A forum of African American men, ages ranging from 13 to 69, convened Thursday evening to discuss various community issues in Augusta. The forum is part of a tour to inspire and facilitate such conversations throughout the state of Georgia.
New Georgia Project, the nonpartisan organization devoted to encouraging civic engagement among Georgians, coordinated the event alongside Black Man Lab, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that also tasks itself with promoting civic involvement, as well as mentorship and community-building.
Augusta was the sixth stop on Black Man Lab’s statewide, nine-city “Black Men Got Something to Say” tour.
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“Black men are building, supporting, loving and working with our young people,” said Mawuli Mel Davis, a civil rights attorney who is the chair and co-founder of Black Man Lab and who presided over Thursday’s event. “It’s not being amplified, it’s not being talked about, but it’s happening. We are witnesses to that. Every place we have gone, we have seen what we are experiencing right now.”
Davis traces the beginning of Black Man Lab as an initiative some six years ago, when he and three other men—“four Black fathers with Black sons”—who decided to get together regularly to discuss, impart and reinforce values in their sons to help prepare them for college and beyond.
“Since then, brothers had just been coming,” Davis said. Those meetings grew into a weekly discussion among about 100 men and boys, assembling every Monday, usually at the Andrew and Walter Young Family YMCA in Atlanta, or the Ebster Recreational Center in Decatur, Ga.
Thursday night, Mayor-Elect Garnett Johnson hosted the forum at his Augusta Office Solutions building on Telfair Street. Other local attendees included attorney Randolph Frails, District 129 House of Representatives candidate Davis Green (at 22, the youngest among the candidates) and District 6 Commissioner Ben Hasan.
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The discussion that transpired among the group did touch on politics—primarily asking what is expected of the government, especially amid election season, and what members of the community ought to expect of themselves.
Recurring themes of the talk were cultivating a sense of respect among young Black men—especially considering recent violence in the city—and between men of different generations; and encouraging listening and open-mindedness.
For more information about Black Man Lab, visit www.blackmanlab.org.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
