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Source: Samuel Wright, Jr. / CassiusLife
On September 7, I attended The New Men Tour and connected with a cadre of Black men and women on Atlanta's West Side. The event, sponsored by the organization Black Men Build, brought together a mix of younger and older Black people on an early Saturday afternoon at the Murph, "a community stewardship project" near the West End used for various community events and activities.
The Atlanta event comes towards the end of the 2024 New Men Tour, a nationwide community-building event that is set to end on September 21 in Miami. A safe space for Black people from all types of backgrounds, The Murph's art contains an array of influential Black people from Audre Lorde to Toni Morrison, Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and Sandra Bland as well as visual homages to the revolutionary protests of Atlanta's time including the Cop City project protests.
Source: Samuel Wright, Jr. / CassiusLife
Black Men Build, a grassroots organization that came to fruition in 2019, has been dedicated the last few years towards actively rebuilding the morale of Black men in America, encapsulating some of their thoughts on what Black manhood should look like using their Circles as well as their statement, "New Men Must Be Born." Led by a facilitator, the circles involve a group of participants sitting around actively listening and responding as the conversation advances.
Throughout the day, a few hundred of us participated in several activities meant to educate, empower, and connect us, ending in a group photo and feast. The highlight moment for me came when each of us broke off into our perspective groups and shared our experiences in circles led by different facilitators. Guided by two anchoring questions of what manhood meant to us growing up and how should new men look, we set out to share our own experiences with dashed dreams, poverty, the criminal justice system and more.
What made the circles so powerful beyond the honesty, vulnerability, and support we extended to each other was the diversity in ages and lived experiences. Men in their early twenties built with men in their thirties, forties, and even senior citizens which lifted my spirits and reminded me that many of us are aware of our pain and doing the work needed to repair it for the next generation.
Founded by Kareem Jackson and co-founder Phil Agnew, the group is aligned with another influential group, Black Male Initiative Georgia, to help offer Black people many of the services we once relied on including self-defense training, food pantries, mentoring programs and more.