Black Nouveau

(warm inspirational music) (upbeat intense music) (upbeat intense music) - Good evening, and welcome to the December issue of "Black Nouveau."

I'm James Causey, and I'm in for Earl Arms.

This month, we will reflect on the lives and service of two Milwaukeeans we lost.

Bishop Sedgwick Daniels, founder of Holy Redeemer Church of God and Christ, and Ronnie Grace, LGBTQ activist and HIV health counselor at Diverse and Resilient.

We also discover the art and artistry of Rosy Petri.

But we begin with a short film by Justin Goodrum, "The Stigma of the Durag."

(upbeat funky music) - My name is Justin Goodrum, and I'm a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and cinema verite cinematographer.

(upbeat funky music) As long as I can remember, I've either worn a durag, or have had peers who wore one.

(upbeat funky music) Whether it be worn to keep your hairstyle, like waves, intact at night, or fashion accessory worn during the day.

(upbeat funky music) But not once have I thought that most of the world truly didn't understand.

We're here downtown Milwaukee to find out what a durag actually is.

Stay tuned.

- [Red Mask Person] I think it's been associated in the media, like movies, as sort of like a gangster thing.

- [Justin] What is a durag?

- Apologize, I don't understand what a durag is.

- [Justin] Okay, what would you think it is, if you had to guess?

- Something for an auto car?

- No.

(laughs) - I have no idea.

- [Justin] What do you think it is?

- How do you spell it?

- [Justin] D-U-R-A-G. - Durag, I don't know.

- I think it's something you put on your head.

- Yeah, exactly.

- It is, really?

- [Justin] Yeah!

(laughs) - Oh, to cover your 'do.

- A head garment.

- [Justin] Okay, what is it for?

- Waves.

- [Justin] Okay, there you go, most people we asked today really doesn't, don't know what it's for.

- Hey, I mean, I got curly hair.

- Kinda came over- - How does it affect the hair?

- Well, it lays it down.

- Oh, okay.

- Durag's a handkerchief that you put on your head.

- [Justin] Okay, okay, what is it for?

(siren blaring) - Protect you from sweat, I don't know.

- It's a time and place for everything, you know what I'm saying?

- Yeah.

- It's something like that shouldn't be worn out in public places, because you will be judged.

- [Justin] Do you think there's a stigma behind durags, or durag wearing?

- Oh, most definitely.

- It doesn't matter what's on your head, it matters what's in your heart.

- [Justin] Yeah.

- That's it, if we, that's where we gotta come from.

- Some kinda headwear, I mean, I've never worn one.

As far as for the stigma, you know, I don't have a stigma, personally, you know, but that's just me.

Do other people have a stigma?

Maybe.

- What is a durag?

- [Masked Perso] A durag is a stamp of black culture.

It's the simplest way I could put it, it's a stamp of black culture.

- [Justin] But not once have I thought that most of the world truly doesn't understand why.

And oftentimes associate wearing a durag with thugs, criminals, and gangs in the minority groups.

- An Edmonton Catholic school under fire after a black child was allegedly told to remove his durag due to gang affiliation.

- [Person] You don't see, you know, an 11-year-old boy and ask him, are you affiliated with a gang, because of her hair garment.

That's not a question that you ask a child.

- [Principal] But there are children that age that are part of gangs.

- [Journalist] You hear the principal repeating the assumption that durags represent gang activity.

Amel has not been to school since.

(person laughs) (students laughing) - Black culture to another level, look at us!

Look at!

(laughs) (students laughing) You're waiting for, wearing your waves, lemme see, check them, check them, show them, show them.

- All waves!

- Show your wave, show your wave.

- Yeah, buddy!

- Oh!

- Oh!

(group laughing and shouting) Oh!

(laughs) Wave check, look at this mother!

(laughs) This is crazy!

(upbeat funky music) I kinda fly standing next to you Baby girl, how do I look in my durag Won't you tell me the truth Stay with me and love me through (brush rustling) - [Justin] This became a reality for me my freshman year in college.

With high enrollment that year at the predominantly white college I went to, I was roomed in the lounge with four others.

And at night, I would put on my durag, just like I have as long as I can remember.

Not long after living together, one of my roommates asked another roommate if I was in a gang because of it.

Although gang members do go to college, the only action there myself was wearing a durag to be considered a person in that group.

But what happens if a potential employer sees you wearing one, or an officer stops you with one on?

Will they understand?

Or would things take a turn for the worse because of his association?

- We are now joined by film's creator, Justin Goodrum.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

- So, what surprised you about the film?

- I guess what surprised me is some of the responses I got when I interviewed people.

You know, I always thought that this is what they thought, but to actually hear people say it, or not know what it was completely was kinda surprising, but it's somewhat guessed it though.

- So, at school, when you were at UW Whitewater, you wore your durag.

- Yeah.

- What was the response to you wearing your durag on campus?

- Well, so, oddly enough, I didn't wear it on campus.

I happened to wear it in, you know, wear it to sleep, so, for my hair.

- Okay.

- And I had roommates, white roommates, and he asked me, or he asked one of my friends, like, oh, is Justin in a gang because I wore a durag?

And it wasn't a malicious, or anything like that, he just really thought I was in a gang because of it.

And you know, years later, when I'm putting some of my experiences and things into my work, that's one of the subject matters I pulled from.

- So, what other stereotypes are you trying to dismiss about the durag?

- That people that wear it are in gangs.

(laughs) Like, either they have the long haircut where they're trying to get waves, or braids, or dreadlocks.

So, just that it's a simple, I guess, head garment to help keep their hair kept.

- [James] Okay.

- And if you happen to see somebody wears it out, don't stereotype them.

- So, this is a interesting question.

A lotta women have been criticized for wearing bonnets outside the home.

(Justin mmhmms) How is that different than wearing a durag outside?

- I don't know if it is a difference.

I think maybe somebody should fund, (laughs) fund another project on bonnets, or what people think about that, and the stereotypes behind it.

But I think it all just stems from something that somebody puts over their head, so you recover, or keep a hairstyle, which shouldn't have a negative connotation behind it.

- So, young filmmaker, what else are you working on?

- So, current project I'm working on is my first feature, a narrative film, or fictional, called "Christopher."

And it tackles the stigma in the black community around mental health, and mental illness.

- Okay, well, thanks for joining us, appreciate it.

- [Justin] Thank you, thank you, thanks for having me.

(upbeat intense music) Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh-nuh, yeah - You know, when I was a kid, I was called different names, and I didn't understand because that, where they came from.

I knew I felt different than a lot of the other kids, and so I went into the dictionary, and then into the encyclopedia, and there was like this, like, one line that said about homosexuality, it said that homosexuality is a sickness, it's a illness.

And so, I took that with me, that there was something wrong with me.

- [Scottie] But things have changed.

Now two cameras are fixed on him as he slowly spells out his name.

- My first name is Ronnie, R-O-N-N-I-E, last name is Grace, G-R-A-C-E, - [Scottie] To make sure we identify him correctly.

- And now, you know, I bring, I can bring my whole self into a situation, bring my whole self into any doors that I walk through, whereas there was a time where I wanted to hide my identity, because of all the stigma that exists in, you know, in the world.

- [Everett] This is one of Ronnie Grace's last interviews taped around Pride Month last summer.

Ronnie died in November from stage four cancer.

During his lifetime, he fought for equality just as fiercely as he fought the HIV virus.

He spoke with "Black Nouveau" in 2014 to talk candidly about his journey with HIV.

- I tested positive, it will, what, it's over 28 years now.

September 17th, 1987 was the exact date I got tested in a time when technology was new around HIV testing.

So, initially, I thought I had gotten what they called a false positive, but unfortunately, it was not a false positive.

But I went into denial about my HIV status for several years until I started manifesting some health issues.

- Ronnie Grace was living in Los Angeles when he tested positive for HIV.

Openly gay, he worked in the entertainment industry.

Like many of his peers, he went into denial.

- I was just scared, and that was the way that I dealt with it.

It was just the fear of having a disease that people were saying at the time that we would live maybe six months with.

And so, I didn't know how to discuss it, I didn't have any information around HIV at the time.

So, I just figured if I just didn't talk about it, I figured that it might go away, or that I was one of those people who had gotten a false positive.

And I just started using condoms, you know, to protect myself, and to protect my partners.

- [Everett] Ronnie moved to Atlanta, and eventually fell ill. Then his family stepped in.

- I actually had tried to commit suicide after finding out about my HIV diagnosis, and becoming clearer about what it meant to have HIV.

And so, my mother sent my brothers to Atlanta, where I was living at the time, and she said, I want y'all to go down there, find my baby, and don't come back to Milwaukee without him.

And so, they brought me back here.

I got into care immediately, and that's when I found out about that not only that I was living with HIV, but I was given an AIDS diagnosis, and I was told at the time, my, I wasn't doing really well.

I was down to maybe like 120 pounds.

What turned it around was the unconditional love, support of my family.

My mother in particular was just, just an amazing ally, and support system, and my siblings, and I got into care.

- [Everett] Ronnie works at Diverse and Resilient with a team of professionals that offer testing, counseling, and support for transgender, gay, and bisexual men with HIV.

- African Americans accounted for over 46% of new diagnoses in 2011, and 72% of those were transmitted by men having sex with men.

- The stigma, it's still off the chain, as a matter of fact, hmm.

Just last week, I was told that one, someone that I normally test found out that I was HIV positive, and did not want to be tested by me anymore.

- [Everett] Ronnie is careful about his diet, and follows a strict regimen.

- For those of us who have managed to figure out ways to stay here, to stay healthy, and take our meds, and do the things to keep us here.

It's like sometimes, many of us feel like we're forgotten, because so many of the efforts, and so much of the outreach is to younger demographics.

And so, we still deal with issues around losing really close friends, and family members.

When I first developed the virus, it was like, why me?

And now it's like, why not me?

And then sometimes it's like, I just have so many feelings (tense piano music) around still being here, and watching the impact that the virus has had on, you know, the African American communities.

- [Everett] And Ronnie served Milwaukee's African American LGBTQ community at Diverse and Resilient for almost two decades.

(no audio) (upbeat intense music) (sewing machines whirring) (upbeat energetic music) - [Alexandria] For artist Rosy Petri, home is where her art is.

(upbeat energetic music) (sewing machine whirring) - Oh, I messed it up.

Sometimes I still mess up.

It's still hard.

I am 36 years old, (upbeat energetic music) I have moved 37 times in my life.

So, home as a concept was nebulous.

And I thought that (upbeat energetic music) anything that I made with my own two hands was a thing that was home.

And in a real sense of the word, like, home should be paradise.

- It's in the comfort (upbeat energetic music) of this Harambe home that doubles as her studio that she's been able to build a creative oasis with a fitting name.

- So, Paradise Home (upbeat energetic music) is what it became.

(sewing machine whirring) I've always made art.

I love making, I love putting things together in surprising ways.

I didn't really realize art was a job, so I did it as a hobby, mostly at home.

(upbeat cheerful music) My artists were black people.

It just is, I think when I started, I think that that was kind of my objective was to just like (upbeat cheerful music) create iconography of like, black people just living, like, living, and being joyful, making history, (upbeat cheerful music) breaking records, whatever, whatever that thing is that's just like, I think that it's sacred to show black people thriving and living.

So, that's who it's for.

(upbeat cheerful music) (sewing machine whirring) Basically everything that I was making from the first one, to Bell Hooks, to everything at the Pfister, was made on a secondhand machine.

(upbeat cheerful music) And this was me wanting to be able to work bigger.

(upbeat energetic music) So, primarily I work in fabric, I do use printmaking, I use digital media, I also have started painting recently.

I love ink, I love materials.

(upbeat energetic music) I will use whatever I can get my hands on.

All right, I'm gonna do my little manual, okay?

I made my first quilt in high school.

I had seen my grandmother quilt.

(upbeat energetic music) My mom's mom, she was from here.

And then my grandmother from Mississippi had these old southern quilts, like those big heavy patchworks with the red ties, (upbeat energetic music) and something about using fabric, it feels, it feels real human, you know, it's something that we all have access to that we touch every day that was really accessible, I think.

(upbeat energetic music) So, it wasn't intimidating, and I just jumped right in.

And that kind of love for fabric grew (upbeat energetic music) when I moved to Detroit, and I was working in the dress shop, I had never seen African fabric.

And I worked there for a year, and I just like, (upbeat energetic music) learned so much about it, and it just, it hit all the boxes, like color, rhythm, pattern.

It's so exciting.

(upbeat jazzy music) My art is loud.

It's loud like, it's loud like a Nigerian auntie, you know what I mean?

Like, it's, (upbeat jazzy music) it is, it's something that stops people in their tracks, and I don't know that that means I'm like the best artist, or whatever, but I think it surprises people, and it delights them (upbeat jazzy music) with how noisy it is.

- [Alexandria] And that artistic voice is making noise around the city.

In 2019, she became the first black woman (upbeat jazzy music) to be named the Pfister's artist in residence.

And the following year, in 2020, she was named a Mildred Harpole Artist the Year by the city of Milwaukee.

(protesters shouting indistinct) - [Alexandria] But her newfound notoriety, paired with the 2020 pandemic, and racial uprisings, led her to a career turning point.

- [Rosy] It just tore me up.

(protesters shouting indistinct) - It tore me up.

It tore me up on so many levels, and I think it changed what the message was.

I had taken on a lot of commissions, because I needed to pay for my sewing machine, but I just felt like I was losing the direction of my voice, and I felt like, I felt obligated to say yes to things that I didn't think I was the best choice for.

So, after a lot of pushing, and a lot of focusing in, you know, kind of on that, the oral history project, I was like, I think I know what I wanna do, and I don't know that what I wanna do is gonna be for everybody, but I wanna say yes enthusiastically to the things that I want to do.

(cheerful curious music) (paper rustling) This is the project I was telling y'all about.

These are the illustrations, these are black and white.

I work with a photographer, and then I take them in digitally, draw them, (cheerful curious music) and then I make a big print, and use that as a pattern.

So, I shifted from doing portraiture of celebrities and icons to a project (cheerful curious music) specifically about black women, and their work during the uprisings, like, in terms of the community organizing, and the social work that they were doing on their own.

(cheerful curious music) - [Alexandria] And that shift includes reminding herself that as a black creative, your autonomy can sometimes mean everything.

- Now (cheerful curious music) I can work as big as I have patience for, not, it's not a limitation by like, the size of my table, now it's how long do you wanna work on one piece?

I want to do (cheerful curious music) the best work I can by making work that feels real, and important to me.

So, that's kinda been the shift.

- [Alexandria] Leaving herself enough room to dream big in her Paradise Home.

(cheerful curious music) - After three decades, serving as head of one of Milwaukee's prominent black churches, and a guiding light for the city's faith community, Bishop Sedgwick Daniels died last month at 64.

He founded Holy Redeemer in 1986 on North 12th Street, and West Atkinson Avenue.

The congregation quickly outgrew its facility.

Under his leadership, the church turned a abandoned industrial site at North 35th Street, and West Hampton Avenue into a multi-million dollar church complex.

The complex remains a economic and social anchor on the city's north side.

We remember him from the fifth annual MLK concert with the combined choirs of Holy Redeemer and the Bel Canto Chorus.

The bishop reads "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

- "My dear fellow clergymen, while confined here in Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activity unwise and untimely.

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.

Just as the prophets of the eighth century, BC left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns.

And just as apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus, and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own hometown.

(singer humming) (chorus humming) (chorus humming) I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned (chorus humming) about what happens in Birmingham.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

(chorus humming) We are caught an an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

(chorus humming) Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

We have waited-" (chorus singing indistinct) - "For more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights".

Let my people go - "The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed-" (chorus singing indistinct) - "Toward gaining political independence.

But we still creep at horse and buggy pace-" Let my people go - "Towards gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter."

(chorus singing indistinct) - "Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation say, "wait.""

(chorus singing indistinct) - "But when you've seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers, and fathers at their own will, and drown your sisters, and brothers at a whim."

(chorus singing indistinct) - "When you have seen hate-filled the policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters."

Let my people go - "When you have seen the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers-" (chorus singing indistinct) - "Smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society-" (chorus singing indistinct) - "Then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."

(chorus singing indistinct) - "There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to plunge into the abyss of despair."

Let my people go - "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words, and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.

It comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God.

And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

We must use time creatively in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do good.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national eulogy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."

(no audio) - That is our program for this month.

(upbeat funky music) Please join us online Milwaukeepbs.org, and however you celebrate this holiday season, we wish you joy, peace, and love, and happy 2024.

(upbeat rock music)