I got to get you out of here . I know you exhausted , man . You're the man with the plan . You're the man with the plan , man . Thank you for coming in and hanging out with me , man .
You are a beautiful brother . I support everything you do .
Yeah , man here , let me get you this microphone .
There you go , okay .
Yeah , yeah . So tell me what inspired you to create this here ?
So I wish I had like for this particular event . I wish I had a better answer , but you know it started off more on the political side . I knew , for example , when Roe v Wade was going to be overturned , that there was an opportunity to create space for black men to figure out how they could , what their role was in this whole conversation around .
You know women's rights and women's issues , and so at that time I had been having a conversation with an old homie of mine , college friend , who was the former mayor of Baltimore , stephanie Rollins-Blake , and I said you know , I'd like to create space for brothers to have a conversation about how do they support Black women leadership . My apologies .
No , that's all right , that's all right .
And so she said that she was good , right , and once I had her , I thought always to bring my mentor , your beautiful brother by the name of Tony Porter , to deal with questions around masculinity and manhood . But so to answer your question was once I had those two locked down .
You know , the reality is this felt heavy , felt deep , and so I said we need something actually can kind of lighten this up and the idea of a father daughter dance . But you know , it was very intentional about using the word black , because I think that black fathers and black community have some unique issues , and so that was it .
It was just really to actually be the thing that , in the context of other issues , allowed for what we see now , which is this incredible opportunity for brothers to actually just have a good time .
Yeah . So I mean , I interviewed a lot of families today and all of them a lot of them , if not all of them have said that it's not only a beautiful time to spend with their , with their daughter , but they also get to be here in the camaraderie of all these brothers doing the exact same thing . How does that make you feel ?
And now , more than anything else , I feel grateful and humbled because I can just sit back and just say you know what , man , there's no other space that I can think of where brothers get a chance to actually just come hang out with other men .
Yeah .
And around their daughters in particular , let alone their kids in general , so I can just sit back and just see cats smile and relax .
Yeah , it's beautiful .
It's a lot of stuff that a lot of black men have opportunities for , because everything else again is just so heavy . You got to keep it moving . You got to fix our face , yeah so yeah , brother , smile here more than I ever see , brothers yeah , yeah and it's authentic .
Thanks , man . I have seen some , some fathers blushing when the daughters gave some answers to the question they were just blushing . I look over there all right , jesus man , it's a beautiful thing , it's a beautiful thing . So what's next for the black girl dad week ? Yeah and black father daughter dance I appreciate .
So last year was more about , you know , community goodwill . I'm almost brother , even a sort of proof of concept , you know , I think we did well , in fact I know we did well . But this year it was more about community impact and so , specifically like sort of areas , tuesday was Take your Daughter to School Day .
We had a wonderful event over at East High School , but I , your daughter to school day . We had a wonderful event over at East High School , but I had approached Columbus City Schools and said hey , you know what are the numbers of black males in PTOs and PTAs ?
They didn't have that , but what they did have was the number of black males that were school ambassadors . So when I got that number , I think it was only 12 , believe it or not in the entire school system . So we get six . You know , we increase , you know , the number of black males as school ambassadors by 50% .
Yeah .
So that , in addition to Take your Daughter to Work Day , which was that following Wednesday that was sponsored by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce and again giving the system an opportunity to say hey , as a company or as a VP , I am going to be committed to the lives of black women , black girls .
So this year was about impact and I think next year is just to be bigger and better , to really take all those sectors education , the economy , behavioral health and actually figure out how we can create infrastructures , benchmarks , targets and things like that for our people . So , yeah , it's just to get bigger , have more impact , get more brothers involved .
And the last thing I'll say because I really appreciate you While the title is Black Girl Dads Week and certainly this is Black Father Daughter Dance people miss the fact that this is a real organizing opportunity for us to get brothers together , right . So , no doubt , for example , it's about supporting women and girls , but we do it by organizing men .
Yeah , we do it by bringing brothers together in fraternity and fellowship for them to actually be seen and heard in ways that they just haven't .
Yeah .
So that's , that's the other thing to actually . So I say , what's next ? Get more platform for brothers to be seen and do be the great fathers like you yeah , man , thank you , thank you .
I I truly appreciate you allowing us to be a community , uh sponsor for this event . We I mean I enjoy , we look forward to this event every year because we that's what 15 minutes with dad is about is about creating a platform for , and giving them a place to speak and a place to talk about . So I truly , truly appreciate you .
Um , brilliant young brother part of this , what old heads supposed to do ?
is for it , but no 100% .
So and what happens , man , on a real simple level , is , if you know , you see it , then perhaps you can aspire to it .
And the reality is that many of our communities just don't have that example of what you're doing , and so , again , just creating space like this , so , you know , a younger cat growing up can say , you know , I might not have it , but that's what it kind of looks like .
Yeah , I want to be like that , I want to smile like that , yeah , so , yeah , we appreciate you .
It's beautiful . Thank you for sitting down with me . I'm going to let you go , but thank you , it's been a long time coming . You've been prepping for almost a year . Yeah , if not a year , I know you probably took like two days off after the last one that you started up On to 2025 already .
Oh man yeah Beautiful beautiful People could be amazed at the amount of talent that we're bringing next year .
I'm excited for it .