Loving and Leading Black Boys and Men: The Power of Mentorship, Community, and Resilient Leadership

When Shawn Dove joined me to share his life's blueprint for empowering Black boys and men, the air crackled with the weight of every word—a testament to the power of mentorship and leadership. Together, we navigated Shawn's New York roots, his mother's Jamaican resilience, and the profound impact community figures had on his journey. Our conversation is a tapestry of anecdotes and insights, framing a narrative that champions educational and systemic change as cornerstones of Black male achievement.

Grasping the lifeline of adult mentorship can be transformative, as I've witnessed firsthand within the brotherhood at the Dome Center. Shawn and I peeled back the layers of this nurturing model, emphasizing the necessity of developmental relationships that extend beyond biological family lines. We shared personal stories that highlighted the potential of caring environments to infuse our youth with the courage to confront vulnerabilities, discover their identity, and foster personal growth—all wrapped up in the safety of community bonds.

The resilience and leadership displayed by a Wesleyan student who took on the Klan, the healing powers of mentorship, and the importance of entrepreneurial leadership are but a few of the chapter titles that make up our playbook for change. Sean's narrative is a call to arms, urging us to bridge generational divides and engage in a relentless fight for social justice and equity. As your host, I invite you to join us on this profound exploration of what it means to uplift and transform the lives of Black boys and men—an episode that promises to resonate with your spirit and ignite a spark of change.

Transcript

Langston Clark: 0:16

Hey everyone, thank you again for your support of Entrepreneurial Appetite. Beginning this season, we are inviting our listeners to support the show through our Patreon website. The founding 55 patrons will get live access to our monthly discussions for only $5 a month. Your support will help us hire an intern or freelancer to help with the production of the show. Of course, you can also support us by giving us five stars, leaving a positive comment or sharing the show with a few friends. Thank you for your continued support. What's up everybody? Once again, this is Langston Clark, the founder and organizer of Entrepreneurial Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting Black businesses. And today we have a recording from a live conversation with Shawn Dove, founder of the Corporation for Black Male Achievement and author of I Too America, on loving and leading Black men and boys. And we have a very special guest host, mr John Jacobs, the director of K-12 and Justice at Up Partnerships, who will be leading San Antonio's my Brother's Keeper initiative.

John Jacobs: 1:19

Well, again, good afternoon, good evening for those who are on different time zones. Welcome to this podcast. We're excited to have this conversation with Mr Shawn Dove. I feel like I have known him for years because I've been reading his book iTunes in America. If you haven't got the book, please purchase that book. I'm sure he'll be doing his spiel at the end, but also it is available on Audible, so please check that out as well. I just want to dive in.

John Jacobs: 1:43

We are joined at the hip as regards to this system change, boys and young men of color. As Dr. Langston Clark opened up, I work with the my Brother's Keeper Initiative here in San Antonio focused on programs and initiatives system change, population level change initiatives that will impact boys and young men of color. We in the city of San Antonio work really focused on post-secondary enrollment of boys and young men of color, and you talk about your personal trajectory and some folks. You have case studies of young men that you talk to. You share in this book about young men matriculating through high school into their post-secondary attainment in and out, learning the ups and downs of life as a boy and young man of color.

John Jacobs: 2:20

And so first we want to thank you for this documentary, this bird's eye view of not only your life but young men, boys and young men of color in the Detroit, the Oakland area, in these Baltimore area. It was just a really great conversation and depiction of boys and young men of color. It reminded me, as a young man who is raising a boy and young man of color, some of the possible pitfalls and the journeys and the journey of healing for boys and young men of color. So I want to thank you for your time and willingness and so, to start out our conversation, I want to open up with tell a little bit about yourself. If you haven't, if they have not, read your book, tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to the point of writing this particular book.

Shawn Dove: 2:58

Sure, and I just want to thank you, brother John, for your leadership and all that you're doing in San Antonio. Thank you, brother John, for your leadership and all that you're doing in San Antonio. And so much of just my life story has been about, you know, adults believing in me before I believed in myself. Sense of community. Native New Yorker, lived in every borough except for Staten Island. For Staten Island, my mom, my mother Deanna, immigrated from Jamaica, came from Jamaica when she was 18 years old and had me when she was 22. She and my dad were not married.

Shawn Dove: 3:33

I did not grow up with my biological father in my life until later, or in the house, you know. But I had so many like father figures, like my grandfather, in my life. And one of the things my mother was just creative, right, she was a seamstress. She used to make me pleather, leather, a vest, going to school for picture day. She was a dancer. That's how she and my father met. She was a dancer. But one thing about leadership and parenting she put aside her artistic dreams and aspirations to raise me right, and that's sacrifice and I'm just like so indebted to her. And she used social capital right In my early years.

Shawn Dove: 4:18

We lived in the South Bronx and my mother worked in Queens and she she went and found child care in Harlem. Big mama scenario I don't know if you ever saw the movie Lackawanna Blues with Hill Hopper, but my godmother on 119th Street and Lenox Avenue, it was that kind of scenario. Big apartment in Harlem, there were borders. She ran numbers with Nicky Barnes. There's a father, roy Barnes, so there's folks coming to the door playing numbers. It was this real sense of community and I remember my room so I stayed with my godmother during the week and my mom on weekends. My mom did a great job of shipping me off to summer camp every summer and I was exposed to that. But when I talk about my trajectory and just the adults and I write about this in the book my room was like the playroom. That was like where all the kids gathered, but at night that's where I slept and in that room I had this magnet of the United States hanging on the wall. That's how I learned my geography. And I was sleeping or I was in bed and there were two women. The department was very busy and they were looking at the map and they were talking about me. I was maybe like six or seven. He was like, oh, sean did that and it was talking about the map. And one of the ladies said, yeah, he loves to read. Lady said, yeah, he loves to read. And I didn't know that I love to read, but I heard an adult speak that into my life and so just a love for reading has been a part of my life.

Shawn Dove: 5:55

At fifth grade, my mom and I we moved down to the Upper West Side of Manhattan and that's where we began to live together full-time and my mother worked. I was what they call a latchkey kid, right, and spent a lot of time alone. But, you know, had my crew basketball. As my adolescence began to evolve, I thought I wanted to like sell loose joints on the corner of 80th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. I know you don't know anything about loose joints, right, I didn't need to do that, but it was just. My friends were doing that as well.

Shawn Dove: 6:28

And I found out about a youth program that was two blocks away from my corner called the Dome Project, and they were giving away sneakers for the basketball team. And I got there. They had given away the last pair of sneakers. It was in the basement. The headquarters was in the basement of All Angels Church on 80th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and there was this big room with a whole bunch of kids kids in the corners doing homework, kids in that corner playing Connect Four. There were adults and there was tutors. Uh, there was one white guy and, uh, his name was john simon full beard. My mom's had a bunch of books in the house helter skelter was one of them. Looked like charles manson. I was like this is a cult, like you know what is. This wasn't a cult, it was a uh youth program project.

Shawn Dove: 7:21

I eventually got involved in the dome project. I remember one time, john, uh, my corner was two blocks away when I was selling joints, talking about passing by, you won't get high, uh, and one day he came up to me and he said if you spend more time at the dome project and less time on the corner of 80th street, uh and sm avenue, you can can do some really great things. You have so much potential. God didn't say anything to me that my mom did not say to me all the time, but there is something about youth development and our trajectories that the right word at the right time by the right person can have a transformational effect, mr Dove I want to stop you right there.

John Jacobs: 8:04

Thank you for jumping in, man. I want to stop you right there. You good Cause you, you, you touched on a few things that I have notes, cause I read the book. I have notes and you covered a few things that I wanted to kind of dig deep on and I love that that was in chapter four or chapter three you talked about your life, and the first two chapters talked about two young men in their lives and it mirrors your experience.

John Jacobs: 8:27

In chapter four about this conversation, about having adults in your life that see you. In our work we call it developmental relationships, young people. Whether it was in the community or at the Dome Center, there was John who had a developmental relationship framework where he looked, he considered young people as holistic and looked at them as valued members of community and future X, y and Zs right. And so I want you to dig a little deeper about the importance of having adults and young boys, boys and young men of color's lives that see them at an early age and how that impacts them, that could impact their trajectory in the future at an early age and how that impacts them, that could impact their trajectory in the future.

Shawn Dove: 9:08

Yeah, brother, that's a great question, and I'm inspired and impressed that I get tickled every time I'm in conversation with someone that has actually read the book. So thank you for that. And so I would just say that Black boys want the same things that all young people want love, safety and a sense of belonging right and caring adults that ideally their parents right, and sometimes we don't get that from our parents. But this sense of community of adults, kind of like creative spaces where they're not necessarily still the teacher, they're instructing, they're mentoring. But I firmly believe that we all are born with sparks of divinity and so much of that is like education, it's like pulling out what is already inside of me, and so I've had that with counselors, I've had that with basketball coaches, uh coaches and the. The combination of uh, caring adult and a cohort of ears is powerful.

Shawn Dove: 10:21

And at the dome project I got involved through their basketball team and the model was in the rules and protocol. You cannot go to the gym for practice or play ball, which is on the top floor of the church, until you read a book, and so I have vivid memories of sitting in the circle with the basketball team and us taking turns reading out loud before we were able to go and practice. Right, I didn't know, I was in a book club. I wanted to play ball, you know, but ball was a hook. But it was the books and the literacy. And it was one book that we read. It was Claude Brown's man Child in the Promised Land, and I just had so much identification with the character, sonny. And after practice we were going to the corner, we were smoking our joints and drinking our beer but we found ourselves talking about Sonny and the characters and Roz and Exorder. So that combination of literacy and so safe places where adults see us and even adults are able to show their humanity and their vulnerability, the sense of belonging, whether it's I'm down with San Antonio MBK, me growing up playing ball in basketball tournaments. At first it was like the T-shirts, right, you know, I had a rucka or citywide T-shirt. That was a sense of belonging and games give young people a sense of belonging. But at the end of the day, john, I think what adults love safety and belonging and being able to create those spaces and allow us to, as young people make mistakes.

Shawn Dove: 12:08

And there's one thing I want to say about this book. Right, judge this book by its cover. Quick backstory Well, the young man in that picture is the son of one of my mentees, saladin Bet, that I met in the early 90s when I was running a beacon school. The young man in the picture his name is Sadiq. Sadiq is autistic and Sadiq is not verbal. Saladin was a graphic designer. He learned his graphic design skills in the program we had in Harlem, the beacon school. He took that picture and while Sadiq is nonverbal, he is on this cover and it's saying for the world and to the world, I too am on loving and leading black men and boys.

Shawn Dove: 13:01

And also, in judging the cover, my co-author is a brother, longtime friend, nick childs. And I remember when I surrendered to my addiction to drug and alcohol, 1989, and I went to rehab in september of 89, september 1st and I remember around christmas feeling really despondent, and nick sent me a christmas card with a black santa claus with some words like I love you, I believe you. I don't know the exact words, but I know what the feeling was and for brothers to be able to nurture and love and see each other, uh was really important. So for having him as my co-author, solidine design in the book, solidine's son on the cover and a mentor of mine, uh, susan l taylor writing the foreword judge this book right. This is, you know. There's a story between his covers. There's a story behind the book. I love that.

John Jacobs: 14:01

I love that. I love and thank you for sharing that about belonging right and that. And you mentioned that boys. I love that and thank you for sharing that about belonging right and you mentioned that boys and young men of color Black boys need what any other young person needs, so I think that's powerful.

John Jacobs: 14:13

Another kind of theme that resonates through the book is this conversation about healing. You talk about Romero's trauma and things that he went through. You talk about your own personal trauma and there were moments where you even mentioned in the book I should be saying this, but I'm just going to say the things that I dealt with Right and I love that conversation about. It's not just about trauma, but the process of healing. Can you share a little more about the importance of boys black boys going through their journey of healing? You give a depiction of your healing some two other boys healing Dave's process of healing. You talked about healing circles, restorative practices as one of your tools, but can you talk a little more about the importance of the healing process for boys, black men of color In?

Shawn Dove: 14:55

essence, the book is a healing journey. I think of my brother and colleague, dr Sean Jenride, who is doing amazing work creating healing-centered schools around the nation. And it is now and then, when he was growing up, hard to grow up without having traumatic experiences. Right, that happens in community. But the oppressive white supremacist culture that we grow up in, black boys get messages that we are criminals, that we are less than Lacey Hughes's poem, in which we named the book after, depicts that story of black boys being otherized, story of, you know, black boys being otherized. And Maya Angelou has a quote that we put in the book and she says like there is no greater agony than being in an untold story. Right, and so writing the book was a healing process. I tell a story when we talk about childhood trauma. I tell a story in the book.

Shawn Dove: 16:03

The very first time I ever rode the New York City subways by myself, I was nine years old. I had a task from riding from my home in the Bronx to my godmother's house to pick up a package and come back to the Bronx, remember, we were going to go see a James Bond movie. I couldn't wait to do that Bond movie. I couldn't wait to do that and my godmother lived on 119th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem. It was the 116th Street station and I made it down and I was on my way back. Instead of getting on the uptown side to the Bronx, I got on a downtown side right, Made a mistake and, long story short, that mistake led to me like I didn't get off at the next stop, wind up getting off at 96th Street, this foreign territory downtown in New York City. I wound up walking back to 116th Street to start on Lover. I shared that my godmother. She ran numbers and one of the hustlers thought it was a good idea for me to get a fur coat Christmas of 1971. So I had a fur coat on and wound up being abducted and I won't get into all the details. I do want folks to get the book.

Shawn Dove: 17:21

And I survived the ab uh abduction right. Could have uh gotten killed, could have been molested. Very traumatic. I remember the police when they got involved. They were like the story is not true, pulling out a switchblade tell me the truth. I'm going to stick this up your ass. And it was trauma. But when school started, go back to school years old, brother John, all my life, that was my Harlem resiliency story, how I survived that incident, told the story to you know, my kids were tired of hearing the story around the table. It wasn't until I was 57 years old. In a small, I was on a retreat, a leadership retreat, it was called True North Retreat. In a small circle I developed trust and we were talking about our crucible stories in our life and I was telling that story and at 57, I broke down and cried like I didn't cry at nine years and realized that two things yes, that was my haul on resiliency story. But, sean, that was also trauma.

Shawn Dove: 18:49

I talk in the book about my recovery journey. Right Presently I have 34 years clean. Right Talking about, at the end of my addiction, that I had it all planned out, that, um, I was going to jump on the tracks at Penn station uh New York city, and grab the third rail because I thought that there was no way uh to relieve myself of, uh this prison that I created inside me and this addiction. Fortunately, god had a different plan.

Shawn Dove: 19:24

And talk about the story of Barbara Merrow in Oakland the story of Dr Mari in Detroit and how they experienced both love and trauma, Oftentimes in the community where they live, how adult leaders. Chris Chapman in Oakland, who runs Kingmakers of Oakland, took Romero under his wing and was a mentor but created space for him to create. And in Detroit, Brother Quan Nellum's educator, he created something called the Lyricist Society in Jamari's school and Jamari had a passion for hip hop and writing and that touched and that clicked. And it's just examples that we can be catalysts of our own healing. And often, you know, it's adults creating that space for that.

Shawn Dove: 20:21

And I also talk about, you know, therapy, mystifying therapy for Black men. Right, there is nothing wrong with Black boys and men in America. There is something wrong with the systems and the structures. Yes, absolutely, Because so much trauma, so much pain. There is something wrong with the systems and the structures, Absolutely. So much trauma, so much pain. And I would say one upside of the pandemic is that I have seen so many more black men raise their hand and say I need help. Right, and the ability to ask.

John Jacobs: 20:55

I love that. That's great. You're having a lot of commitment and importance and the ability to ask. I love that, that's great. So you're having a lot of commitment and importance of the community. To wrap around Boys and Young Men of Color, these initiatives and programs, big Brothers, big Sisters, and these things that are really valuable for Boys and Young Men of Color and those how they need to be scaled right and they need to be considering that Boys and Young Men of Color are not monolithic, they're a spectrum and they come in with their full selves. And how can we really support the holistic approach for that individual boy?

John Jacobs: 21:24

That's American male, so that's powerful. I want to fast forward to Brooklyn Tech. You're in high school and you talk about the lack of males like your teachers. You talk about the Dome Center experience, but you also talk about the lack of cultural competence representation at not only at Brooklyn Tech but also at Lauric, at the private school, right, and so if you talk a little more about how you eventually did have a male teacher, but how that really inspired and helped you kind of see yourself as you matured into a, you know, a young adult, as you matured into a young adult.

Shawn Dove: 21:56

Yeah. So my first two years of high school I broke a tech on New York City and I thought I wanted to be an architect. Tech was one of the New York City specialized schools. You had to take a test to get in. I missed it by one point and I was like, good, I'm going to the neighborhood high schools with all the rest of my friends. My mother said, no, you're going to summer school because you can get in if you go to Sunday summer school.

Shawn Dove: 22:25

I got to Tech and realized that, while it had a really renowned reputation as a high school in New York City, for me there was like no real connection and relationship building in the school. I found out, you know, I gravitated to the folks that were, you know, cutting class, playing spades in the lunchroom, getting high in the hallways, and so I was feeling like I was just no one was talking to me about college, right? So there was like no real relationship. Now, I'm not saying that any students that you know I'm sure that there are students that attended tech that developed relationships. I don't remember any black teachers, black male teachers in tech.

Shawn Dove: 23:12

And the last two years of my high school experience I got a scholarship through the Dome Project to go to a school called Lawrence Academy in Brighton, mass. And the thing about Lawrence Academy smaller environment, not as racially diverse as Brooklyn Tech there were 300 students, about 15 of us were Black, but the interesting thing was able to develop some relationships in close proximity with teachers and coaches. The setup was, like you know, we all ate in the same cafeteria, so if you cut class plan on not going, you know you have to have a really good excuse because you're going to see it in the cafeteria. So I think the importance here because I certainly believe that multiracial, intergenerational, cross, spiritually sound leaders, men that we can identify with right, it's not an either.

Shawn Dove: 24:24

My Academy experience was because it was powerful for me. On one hand, you know, there was a lot of culture shock. I was able to develop relationships, like I developed a relationship with my poetry teacher. Right, she became a mentor. Right, my basketball coach became a mentor and I think that theme of love, safety and belonging in a community is the key.

John Jacobs: 24:51

I love that. I love that. So that was high school. You built the relationships. You went to a smaller school to build that relationships and now you went to Wesleyan University yes, you want to play basketball Division three at that interest, that connection. You're playing ball and then you're learning about advocacy on campus, which is really identical with my experience. I went to Texas State University in San Marcos and that's you know. College, like you said in the book, is where most college students get a whiff of like advocacy and your rights and wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. I have rights right, and that culture helps you build that. You mentioned about the Malcolm X Center, how you build relationships with people there. So tell us about the advocacy work and how you moved into the work that you started doing right out of college and building that ethnic relationship.

Shawn Dove: 25:39

I had an amazing actually, and let me tell you this, to bring up Wesleyan. So this year is my 40th graduation reunion. Right, this is my 40th class. I'm going back up to May Blessed to get a Distinguished Alumni Award Congratulations. I just want to say, young folks, these decades go by fast.

Shawn Dove: 25:57

Right, I can't believe I'm going to my 40th reunion, but again there was a sense of community of black students, uh, conscious black students at wesleyan university. Uh, the student government was called ujamaa and and my first month at Wesleyan we were engaged in a protest of the Klan. They were marching in the next town. So my school's in Middletown, connecticut, in Meriden, connecticut, liberal, connecticut, northeast, the next town and so we organized as students to go and to have a rally. And so we organized as students to go and to have a counter a rally. And there were upperclassmen that just took me under their wing right, kofi Apente. He was leading something called the Minority Faculty Search Committee. He came up to me Kofi was either a senior at the time and he didn't ask me if I wanted to join. He told me you're joining the Minority Faculty Search Committee. And I was going to meetings feeling like I was over my head like what are we talking about? But it was this indoctrination of advocacy. My freshman year, gil Scott Heron came to campus and I just fell in love with his music, his art. I'd heard of Gil but spent time with him in a circle in conversation, and so I combined that with my poet. I was a budding poet and so Wesleyan for me was a space where I could explore, I could cultivate the activists and social justice and racial justice warrior inside of me Seeds. You know it was already there, right, but those seeds were really cultivated and really helped with the trajectory of my career.

Shawn Dove: 27:52

And when I first graduated college, I did four years in corporate America. I was selling textiles in the garment district of New York, making really decent money but not having this sense of purpose and calling. I joined the board of directors of the Dome Project, the youth program I grew up in and found myself chairing a search committee for the next executive director. One night, reading resumes, there was this voice that said you can do this job. And I was 24 years old, right, I had never run an organization. They had a budget of a million dollars. But I believe that we all have this inner compass that speaks to us and I think it especially speaks to us when we are veering far away from our divine design. And that inner compass said throw your hat in the ring. The job of executive director for the Dome Project was half as much as I was making as a salesperson, but at the time I didn't know. But I was trying to save myself from getting out of that environment and so I joined the Dome Project as the executive director. I think my colleagues on the board love the idea of someone growing up in the organization coming back to lead it. I also think that they were tired of the search right Like, just give them the job. I had no idea how hard it would be managing folks that still saw me as Lulu, sean, former coaches. I was not emotionally ready to do that. Everybody had their agenda and I was still grappling.

Shawn Dove: 29:44

That was the tail end of my addiction and I think taking that responsibility helped me to say what are you going to do about saving your life? I made the decision I write about it in the book choosing not to jump on the tracks, and that was the most important decision that I've ever made in my life. Next few marrying my wife, desiree, and so, so much of the book is really telling stories of resiliency, stories, uh, that it's not how far you fall, it's how high you bounce right and our ability to like, uh, you know, one of my mantras, uh, john, is is that even broken crayons in the right hands can be used to create a life masterpiece. Right, surrendering and going into recovery right, develop my spiritual out, put me on a spiritual journey right and in God's hands. Right, I've been able to, and have been blessed to, do so much and I think about if you would have jumped on those tracks 35 years ago.

Shawn Dove: 31:02

And I'm going to let you ask the next question, but I think it's also important to, in my leadership journey, what I realize is that there's no savior coming to save the day. Black men and boys don't need saviors. What we need are believers believers in our believers, in our humanity, believers in our potential to be uh, productive, believers that we can make mistakes and make mistakes as humans. And uh, I'm believing in our uh being deserved to be forgiven. You know folks only for saying, like, look, there's no cavalry coming to save the day in our communities.

Shawn Dove: 31:44

Leaders like you and I, we're the iconic leaders that we've been waiting for and curating of the change that we're seeking to see. If someone would have told me 35 years ago, sean, if we Google you in 35 years you'll be associated with black male achievement, you would have interacted with the first black president of the United States. I would have said 35 years ago, juan, what the heck is Google to shut up and pass the joint right? And I think too often we forget, as adults, our own stories, our own mishaps, our own wrong decisions and we don't give our young people grace, the compassion, the affirmation that they need right. And I learned that right here in my home with my own twin 22-year-old boys. Right. Sometimes I'm like hold up, didn't you get the blackmail? Achievement memo? Comparison is the thing that. Stop looking, sean, for your kids to give you something to brag about, right. I said, especially with my sons right, and just be the dad that they can brag about. And they may not do it now, but keep being who you are and showing up how you have shown up throughout their lives and being the dad that they can brag about and that just releases so much right.

Shawn Dove: 33:37

And I know you have another question, but one other theme with the trauma also, you're going to talk about shame, right, vulnerability for me is a superpower, right and unabashedly. I don't tell everything right, but I was told my vulnerable story. I don't tell everything right, but I was told my vulnerable story and during the process, you know the copy editors, the net editors, proofreaders. Thank you for your vulnerability, thank you for your courage. I had to keep going, hold up. What did I say? What did I say? But I tell a story of growing up and being a bedwetter Right, and I tell a story of my godmother hanging my sheets out on the fire escape and us downstairs on lytics avenue playing as kids and all of a sudden the kids pointing upstairs and pointing up on a fire escape and looking at my p-stained sheets and the shame I felt. They were teasing me, told that story and a brother that read the book, brother older than me. We were in conversation and he said to me thank you for writing that and sharing that.

Shawn Dove: 34:47

Because, that was my story. I couldn't think better too, and I saw, like this, shame ease off of a grown-ass man because another brother that he identified took the risk of telling his vulnerable story Right. And so I think that's really important when we talk about, you know, loving and leading black men and boys. Right, Because we lead the lives of the stories that we tell about ourselves and it's not all like, you know, crossing the finish line, you know, and victory right. There is, you know, a heartache right, and I've learned that if you can reframe your failure, you can reframe your future. I love that. I love that.

John Jacobs: 35:33

You see, you just quoted, you did. You did three statements. That's quotable, right. Reframe your failure. You can reframe your future. I love that. I love that you just quoted. You did three statements. That's quotable, right. Reframe your failure. You can reframe your future. You talked about how black boys don't need to be fixing, they need believers. They don't need to be fixed, they need believers. So if you're watching right now, I challenge you to post that and make sure you tag Sean Dev on that, those two quotes as well.

John Jacobs: 35:58

We're running to our last 10 minutes of our conversation today. If you have questions, please use the chat and we'll try our best to get to those questions as well. Again, we're here with Mr Sean Dove. Just want to wrap up with two quick questions. I want you to kind of elaborate on the black male achievement work. Do you think if you elaborate on that and I think Dr Langston Clark has his final question, that's going to wrap it up a little bit but if you could talk a little more about your black achievement work, that you've done and then we'll follow up with Dr Langston Clark.

Shawn Dove: 36:28

Yeah, and I want to talk about it by starting off with thanking you for your leadership. I know that you are the leader of San Antonio, my Brother's Keeper Initiative. I joined the Open Society Foundations in 2008 to launch their campaign for black male achievement. Right, and the work did not begin there. Right, as far as black male achievement, I get too much credit in the field. Right, the moment I started that job, I reached out to a gentleman that was leading the work at the Kellogg Foundation 20 years before that. Right, this is centuries long work and it was originally a three-year campaign and the challenge with philanthropy is that too often philanthropy is putting in resources and strategies and issues that are so systemic, so generational and putting a three-year term on it. And I was blessed to and I had a mentor, jeff Canada, that told me about. He said I don't know where you are in your career, sean, whether you want to be a publisher or a preacher or whatever, you need to take a look at this Open Society Foundation job. And it was transformational for me. Right, and one I had to convince myself that I was worthy, right, like who am I to be leading a campaign for black male achievement? That I was worthy, right Like who am I to be leading a campaign for black male achievement, and I approached it as an organizer, a movement builder, and halfway through our three-year term, during a board meeting, we made a presentation to George Soros and the board and he took off the term limits and tripled our budget and allowed us to put resources on the ground. It wasn't just funding we were convening, we were also creating spaces. It was not just philanthropy, but grassroots leaders, academics, government, municipal leaders. We created spaces where there are cross-sector leaders tackling these issues in different places. We launched something called Rumble Young man Rumble where every year, we gathered the movement leaders of the Black Male Achievement.

Shawn Dove: 38:47

After President Barack Obama, in July of 2013, made his speech after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, when Trayvon Martin was first murdered, president Obama said if he had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin. After the acquittal, he said I was Trayvon Martin and he challenged the nation to find ways to create systems that black men and boys saw themselves affirmatively and because of the work we were doing at the Campaign for Black Male Achievement. Two days after that speech, me and my partner, rasheed Shabazz, who was leading the Campaign for Black Male Achievement with me. We were in the White House and we were helping to catalyze what eventually became, and still is, the my Brother's Keeper initiative, and so this is generational work.

Shawn Dove: 39:58

I was telling Langston about the Beloved Community Center. I remember the summer of 2016, spending a week, a retreat, in Greensboro with my mentors there and returning back to New Jersey thinking that, okay, I'm ready to conquer the world. And in that week, within a few days span, alton Sterling was murdered in Baton Rouge, louisiana, by police. One video Two days after that, philando Castile, right outside of Minneapolis. And I had this moment where I was like Sean, racism is not ending in your lifetime. I was still believing and still naive enough at that point to think so. Do what you can, what you have, to pour into and help to create spaces and provide resources for the next generation of leaders, and that's so much that my life is devoted to and pouring into the next generation of leaders.

Langston Clark: 41:07

All right, thank you. Thank you both for the time that you had sharing with us, john, the work that you do, and Sean, you know your story and story of the book. Here. I have two questions actually, because, as you actually, because I really have three. I hope we got time to get to them, but I'm going to shoot my shot while I got you here, so I'm going to ask the first two in combination, and the one is early in the book.

Langston Clark: 41:29

You talk about how even Black males who are growing up in ideal situations right, mom, dad, middle class, that the numbers are showing that they aren't doing as well as their counterparts. So I was wondering if you could speak to that, because that's a phenomenon that I experienced in my life. My brother has schizophrenia, lives at home with my mom and he's two years older than I am and I went to an elite public school. So the public school that I went to that I grew up in mostly was like right outside of like Princeton and Princeton University, so we're like 20 minutes away from Princeton, right, so very affluent. You know we had mixed class levels, but people from, like my high school were going to Ivy League schools and it's interesting the way I see the outcomes is it's either like brothers are super successful or not, or they're moderately successful but really very assimilated right and they aren't.

Langston Clark: 42:30

They aren't living lives where they're committed to the uplift of other black folks, I would say and that's not challenging their Black part, I'm just I don't. Their commitment to Black folks hasn't manifested in the ways that some other folks have. The other question I have is and based upon the experiences I see here in San Antonio, is that there's a generational gap, not so much between millennials and down, but our boomers, in terms of being a community with us, to being committed to the work in the ways that we are. I'm not saying that their commitment isn't as much, they're just not present in the same way. So how do we get boomers involved with the work that John and I are trying to do in our community? So speaking to like getting the elders involved in significant ways, but then also like what's happening with even the brothers who grew up in those ideal situations.

Shawn Dove: 43:26

And that's like you know, we can do a part two of the podcast. This is those two questions. And just the last piece that you lifted up is that the intergenerational aspect of that is our heritage, our lineage, our rites of passage, right, and I think one, because I've done work in a mentoring field and the best way to recruit mentors, particularly with a lot of male, they would say hold up, no one's asking us. So the boomers asking them we need you, we need your stories, right. I think that is so important and it's not about elders, boomers, coming and bringing. Here are the lessons and the prescriptions on how right it is about because we can learn. Look, I'm 61, right, and there's a lot that young people can teach me, right. So it's a two-way. It's about building community, right, and creating the spaces for that.

Shawn Dove: 44:32

There's a brother, david Miller, who in Baltimore just completed this rites of passage, where they're in the middle of it. Well, first, they took 15 men through an African-centered rites of passage right, because we got to heal ourselves. We have to heal ourselves as adult leaders, right, we show up wounded and be transferring our pain to the young people who we've shown up to support, right. So how are we doing the healing ourselves? And so this cohort of adult Black men that have just graduated this Rites of Pastors program they're going to be mentoring and taking a cohort of 11 to 13-year-old Black boys in Baltimore through their Rites of Passage right, and I think that cultural and racial identity, particularly in communities where we may wind up going to schools and not seeing teachers that look like us or can empathize with who we are and what our identity is, and so I think it's that data Raj Chetty did a study in 2018, and it showed that, in the highest economic percentile, black boys were falling back into poverty. In some cases, it was lack of fatherhood, right. In a lot of cases, there was not this sense of community identity, a cohort of Black boys identity, a cohort of black boys, black young men, that were receiving affirmation collectively. I think that that is certainly a challenge that continues and might even I can see that gap even widening.

Shawn Dove: 46:30

I am seeing a lot of young men not going to college. Johnny and I were talking about the power of community college and finding themselves in low-wage, low-skilled jobs right, and so I think community colleges, vocational colleges not for everyone, right? Vocational college what are some of the skills technology. This is a brother, gerald Moore. You probably have seen him on LinkedIn. That has something called Mission Fulfilled 2030. And he is all about how are we getting our boys the technology skills that they need to be able to compete and have the skills in this economy? And I'll just close.

Shawn Dove: 47:19

At the end of the day, we are still in the fight for the soul of this nation. Our black boys and black men, whether it's on the block or the boardroom and suburbs or the city, daily, are finding ways to like how do they fend off the, if not microaggressions all out, criminalization and attacks on their person, on their personhood? And so that's why and I include you in this and the work that you are doing, and obviously, brother John, we got to keep leaning in right. We are in a fight to save the soul of this country, and it is, you know, I say the land is both haunted and hallowed at the same time. And so how do we reseed this nation's soil and soul with a love, dignity and justice? Right and last okay, I keep saying I'm sounding like a Baptist preacher. The last thing In us doing this, we must prioritize our self-care, our peace.

Shawn Dove: 48:26

Tell all leaders use your mentors, an executive coach and a therapist, right? All three of those are essential and it's okay to say I'm tired, I want to rest. I was supposed to go to a conference in St Louis and that's where I was supposed to be. I thought we were going to be doing this podcast and I was exhausted. People were talking about level up, level up, I want to lay down. I don't want to level up. Look, I want to lay down. I don't want to love, I want to lay down. And I decided not to go right, to take a couple days just to rest heal. And yeah, there was a little formal, oh, you should be there, but prioritizing, uh, my peace, peace and my health. So we can go on and on about the health piece, physical and mental as well.

Langston Clark: 49:23

All right, so last question. This is going to be the last question. I always end asking our guests this, especially those who are authors If there was one more chapter in the book that you would have written, or something that you just didn't have the space to put in, what would that be? Or if not, if there's another book, what would that be about?

Shawn Dove: 49:50

Yeah, I love that question into the Corporation for Black Male Achievement and created it to tell stories of loving, learning and leading for and by black men and boys, with a special sweet spot 18 to 25-year-old young men. So either a chapter or the next book which is percolating would be called the Seven Seeds of Deepened Leadership and I've done a master class on that and really talking about calling as the first seed that we all have a leadership, calling courage. And you know, there's the famous poem, it's like it's not, uh, darkness that we're afraid of, it's our light. Right, and having the courage to pursue the divinity and the light inside of us. Completion, and in the completion uh chapter talking about, you know, uh, keeping the end in mind, I had an executive coach. Have me write my own eulogy, right, and what would that look like? Right. And also chapters on credibility, right, and character, collaboration, change and coaching, right. So the seven C's of a deepened leadership is all of that targeted to of a deepened leadership and all of that targeted to, I believe we're able to tap into our individual purposes, our true north, that the decisions that we make.

Shawn Dove: 51:27

I remember visiting my father the summer between my junior and senior years of college in San Francisco, san Francisco, getting into a scuffle at a basketball court. Going back to his apartment and he had a gun .357 Magnum and I remember sitting there thinking, let me go back. I had a plan I'm going to go back, shoot the guy and come back, lay low for two days, fly back and finish my senior year of college right Sitting there with that gun in my hand. There was so much market share of my mind and heart that gave me reason not to do that. My mom, my mentors, college, I had hopes and dreams. The challenge is now access has increased and there are too many young men that are in that same situation and do not have enough of a pool. Why not to do that right? And some of it is certainly mental health. You know drugs and alcohol, but that community college age and that 18 or 25, the seven seeds are deep in leadership, to answer the question in a very long way.

Langston Clark: 52:51

All right, john Jacob, sean Doug, thank you both for joining us. As we close out, I would ask, sean, just tell us a little bit where we can get the book, where we can find more out About you and how we can support what you're doing.

Shawn Dove: 53:05

Sure, so my website Is Dovesores, dovesores, dovesorescom. Alright, so you can get the book on my website. You can email me at Sean at DoveSwordscom, and the website has the links to Twitter, slash X, which is DoveSwords, and on Instagram oh, thanks for putting this into the chat, sean, underscore dove and on LinkedIn LinkedIn, where we have been communicating and now I'm connected to brother uh, uh, john Jacobs, and uh, I'm inspired by the. Both of you and uh look forward to uh one day. I've been to a lot of the U S city. San Antonio has not been one of those cities. So touching down in San Antonio and continuing to build and have this conversation and this work together with y'all. Thank you, appreciate you. God bless brothers, and you can go watch the Knicks. You know leadership is about service. It's also about sacrifice, and it's sacrifice the first half of the New York Knicks, so don't get the New York finishing from it.

Langston Clark: 54:21

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