Our parents. Our siblings. Our spouses. Our children. The people who know our history, helped shape our identity, and sometimes know exactly where our emotional buttons are.

We all have family stories—some filled with laughter and belonging, others with hurt we thought we had outgrown. What happens when those old wounds resurface? On October 15, Dr. Angelita P. Howard joins Calvin Baldwin for a Soul Thursdays conversation about faith, family, forgiveness and the courage to establish healthy boundaries. We’ll explore shared reality: the truth, empathy and accountability two people build together—and what happens when that foundation breaks. Expect scripture, relatable conversation, community participation and soulful music from Hezekiah Walker, GMWA Women of Worship, Donald Lawrence, Walter Hawkins, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin and Sounds of Blackness. Join us on ZOOM at

https://SoulThursdays.com. We grow together.

🔗 JOIN NOW at SoulThursdays.com

🔗 JOIN NOW at SoulThursdays.com

Join Us LIVE!

🎙️ Soul Thursdays Presents: Dr. Angelita P. Howard

Episode: When Family Hurts: Faith, Forgiveness & the Courage to Set Boundaries

📅 Thursday, October 15, 2026
🕗 8:00 PM Eastern
💻 LIVE on Zoom
🔗 Register at SoulThursdays.com

Come early for our Soul Lounge, enjoy some uplifting music, connect with the community, and settle in for an engaging conversation.

Bring your questions, your curiosity, and maybe a little grace for yourself and others.

And if you know someone navigating complicated family relationships, share this invitation with them.

Because sometimes healing begins with a conversation we didn’t know we needed.

See you Thursday!

Calvin Creates
Founder & Executive Producer, Soul Thursdays
Community Education Collective

Real People. Real Conversations. A Stronger Us.

We Grow Together. 💛

Our first parenting workshop is almost here! Join us Saturday, October 10, from 10 AM–1 PM Eastern, for Protection → Preparation: Navigating Parenting Blind Spots.

For the past 12 weeks, Dr. Christina Christian, Dr. Toi Curry, Elyse Jones, LMSW, CPC, Dr. Christopher Collins, Nicole Doyle and I have been bringing this work together—through Soul Thursdays, our Parenting Circles and conversations about what families need.

One question keeps coming back: Can a loving, involved parent still miss something important about what their child needs?

Recent headlines bring that question closer to home. So do the concerns registrants are sharing: How do I say “be safe” without sounding like a nag? How do I support independence while staying connected? Have I taught the skills I’m expecting my child to use?

This workshop is our next step—from talking about those questions to helping parents find practical ways forward.

Take a look at the four moments below. Click the image that speaks to you—or reminds you of someone you love—and claim a free ticket while supplies last.

Share

Already registered? Please forward this invitation to a parent, grandparent or caregiver who could use the support. You don’t have to have all the answers to join us.

“Be Safe” - We say it because we love them. But do they know what to do when safety depends on their own judgment?

TEACH “NEW” SAFTY - GET FREE TICKET

“CLICK HERE”

Our discussion of Nikole Hannah-Jones’s family school choice raised a different parenting question: How do we recognize when a decision made with love and conviction may need to change?

Share

These are different stories with different circumstances. Both brought us back to questions families carry: What is my child experiencing? What are they telling me? How do I prepare them—and stay someone they can turn to?

Those questions helped shape Protection → Preparation: Navigating Parenting Blind Spots, happening Saturday, October 10, from 10 AM–1 PM Eastern.

“What Would My Child Do?” - A story in the news can make us ask a question we hadn’t thought to ask at home.

TEACH AWARENESS - GET FREE TICKET

“CLICK HERE”

We’re bringing together expert perspectives, real-life situations, and practical exercises to help parents notice important signals and choose a more intentional response.

Share

To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

If you’ve been part of these conversations, you helped us get here. Now I’d love for you to join us as we put these ideas into practice.

“She Was Telling You” - What if your child has been trying to tell you something, but you haven’t yet known what to listen for?

LEARN “NEW” LISTENING - GET FREE TICKET

“CLICK HERE”

Do you know a parent who checks the grades, asks where their child is going, says “be safe,” and still wonders: Am I seeing everything my child needs me to see?

Maybe that parent is you. Maybe it’s someone you love.

On Saturday, October 10, from 10 AM–1 PM Eastern, we’re bringing parents and caregivers together for Protection → Preparation: Navigating Parenting Blind Spots. This live virtual workshop is not about pointing out what parents have done wrong. It’s about noticing what may be easy to miss—and helping our children build the judgment, confidence, and ability to ask for help when we aren’t beside them.

“Same Journey. New Challenges.” - We can help set the route. How do we prepare our children to navigate the turns we cannot see?

LEARN “NEW” CHALLENGES - GET FREE TICKET

“CLICK HERE”

You don’t need to have all the answers before joining us. Come with a question, a story, or simply a willingness to look again.

Free tickets are available while supplies last for our Soul Thursdays community. Choose the moment that resonates and register through its page above.

Share

Share with parents, mentors and caregivers,

Calvin Creates
Founder | Community Education Collective

Introducing PrepParenting.com - from Protection to Preparation, Navigating Parenting Bling Spots workshop by Community Education Collective!

Last week reminded us why this space matters. Parents, caregivers, educators, and professionals came together not because any of us has all the answers, but because we all have something to bring—and something we can learn from one another.

Today, we’ll continue that conversation with a timely discussion inspired by Nikole Hannah-Jones:

“In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?”

It raises some powerful parenting questions for our Circle:

What happens when our values about what is best for children collide with the choices we make for our own children? Where might love, protection, opportunity, fear, or our own experiences create parenting blind spots? And how do we recognize them?

This isn’t about judging one parent’s choices. It’s an opportunity to use the conversation as a mirror for examining our own.

Join us on Zoom:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86422078281?pwd=uSwaTrmnbzMoKNSwlRlLMZtDJbUHXf.1

No presentation to prepare. Just bring your experiences, your questions, and your perspective.

12:00 PM ET — See you in the Circle!

Calvin Creates
Founder | Community Education Collective
PrepParenting | Soul Thursdays | 1828 Academy

THURSDAY — Soul Thursdays: Parenting Today Kickoff (Click Here)

Tonight 8 PM ET | LIVE on Zoom

Dr. Stephanie M. Curenton joins us for: THE POWER OF A HEAD START - Why Early Childhood Environments Matter

Then Dr. Christina Christian joins us for: THE PARENTING BLIND SPOT - What Loving Parents Don’t Always See

FRIDAY — Parenting Community Circle(Click Here)

Friday, Sept. 18 | 12 PM ET | LIVE on Zoom

This is a place to think out loud, share experiences, ask questions, listen to other parents, exchange resources, and realize that you don’t have to figure everything out by yourself.

OCTOBER 10 — WORKSHOP PARENTING TODAY - Practical Tools for Busy Parents Raising Children in a Changing World

Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026 | 10 AM ET | LIVE on Zoom

On October 10, we’ll bring parents, experts, and community together for a more practical experience focused on recognizing what we may not see, understanding what may be influencing our children, and making more intentional parenting decisions.

You don’t have to attend everything. Start wherever you are.

And if you know another parent, grandparent, caregiver, educator, mentor, auntie, uncle, or friend who could benefit from these conversations, forward this email and invite them to come with you.

We’re building this community one conversation—and one relationship—at a time.

See you tonight,

Calvin Creates, Founder
Program Director, 🎓 1828Academy.com | PrepParenting.com

We talk about education, discipline, fatherhood, violence, opportunity, achievement and what it takes to get them safely through adolescence.

But there is another developmental period that receives far less attention:

What happens after the boy turns 18—but before the man feels fully prepared for adulthood?

This Thursday on Soul Thursdays Live, I’ll sit down with Christopher C. Collins, PhD, whose research examines Black emerging adulthood, parenting, positive youth development, achievement, coping and family relationships.

His work raises a question that I believe deserves much more attention:

Instead of only studying why Black young men struggle, what can we learn by studying the relationships, experiences and developmental assets that help them thrive?

Chris’s research on Black emerging adult men found distinct trajectories in proactive coping assets—the abilities that help people anticipate challenges, plan ahead and prepare themselves to deal with what life brings. His work also found that parental support and parental coaching were associated with which developmental trajectories young men followed.

That gives us a very different conversation about Black men.

Not simply:

What’s wrong with them?

But:

What helps develop them?

We’ll talk about:

🔹 Emerging adulthood — what it is and why ages roughly 18 through the twenties deserve their own developmental conversation

🔹 Parenting after childhood — how support, coaching and guidance may need to change as a son becomes an adult

🔹 Achievement vs. well-being — why getting the degree or job doesn’t necessarily tell us whether a young man is thriving

🔹 Identity and purpose — how Black young men make sense of who they are and who they are becoming

🔹 Proactive coping — what helps a young man prepare for life’s challenges rather than continually reacting to them

🔹 Imposter syndrome across generations — including an interesting conversation Chris and I had about whether previous generations experienced some of today’s named psychological phenomena before we had today’s language for them

And we’ll explore something particularly important to me:

How do we translate research back into the community?

A researcher may call something proactive coping assets.

A parent might say:

“I need him to learn to think ahead.”

A young man might simply say:

“I’m tired of always playing catch-up.”

Sometimes the experience exists long before people have the academic language to describe it.

That’s where research, lived experience and community conversation need to meet.

BOYS TO MEN

What Research Reveals About Black Emerging Adulthood

🎙️ Featuring Christopher C. Collins, PhD
🎤 Hosted by Calvin Creates
📅 Thursday, August 27
🕗 8 PM Eastern / 7 PM Central
📍 SoulThursdays.com

If you are raising a son, mentoring a young man, working with Black men—or simply interested in understanding the transition from boyhood into adulthood—I hope you’ll join us.

And I’d especially like members of State of Black Man in the room.

Bring your experiences.

Bring your questions.

Bring what your generation called it.

Because understanding the state of Black men also requires understanding how Black men become.

You realize there are rooms your child will enter that you cannot.

A classroom.

A locker room.

A sleepover.

A college campus.

A workplace.

A friend’s house.

And somewhere along the way, the question changes.

It stops being:

“Can I protect my child?”

And becomes:

“Have I prepared my child?”

Over the past week, I’ve been reading stories from Black parents, educators, white parents raising Black and biracial children, and adults reflecting on what it was like growing up as the only Black student in predominantly white schools.

One phrase kept appearing in different forms:

Belonging is not the same as protection.

That idea has stayed with me.

For years, many families have worked hard to give their children access to the best schools, neighborhoods, and opportunities. But what happens after they arrive?

How do we know they’re truly seen?

Who notices when they’re isolated?

Who advocates for them when they’re not in the room?

How do we help them recognize unhealthy situations without teaching them to fear everyone around them?

This Isn’t Just a Conversation About Race

It’s a conversation about parenting.

It’s about identity.

It’s about belonging.

It’s about resilience.

It’s about the invisible lessons children learn every day.

Sometimes those lessons come from a teacher.

Sometimes from a friend.

Sometimes from a group photo where one child is quietly positioned differently.

Sometimes from being the only one in the room.

Sometimes from finally finding someone who says,

“I see you.”

These moments shape identity long before children have the language to describe them.

One Idea We’ll Explore Together

One distinction has become increasingly important during my research:

Fear assumes danger.

Suspicion assumes bad intentions.

Discernment pays attention.

Our goal isn’t to raise fearful children.

It’s to raise children who know themselves, trust their instincts, ask good questions, and never feel they have to trade their identity to gain acceptance.

We’ll Be Talking About...

• What does belonging really look like?

• How do parents recognize when a child is surviving instead of thriving?

• How do we teach confidence without creating fear?

• What conversations should happen before our children leave home?

• What role do mentors, teachers, coaches, and communities play when parents can’t be there?

• How do we prepare children to succeed without asking them to shrink themselves?

This Is a Community Conversation

This isn’t about blame.

This isn’t about pointing fingers.

This is about listening.

Learning.

Sharing stories.

And helping one another become better parents, mentors, educators, neighbors, and advocates.

Some of the most meaningful insights on Soul Thursdays don’t come from the host.

They come from someone in the audience saying,

“That happened to my child too.”

or

“I wish someone had told me that twenty years ago.”

That’s how community grows.

Join Us Live

🎙️ Soul Thursdays Community Discussion

Black Kids. White Spaces.

📅 Thursday, July 23
🕗 8:00 PM Eastern

🌐 SoulThursdays.com

Come with your questions.

Come with your experiences.

Come ready to listen as much as you speak.

Because our children deserve more than access to opportunity.

They deserve the confidence to walk into any room knowing they belong—and the wisdom to recognize when something isn’t right.

Let’s grow together. 💛

Is it changing the institutions that shape our lives?

Or is it creating trusted spaces where people can heal, grow, and find direction before crisis ever begins?

Tonight on Soul Thursdays, we’re bringing together two powerful conversations that answer the same question from two very different perspectives.

Join the Conversation

📅 Tonight — Thursday, July 16, 2026
🕗 8:00 PM ET
🎥 LIVE at SoulThursdays.com

🏰 Inside the Castle Walls — Dr. Erroll G. Southers

For generations we’ve been told:

Get the education.
Work twice as hard.
Earn a seat at the table.

But what happens once you’re finally inside?

Can you change the system without the system changing you?

Former FBI Special Agent, homeland security leader, USC professor, and author Dr. Erroll G. Southers shares his remarkable journey from young activist to institutional leader, exploring what it means to lead from inside the rooms where decisions are made.

Together we’ll discuss:

• The family lessons that shaped him long before the FBI

• Why his father told him, “You can’t change the castle from outside the moat.”

• Access, influence, and leadership

• Mentorship and preparation

• Opening doors for the next generation

💈 From Barbershops to Boardrooms — Perrin Anderson

But changing communities doesn’t happen only inside institutions.

Sometimes it begins in a barber chair.

Meet Perrin Anderson, barber, educator, father, and founder of Kings in the Cave, a movement creating spaces where men can be honest, grow, and reconnect before life pushes them toward crisis.

This conversation is for:

💈 Barbers
✂️ Hair Stylists
⛪ Pastors
🤝 Mentors
👨🏾‍🏫 Educators
🏀 Coaches
❤️ Community Builders

We’ll explore:

• Why the barbershop is more than a place for haircuts

• Building trusted spaces before men crash out

• Faith, therapy, fatherhood, and personal growth

• From the barber chair to community leadership

• What happens when ordinary people become extraordinary community builders

🏰 + 💈 Changing the Castle. Building the Cave.

These aren’t two separate conversations.

They’re two sides of the same challenge.

One asks:

How do we change systems from within?

The other asks:

How do we reach people before those systems ever become involved?

Because strong communities need both.

We need leaders inside the castle.

We need trusted voices inside the cave.

And we need bridges between them.

Join the Conversation

📅 Tonight — Thursday, July 16, 2026
🕗 8:00 PM ET
🎥 LIVE at SoulThursdays.com

Share it with someone who believes our communities deserve better.

Because community transformation doesn’t happen in one room.

It happens when the people in every room begin working together.

We grow together. 💛

🎙 Built, Not Born: Who Helped Build You?
Thursday, July 2 • 8:00 PM ET
JOIN NOW

Calvin Creates
Founder | Community Education Collective
Executive Producer | Soul Thursdays

Community Learning Architect & Ecosystem Builder
Connecting community voice, expert knowledge, and practical solutions that strengthen families and communities.

Planning a conference, reunion, livestream, podcast, or hybrid event?
Schedule a complimentary discovery conversation: Book a Discovery Call with Calvin

Joining Donnell is leadership coach P. Kevin Williamson, who has spent more than 26 years helping professionals develop confidence, strengthen leadership, and discover their calling.

Together, they’ll help us launch our new Healthy Masculinity series with a conversation that goes beyond boxing and business to explore a question that affects us all:

Who helped build you?

Through stories of mentorship, perseverance, leadership, and personal growth, we’ll explore how healthy men—and healthy communities—are built one relationship, one lesson, and one generation at a time.

🎙 Built, Not Born: Who Helped Build You?
Thursday, July 2 • 8:00 PM ET
Register FREE

At State of Black Man, we believe healthy masculinity isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something that’s developed through relationships, responsibility, accountability, and community.

For years, public conversations about Black men have often focused on statistics, crises, and problems.

Less often do we stop to ask a different question:

What helps boys become healthy men?

Not perfect men.

Not celebrity men.

Not wealthy men.

Healthy men.

That’s why we’re excited to launch a new ongoing conversation:

Healthy Masculinity

This series will explore the people, experiences, values, and life lessons that shape emotionally healthy, purpose-driven men.

We’ll discuss topics like:

• Mentorship

• Fatherhood

• Emotional Intelligence

• Leadership

• Identity

• Discipline

• Relationships

• Purpose

• Mental Health

• Community

• Healing

• Legacy

Rather than asking, “What’s wrong with Black men?”

We’ll begin asking:

What helps Black men thrive?

Episode One: Built, Not Born: Who Helped Build You?

Our first conversation brings together two men whose careers couldn’t appear more different.

Leadership coach P. Kevin Williamson has spent more than 26 years helping professionals develop confidence, strengthen leadership, and build healthier organizational cultures.

Former heavyweight contender Donnell Holmes rose from a small town in North Carolina to become the #1 ranked Light Heavyweight in the United States, a member of the U.S. World Class Elite Boxing Team, and eventually a Boxing Hall of Fame inductee.

One developed leaders.

One developed champions.

Both were developed by someone else.

Their stories remind us that confidence is built.

Character is built.

Leadership is built.

Discipline is built.

Healthy masculinity is built.

Community Discussion

After our spotlight conversations, we’ll open the floor to one question that every person can answer:

Who Helped Build You?

Think about the people who shaped your life.

Who challenged you?

Who corrected you?

Who encouraged you?

Who believed in you before you believed in yourself?

Maybe it was a parent.

A coach.

A teacher.

A pastor.

An aunt.

A grandfather.

A fraternity brother.

A neighbor.

Or perhaps someone who simply showed up when you needed them most.

As a community, we’ll reflect on how those relationships continue to shape our lives—and what responsibility we now have to help build others.

Because healthy communities don’t happen by accident.

They are built.

One relationship.

One conversation.

One generation at a time.

🎙 Join Us Live

Healthy Masculinity Series

Episode One

Built, Not Born: Who Helped Build You?

Featuring

P. Kevin Williamson
Leading Beyond the Title: Confidence, Community, and Calling

Donnell Holmes
The Heart of a Contender

🗓 Thursday, July 2

🕗 8:00 PM Eastern

Because every one of us is still being built.

Calvin Creates
Founder | Community Education Collective
Executive Producer | Soul Thursdays

Community Learning Architect & Ecosystem Builder
Connecting community voice, expert knowledge, and practical solutions that strengthen families and communities.

Planning a conference, reunion, livestream, podcast, or hybrid event?
Schedule a complimentary discovery conversation: Book a Discovery Call with Calvin

📅 Thursday, June 18, 2026 ⏰ 10:00 AM START– 💻 Virtual (Zoom)

JOIN at JuneteenthConference.org

What We’re Covering

1. Building a Self-Sustaining Black Economy

2. Mental & Spiritual Health for Holistic Healing

3. Urban Farming & Food Deserts

4. Food Security in Black America

5. How to Start an African American Museum in Your City

Who’s Already in the Room

• University professors and deans from Tuskegee, Kansas State, Duke, Indiana, Tulane

• Government leaders from Detroit, Rochester, and Richland County

• Nonprofit founders running food justice, youth development, and crisis intervention

• Educators, entrepreneurs, and community organizers from 20+ states

— Calvin Rich, Soul Thursdays · Community Education Collective

Founder | Community Education Collective

Executive Producer | Soul Thursdays

Community Architect | Connecting people, ideas, and expertise to build stronger communities.

🌐 CoEDCommunity.com

🎙️ DJCalvin.com

Planning a conference, reunion, livestream, podcast, or hybrid event?

Schedule a complimentary discovery conversation:

📅 Book a Discovery Call with Calvin

There’s a quiet conversation happening in a lot of homes right now.

And that changes the conversation. SoulThursdays.com - Register here for this week’s session!

Some Questions We’ll Explore Together

• What does “prepared for adulthood” actually mean today?

• What responsibilities helped YOU grow?

• How do we know when we’re helping children versus overprotecting them?

• What builds confidence and resilience in young people?

• Did survival culture change the way our communities parent?

• What conversations are missing right now?

🎙️ Soul Thursdays
Real Voices. Real Stories. Real Community.
🌐 Join Now at SoulThursdays.com

📅 Thursday, April 16 - JOIN HERE

Raised in foster care and overcoming homelessness as a teenager, Fisher transformed his life experiences into the bestselling memoir Finding Fish, a powerful story of survival, healing, and the search for belonging.

His newest book, Reflections Beneath the Buckeye Trees: Notes from a Life, offers thoughtful reflections on forgiveness, memory, and the lessons learned across a lifetime.

Antwone Fisher’s story reminds us that even in the hardest circumstances, transformation is possible.

This will be a deeply personal conversation about resilience, storytelling, identity, and what it means to reclaim your life narrative.

📅 Thursday, April 16 🕖 7:45 PM ET - REGISTER HERE

📅 Thursday, April 16 🕖 7:45 PM ET - REGISTER HERE

Raised in foster care and overcoming homelessness as a teenager, Fisher transformed his life experiences into the bestselling memoir Finding Fish, a powerful story of survival, healing, and the search for belonging.

His newest book, Reflections Beneath the Buckeye Trees: Notes from a Life, offers thoughtful reflections on forgiveness, memory, and the lessons learned across a lifetime.

Antwone Fisher’s story reminds us that even in the hardest circumstances, transformation is possible.

This will be a deeply personal conversation about resilience, storytelling, identity, and what it means to reclaim your life narrative.

📅 Thursday, April 16 🕖 7:45 PM ET - REGISTER HERE

Antwone Fisher is a New York Times bestselling author and screenwriter whose life story inspired the acclaimed film Antwone Fisher. Raised in foster care and overcoming homelessness as a teenager, Fisher transformed his life experiences into the bestselling memoir Finding Fish. His newest book, Reflections Beneath the Buckeye Trees: Notes from a Life, reflects on forgiveness, memory, and the lessons learned across a lifetime.

Join the Conversation

Soul Thursdays has always been about more than listening — it’s about learning together, sharing experiences, and building community through honest conversation.

Whether you’re caring for family, reflecting on your own life journey, or simply seeking deeper understanding, these conversations are for you.

JOIN NOW for BUILD — Brotherhood, Unity, Integrity, Leadership & Duty

Our guest, Curtis Pitts, brings a perspective grounded in community leadership and real-world responsibility. His message is simple, but powerful: strong communities don’t happen by accident — they are built by men who understand their role in them.

We’ll talk about what it means to surround yourself with the right men, how to lead without a title, and why integrity matters more than image. We’ll also explore the idea that manhood isn’t just about personal success — it’s about what exists because you showed up and took responsibility.

If you’re a parent, mentor, or someone raising a young man, this is one of those conversations that can create a shift. And if you’re a young man between 18–28, this is an opportunity to hear what leadership and responsibility actually look like in practice.

📅 Thursday | 8 PM ET
🎤 Guest: Curtis Pitts
📍 Live Session

You can reserve your spot here:
1828academy.com

If someone came to mind while reading this — a son, nephew, or young man in your life — invite him to join you.

Because at some point, every man has to answer the question:

Young Man, What are You Building? - Register at 1828academy.com

It’s no longer just, “What can I achieve?”
It becomes, “What am I building?”

Most young men are taught how to pursue success — how to get a job, make money, and compete. But very few are taught how to build something that lasts. A strong family. A trusted reputation. A community that’s better because they were part of it.

That shift — from achievement to responsibility — is where manhood really begins.

This week at Manhood Academy, we’re continuing our kickoff series with a conversation centered on that idea:

BUILD — Brotherhood, Unity, Integrity, Leadership & Duty

Our guest, Curtis Pitts, brings a perspective grounded in community leadership and real-world responsibility. His message is simple, but powerful: strong communities don’t happen by accident — they are built by men who understand their role in them.

We’ll talk about what it means to surround yourself with the right men, how to lead without a title, and why integrity matters more than image. We’ll also explore the idea that manhood isn’t just about personal success — it’s about what exists because you showed up and took responsibility.

If you’re a parent, mentor, or someone raising a young man, this is one of those conversations that can create a shift. And if you’re a young man between 18–28, this is an opportunity to hear what leadership and responsibility actually look like in practice.

📅 Thursday | 8 PM ET
🎤 Guest: Curtis Pitts
📍 Live Session

You can reserve your spot here:
1828academy.com

If someone came to mind while reading this — a son, nephew, or young man in your life — invite him to join you.

Because at some point, every man has to answer the question:

Young Man, What are You Building? - Register at 1828academy.com

JOIN NOW

A Conversation with Dr. Berry Pierre

Our guest speaker is Dr. Berry Pierre, a board-certified physician, health educator, and advocate who has spent years helping people understand the real impact of everyday health decisions.

But this conversation is not just about medicine.

It’s about ownership.

Ownership of your body.
Ownership of your habits.
Ownership of the future you are building.

Because long-term leadership doesn’t begin in the boardroom.

It begins in daily discipline.

Join the Conversation

📍 Manhood Academy Session

Vitality & Longevity — Why Young Men Must Protect Their Future

🩺 Guest Speaker: Dr. Berry Pierre
Board-Certified Physician | Health Educator | Advocate

Young men ages 18–28 are encouraged to attend.

Parents and mentors are welcome as well.

Reserve your spot:
1828academy.com

JOIN NOW HERE

Leadership Beyond Titles

A Different Kind of Conversation

Join the Conversation

Become a Speaker:
👉 1828academy.com

If you know a young man between 18 and 28, invite him to join the conversation.

Because sometimes the most powerful lessons about manhood come from simply hearing how another man chose to live.

At State of the Black Man, we believe these conversations matter. Not as abstract debates about masculinity, but as real discussions about how men live, lead, and influence the generations behind them.

That’s why this week we continue the Manhood Academy 18–28 Kickoff Series with a conversation titled:

Measure of a Man

Our featured guest is Maurice Spencer, a technology leader, mentor, basketball coach, and proud girl dad whose journey reflects many of the values that shape strong communities.

The Role of Mentors

For many Black men, mentorship has always been a powerful force.

Sometimes it’s the coach who demanded discipline.
Sometimes it’s the elder who offered wisdom at the right moment.
Sometimes it’s a leader who showed that success and character could exist in the same space.

Maurice often speaks about the coaches who shaped him during his basketball journey growing up in Martinsville, Virginia — a small Southern town where community, sports, and mentorship often intersect.

Those mentors taught him lessons that extended far beyond the court: accountability, teamwork, respect, and perseverance.

Today, Maurice continues that legacy by coaching youth basketball — including his daughter’s AAU team — and investing in the development of young athletes who are learning life lessons through sport.

Because leadership often begins with example.

Leadership Beyond Titles

Professionally, Maurice has spent more than two decades building teams and leading organizations in the technology sector.

But for him, leadership isn’t about titles.

It’s about responsibility.

It’s about creating environments where people can grow, where fairness and opportunity matter, and where leaders understand that their actions influence everyone watching them.

For young men navigating adulthood today, those lessons are invaluable.

A Different Kind of Conversation

The Manhood Academy initiative was created because many young men today are searching for guidance but lack consistent access to mentorship.

Parents are doing their best.
Communities care deeply.

But structured spaces where young men can hear wisdom from experienced leaders are becoming increasingly rare.

Through the State of the Black Man platform, these conversations aim to highlight real examples of leadership and character.

Maurice Spencer represents one measure of a man.

Not the only measure.
Not a perfect blueprint.

But a real example of how leadership, mentorship, humor, discipline, and fatherhood can coexist in one life.

Join the Conversation

This week we continue the 18–28 Manhood Academy Kickoff Series with:

Measure of a Man

Featuring Maurice Spencer

We’ll explore:

• Leadership beyond titles
• The influence of mentors and coaches
• Lessons from sports and fatherhood
• Character, responsibility, and accountability
• Preparing the next generation of men

📅 Thursday
🕗 8 PM Eastern

Register here:
👉 1828academy.com

If you know a young man between 18 and 28, invite him to join the conversation.

Because sometimes the most powerful lessons about manhood come from simply hearing how another man chose to live.

🔗 Join Now: Click Here

How Young Men Show Up in the Room.

Our first guest speaker, Terrence Waller, will lead a conversation on professionalism, presentation, and presence — covering:

• How attire communicates before you speak

• Preparing for interviews and leadership spaces

• Reading professional environments

• Carrying yourself with clarity and confidence

This is not about respectability politics.
It’s about giving boys the tools to navigate rooms with awareness and intention.

This event is an Open House + Community Conversation.

We’ll share:

• Why Manhood Academy was created

• What the survey data revealed

• The 4-week kickoff plan

• How parents and community members can stay involved

If you care about a son, nephew, grandson, or young man becoming grounded and prepared — this space is for you.

📍 Live Open House
🎙️ Speaker: Terrence Waller
🎓 Topic: Professionalism, Presentation & Presence
🔗 Register here: Click Here

Let’s build this — together.

—
Calvin Rich
Author | Founder, 1828 Manhood Academy
Creator of the 32 Flavors Identity Framework
AudacityBook.com - From survival to stewardship.