to vote. We weren't able to prosper. So it's one thing to deny me an opportunity. It's another to terrorize me and my family and keep me in a certain place in life. So this is a continuation of the lynching exhibit. This is extraordinarily significant because this depiction of a tree, and the song "Strange Fruit," which was written by Abel Meeropol but performed by the legendary Billie Holiday, it speaks to the fact that black men hanging from trees are strange fruit. The more significant part of this is not only the depiction of a tree, but this particular photograph right here. Because this is the photograph that was taken on August 7, 1930, in Marion, Indiana. This is in fact the lynching that Dr. Cameron survived. -

Everett

Me Because

And some reflect the history and resilience of a people. A lot of the history that we have chronicled in the exhibit space does not have any direct effect on a lot of our visitors, but this one actually does. So number one it primarily shows you and demonstrates the basic migration patterns, primarily from the Deep South, although there were migration patterns from the East. But this is primarily from the Deep South. And what's very significant is that you can see that many people that came to Milwaukee started in Mississippi, traveled through Tennessee, up through Kentucky. They either went west I mean east over to Ohio and then extending up into Pennsylvania and Michigan and the Virginias. But then what we also see is a lot of the people went left or west, went in through Indianapolis, stopped off in Chicago, and ended up here in Milwaukee. So it not only demonstrates the migration patterns throughout the United States, primarily of African Americans, but more specifically, we can trace a lot of the people who are Milwaukeeans can trace their roots to the Deep South. -

Everett

Me Because

Since the new building was finished, there've been a number of visitors and groups that have visited the facility. But the big question is when will the museum officially open. But I would say by the end of the year, there will be a rollout plan that will be made public. We've got like I said some ideas that we've got quite frankly to vet through the board and some of our key advisors and donors because we want this all to be synchronized. And quite frankly, we get one bite at the apple. And we want to make sure that this is really a significant series of openings leading up to the grand opening. (upbeat music) Since 1988, Dr. Patricia McManus has headed the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin. In February of 2018, she became the head of the health department for the city of Milwaukee. She served for more than six months in that interim position. She joins us for her first interview since leaving that office. Thanks for joining us. Oh you're welcome, you're welcome. So when you took over, things were in a mess. Can you describe how bad things were? One of the things about it was that even in terms of how I got there probably denotes a little bit of the mess that it was in because there was an issue between the council and the mayor and the mayor didn't want me there. So even trying to figure out everything. You know everything's in the paper about the lead issues and the kids not getting you know screened and some of the other things that were going on. So part of that was even figuring out, I knew it was a mess, but even what the mess was, you know, and how, what was going on and trying to get information from everybody. With the previous commissioner leaving, Bevan Baker, who's a good friend of mine, understanding as I got in there some of the real things that happened as to why some of the things he wanted to do he couldn't do. And I actually got some of that same stuff when I got there. I was able to see a little bit more of what happened, although I was different than him. So I was able to deal with some of the issues more. Even in terms like you're saying the interim position. The position wasn't interim. I was the commissioner, which people had a hard time saying that, but when I got sworn in, the city clerk wanted me to understand that there was no such thing as an interim position, you know. And he said I need you to understand that that you are the commissioner and I'm in there. And so you had folks who always, the mayor always wrote interim. He didn't want me really to do anything. We had a conversation before I got in there. And it's kinda like well I'm not there for that. I've got to, I think I got asked because people know I do things, you know what I mean? How did that conversation go with the mayor? Well it was clearly you know he was upset based on how the Common Council had voted. And so he asked to meet with me. And this is before, while he was making his decision on his different options. So I came and I brought Clarene Mitchell, who was my right-hand person you know to come. And then that was when Pat Curly was still there. And so he said well when we go up to go into the meeting, he said, "Oh no no, she can't come." And I'm like well why? Why can't she come? I said so it's just going to be the mayor and me or are you gonna be there? You know and of course he goes, well okay Pat you know. And I said so I thought well I'll just leave it, I'll see. But as we got in there, I had a list, I'd given him a letter, I had a list of things, goals that I thought depending on what I could do. And part of that was figure out what the mess was when I got there, make recommendations on what I could do you know while I was there and then also recommendations that are more longer term that whoever's gonna come in and be the more permanent person could do. So that was my goal, but then he said to me. He said, "Well I don't want you "to do anything while you're here. "I don't want you to change." And I was like excuse me? I said well that's not what I do. I'm assuming I got asked to come in here not to sit here, you know. So I said you know so I said I'm very clear, I'm not doing that. And I thought he understood that. By even within the few months I was there came an issue before and that's when he said, that's what I said, I said you really did tell me you didn't want anything to happen. 'Cause like for instance I told him the person who was second in command from Bevan, I made it very clear to him I needed her to stay. You know 'cause this was February when I was there. The manager, the budget manager had left in December. Worst time for your budget person to leave, right, is in December when you don't know what happened the year before. Even putting the budget together for the next year. So I needed her there and he made sure that he moved her right away, but then I found out that the reason he moved her because a lot of the stuff that was going on she was responsible for so. So it was a couple of big issues that you had to tackle. - Large issues. You know it was the lead and making sure the parents were informed that their children were exposed to lead. And it was also this cluster of syphilis and HIV among young people. How did you tackle those issues? Well even then, and you mentioned the cluster 'cause it wasn't really a cluster. 'Cause a cluster is different you know in that all the people in that have to have the disease. So even when I found out I'm like you can't use that you know as the term and they were using that. So just getting people to even not get in front of the cameras and talk about things that they don't know about as much I found was problematic. I found you have a lot of people who are entrenched in there, who've been there. I found people who don't like to work with black people, including me you know. And they talk about you're watching all this stuff on TV you know about the deep state that they're talking about you know all the time. I thought, mm, this kind is probably what that looks like because you got people embedded in there. And I thought poor Bevan, my god. How'd he get anything done? Well let's talk about that. You know you've been viewed as a person that sometimes is difficult to work with. -

Patricia

Me Because

Yes. What are some of the misconceptions that you have or that people have about you that you would like to clear up? Well I think sometimes I am difficult to work with because I'm not gonna go along with the status quo. I'm not gonna do what people want me to do if it's not right for the community. When I was there at the health department, health is extremely important to me and I can't look at health through a political lens. So or even when I'm not at the health department. It may because I'm always looking at the community first. And I find that that's difficult for people. They wanted you to work and do what they want to do. Very honest, that's how the Black Health Coalition got started you know for me to be in an organization where I could advocate and do what I felt was important for the community. Have I paid for it? Yes, it's hard to get funding. Not to mention the grant we just got taken away from us. You know but it's, you pay, that's part of it. But I think most people know that what I care about 'cause about, gee, it had to be about 15 years ago. A new person came for Next Door Foundation. Somebody mentioned I should meet him you know. So I met him, white male, and I was talking a little bit. He just stopped me right in the middle and said, "You're nothing like they told me you were." And I said what? They told me I was a racist, that I was hard. Well he said yeah. He said, "You're none of that. "You just know what you wanna do straight up." So that kind of answers that. -

James

Me Because

Join us online as we continue to talk with Dr. McManus about the most important health issues facing Milwaukee's African American community. Join us for our next edition Thursday, December 5th,

at 7

30 here on channel 10. We'll preview Black Arts MKE production of Black Nativity. And give us a call at 414-797-3760 and let us know what you liked and what you didn't like. We'll be glad to hear from you. That's our program for this month. For Black Nouveau, I'm Joanne Williams. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)