“Young Black Men Are ___”, A Multimedia Interactive Storytelling Project, Opens February 1

An ambitious photography project is asking young Black men to tell their own stories.

“Young Black Men Are ____” is a multimedia storytelling campaign that begins with a portrait gallery of about a dozen participants from the Portland area. High school students and a few prominent adults from the community sat for self-directed sessions with photographer Jason Hill.

“You have vision statements for organizations, and we wanted something that fit our philosophy, which is that young Black men are really in charge of their narratives and their stories,” Lakayana Drury, executive director of Word Is Bond, told The Skanner. “So instead of us sitting in a room and saying hey, here’s our vision for what young Black men are, what if our vision statement was just open-ended and could allow any of our young men to envision what they see for themselves? That’s really what the genesis for the project was.”

Over the next month, organizers invite other young Black men and their allies to visit the Creative Homies building on specific days to take part in their own photo sessions. By the end of the project’s run, Word Is Bond hopes to gather 500 such portraits.

“We’re calling it the Infinite Expressions of Black Boy Joy, so Black Men Are is a storytelling campaign that allows young Black men, it allows community, to envision and literally write their own future for themselves,” Drury said.

“It’s all about reclaiming our narratives, because so many times stories of young Black men are told by everybody except young Black men, whether that’s in the media, whether that’s in person, whether it’s through history. So we really wanted to put the pen back in the hands of the authors, so to speak.”

The 11 initial portraits feature high school students alongside Creative Homies co-founder Cyrus Coleman, as well as two city hall newcomers: Faisal Osman, constituent services specialist to Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, and Elijah Crawford, the chief of staff to City Councilor Loretta Smith.

“Each of these portraits is a positive representation of Black men,” Drury said.

Word Is Bond is a nonprofit that mentors young Black men through leadership training and programs that include a yearly trip to Ghana.

“A really big part of our programming is storytelling and reclaiming our narratives and taking our own photos, so the photos are shot by photographer Jason Hill, a prominent African American photographer here in Portland,” Drury said. “One of our young men is a swimmer, one’s a track runner, one’s a skateboarder. Each one of these is a different expression of that. They chose their own outfits, their styles, their poses – everything. That’s how it came together.”

Participants were asked to finish the statement “Young Black men are,” either with a single word or a phrase.

“One of the ones that stood out to me was Sam, who chose the word ‘living,’ – ‘Young Black men are living,’” Drury said. “Another one chose the word ‘powerful,’ another ‘dedicated,’ another ‘full of possibilities.’ Throughout the campaign, when we start in February, we’ll open up to the public to come in and write their own words, whether it’s young Black men or whether it’s a community member that wants to be an ally or a supporter of the young Black men, we want to capture 500 photos of young Black men, in different expressions of Black boy joy.”

“If you think about that statement – which is also our vision statement – what we want for Word Is Bond is to make the people who come through our program experience limitless potential,” program coordinator Zion Ward told The Skanner. “What if young Black men were able to reach their fullest potential? That’s why it’s a statement more than an answer, it’s a blank space for whoever the Black male is to fill in.”

Derrick Mayfield, a 16-year-old Jefferson High student, chose to complete the phrase with “future.” He explained to The Skanner that he had been reflecting on what it meant to be Black in a technically post-segregation America.

“Now we can really show what we’re made of, and we can really show what our passions are – whether that means being a doctor or astronaut, or whatever we want to be, we can really show what we’re capable of.”

Mayfield posed with his skateboard, another nod to how Black youth occupy spaces that are largely represented as White. During the photo session, he enjoyed seeing a variety of outfits and effects that his fellow portrait subjects brought with them.

“I describe Word Is Bond as a sort of place where you can really show your talents,” Mayfield said.

Word is Bond partnered with the 1803 Fund to create a full calendar of events throughout February, Black History Month, at the Creative Homies building. Each Saturday, a guest photographer will hold a photo session open to young Black men and their allies, from 12 to 4 p.m.:

Feb. 1, photographer Jason Hill

Feb. 8, photographer Brett Brown

Feb. 15, photographer Marcel Johansen

Feb. 22, photographer Jason Hill

In addition, there will be a youth open mic, a youth paint, a guided walking tour and a panel discussion. Events will be held at the Horizon Enterprise Building, 406 NW Glisan St., Portland. For more information, visit Word is Bond's website.