A new generation of local leaders convened at a skilled trades center on the city’s west side Thursday evening where speakers stressed the importance of being civically engaged among their peers.
Panelists, including nonprofit leaders and city employees, offered insight into grassroots organizing and working within local government.
The event was put on by the city’s Youth Affairs team and national nonprofit, New Leaders Council. The progressive leadership development organization has 70 chapters across the country, including Detroit. It runs an annual fellowship program to give 20 region leaders the tools to become leaders in their respective fields.
City Council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero was part of the organization’s 2021 cohort, according to its website.
The panel was hosted by the Detroit Union Carpenters and Millwrights Skilled Training Center off Jefferies Freeway.
Speakers included Umoja Debate League founder Jerjuan Howard; H3Y Black Girl Detroit founder and 482forward comms lead Imani Foster; city policy and program advisor Jaylen Bradley and District 7 manager Alexia Davis.
Panelists smiled after being reminded they were all Renaissance High School graduates.
Last year, the city launched its Youth Affairs team, an initiative under the Department of Neighborhoods (DON) with the goal of attracting and retaining Detroit's young talent while amplifying their voices.
As a young person it’s important to be engaged in order to have a voice in the direction of the city’s future, moderator and Youth Affairs outreach coordinator Shamere Duncan, said.
“This city is going to be in our hands, essentially, in the years to come, so it’s just extremely important to get involved.”
Duncan gave a story about how one phone call with a city housing leader after she began an internship in 2023 provided information that shifted her perspective on what was actually happening behind the scenes of government.
“I came in and I was like, ‘The city is gentrifying neighborhoods and displacing people, where is affordable housing, there’s no place for people to live.’ The first thing Ray Solomon did was put me on a call with a leader in the housing and revitalization department for the city of Detroit,” Duncan said. “In that conversation I found out there were things within the state that limit the city of Detroit from being able to do certain things… I learned that a lot of things I thought was taking place weren’t actually taking place in the way that they were.”
Bradley said he left the state in college for the University of Georgetown to study public policy after finishing undergrad in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan.
“I wanted to make sure that I had the skills to really tackle any complex issue and bring that knowledge and experience right here in the city of Detroit,” he said.
Bradley acknowledged the extensive research required to solve complex problems and write policy related to community violence intervention and homelessness, where his work for the city is focused.
“We have to figure out which cities, and what states are doing it best,” he said. “We have to figure out what do the residents want in their communities and we have to listen.”
Questions from members of the audience ranged from if enough is being done to promote financial literacy to whether corporate subsidies for large projects in and around downtown are providing an even return to the neighborhoods.
“We can get real happy about all these new businesses downtown, but people are being displaced,” Foster said. “Our children are being failed. As pretty as Detroit looks right now, we're going to have a city of uneducated folks who are unable to operate and be able to thrive.”
Another attendee, Christian Blakely, asked the panel whether they thought the city’s economic development strategy creates more opportunities or deepens the existing inequality between longtime Detroiters and those benefiting from taxpayer funded projects mostly happening downtown.
“Any system where profit is over people, you’re going to have some problems in every area that affects life: education, community, safety, the whole nine,” Howard said. “The system is the system, but there are ways to put band aids on some of the wounds through a more community level strategy.”
The layers of why things are the way they are can be so difficult to trace. Unraveling the mysteries to bring some sense of correcting the path forward is hard to fathom. If certain people catch you going against the grain you'll hear about it loudly. This city has many influencers.
I think we've had relatively zero growth in voter turnout this past year.
When I ask young people if they vote, they look like it's a very foreign/forbidden concept. It used to be against the law to educate… have we drifted back to this? Parental lessons in disengagement?