KHALI Sweeney

“Khali Sweeney is the definition of a changemaker. He is the founder and CEO of Downtown Boxing Gym (DBG), a youth organization that helps kids recognize their full potential through comprehensive programming, including life coaching, academic support, health and nutrition, transportation, and athletics.

The work that Khali and DBG does is unmatched in the state of Michigan. DBG has become a nationwide case study of how to provide youth with wraparound services to help develop them inside and outside the classroom. Since 2007, Khali has impacted the lives of hundreds of Detroit youth and their families. He is truly a pilar in the Detroit community.” - NFL.com

About the photo

I met Khali in 2009 while I was biking the streets of Detroit looking for positive stories. I filmed for 3 months. Later that footage was edited as part of his storytelling to help raise funds. I have filmed him through the years when he was a CNN Hero and again for Resurgo.

Khali is a student of history and one of the deepest philosophers I know.

https://dbgdetroit.org

Drone Lion

500 drones formed the shape of a Detroit lions logo in the sky above the Michigan Central Station during the Lions 2023 playoff game against the LA Rams.

Ben Wallace

Ben Wallace was born in White Hall, Alabama. Wallace’s most successful seasons were with the Detroit Pistons as he was a key factor in the Pistons winning an NBA Championship in 2004. Wallace left the Pistons after the 2006 season and moved on to the Cavaliers and Bulls before returning to the Pistons for the last three years of his career. Wallace was a 4-time NBA All Star, 4-time NBA Defensive player of the year, 2-time NBA rebounding leader and 1-time NBA blocks leader. His number “3” was retired by the Pistons. Ben Wallace was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.

About the photo

I first ran into Ben Wallace while walking on the riverfront. It was 2006 and he was huge. I photographed him for this shot during the 100th Anniversary Celebration at the Detroit Historical Museum where he was being recognized. He put his hands in cement and signed next to other Michigan/Detroit legends . Themed “Celebrating Detroit through the Decades,” the event shined a spotlight on 100 years of collecting, sharing and preserving Detroit’s history and why telling these stories matters.

Jessica Care Moore is the voice of 2023 Pure Michigan, a Gucci Changemaker. I began collaborating with Jessica in 2010 for Ted X Detroit. Our film, Move Here Move the World has been seen more than 2 million times. She is the CEO of Moore Black Press, executive producer of BLACK WOMEN ROCK!, and founder of the literacy-driven jess Care moore Foundation. An internationally renowned poet, playwright, performance artist, and producer, she is the recipient of the 2013 Alain Locke Award from the Detroit Institute of Arts.[2]

John Conyers was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. representative from Michigan from 1965 to 2017. I photographed Conyers meeting with survivors of Agent Orange in 2007 who had traveled to Detroit from Vietnam to raise awareness.

Grace Lee Boggs was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist. I photographed her meeting with 3 Vietnamese survivors of Agent Orange in 2007. An obituary in the New York Times reported Boggs "waged war of inspiration for civil rights, labor, feminism, the environment and other causes for seven decades with an unflagging faith that revolutionary justice was around the corner."[20]

President Barack Obama issued a statement on Bogg's death, praising her work for Detroit and for "her leadership in the civil rights movement, to her ideas that challenged us all to lead meaningful lives." He added that Boggs "understood the power of community organizing at its core."

Gilda Snowden melting wax on to a canvas at her studio. Snowden’s works are predominately abstracts that utilize vivid color. The city of Detroit sparked several bodies of work. Her Flora Urbana series features abstracted floral forms, in encaustic, inspired by the gardens now tended by Detroit citizens on plots where buildings once stood. I first photographed her for the film series I did for the Kresge Arts in Detroit (KAID) in 2011.

Tamarkus Williams helped take this engine out of a 55 Buick as the Detroit Student Race Team (DSRT) led by Andy Didorosi, converts the car to an EV with junkyard parts. DSRT is a nonprofit in Midwest Detroit dedicated to teaching kids about cars and racing. “We started a real racing team with students from Detroit, Highland Park, and Hamtramck. And they’re awesome.” www.detroitstudentraceteam.com/

Jason Hall founder of Slow Roll Detroit bike tours “I grew up in Rosedale Park. So that was, to me, the epitome of community. We had junior activities, dances, steak dinners, and the community came together often. Growing up like that, community was very important to me. I’ve lived all over the place [in Detroit], but it was not until livingin Corktown that I feel like I was part of a community once again, like I knew my neighbors. We looked out for each other. We spent time with each other. It was one of the neighborhoods that still felt like Detroit You know, it was still — let’s keep it real: We’re still grimy in areas. You know what I’m saying, like it was coming up in certain areas, but it still felt like a neighborhood. “I started Slow Roll [e-bike tours] to get people out in the neighborhoods to experience the beautiful side of Detroit that wasn’t in the news. There’s this perception of Detroit that there is a good and bad, and these rides — the tours — don’t stay within those parameters. If I do a tour of the murals in Eastern Market, on my way there, we pass through Brush Park. I definitely talk about it — what’s happening there and the history of it. If I pass a cool house, let’s talk about it. What I don’t do is pull up with, like, huge fanfare, like a loudspeaker. I really try to be cognizant of the neighborhoods. “When you are out with me, you’re going to end up at Spot Lite having a coffee, looking at records. You’re going to end u in Heidelberg with me; you’re going to end up on the Dequindre Cut. And you’re going faster than you’ve ever gone on a bike.” https://ridetroit.com/jasonhall

Bryce Detroit, music producer, performer, curator, community activist. Owner of The Garage, a community event space in a former mechanics garage on Oakland Avenue. With this kind of a space (the Garage) it is a part of my initiative to develop spaces in our neighborhood that are actually based on the cultural economic legacy of Black music economy in the North End. And from there being able to present a new practice that can lead to a new model for how we are developing spaces. My [road] sign [project], ‘Hood Closed to Gentrifiers,’ is really a two-part statement. One is to bring up the militant origin of the word ‘gentry’ and how that origin makes its way of clearing land for one type of people while displacing the inhabitants. The other is to focus o creating a platform to celebrate the internal economics. https://www.brycedetroit.com

Marsha Music was born in Detroit and grew up in Highland Park, Michigan - a city within the city of Detroit. She has lived in these two cities her entire life. She is the daughter of legendary pre-Motown record producer, the late Joe Von Battle, and west side Detroit beauty and music lover, the late Shirley Battle. Ms. Music is a self- described "primordial Detroiter," and a "Detroitist". She became an activist in her early teens in the social tumult of the late sixties, and was founding member of the iconic League of Revolutionary Black Workers. She was later a labor union president - the first Black, first woman and youngest in her local union's history.Ms. Music has written acclaimed essays, poems and narratives about the city's music, and its past and future. https://marshamusic.wordpress.com

Marcus Belgrave as an American jazz trumpet player from Detroit, born in Chester, Pennsylvania. He recorded with numerous musicians from the 1950s onwards.[3]Belgrave was inducted into the class of 2017 of the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in Detroit, Michigan. Belgrave was tutored by Clifford Brown before joining the Ray Charles touring band. Belgrave later worked with Motown Records, and recorded with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Gunther Schuller, Carl Craig, Max Roach, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, La Palabra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dizzy Gillespie, Odessa Harris [4] and John Sinclair, plus more recently with his wife Joan Belgrave, among others.

SINCE 2010, BRE’ANN WHITE HAS CURATED STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHS AND BRANDING MATERIALS FOR ORGANIZATIONS WORLDWIDE. THE DETROIT-BRED FASHION AND PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER IS KNOWN FOR CREATING AND CULTIVATING STRIKING IMAGES THAT DRAW YOU INTO THE SUBJECT’S WORLD. THROUGHOUT WHITE’S WORK PORTFOLIO, THERE IS A CONSISTENT LAYER OF AUTHENTICITY AND IMAGINATION.

WITH CONFIDENCE IN HER WORK AND HER VISION, BRE’ANN’S CAREER HAS ALLOWED HER TO SHOWCASE HER WORK AND EXPLORE EXHIBITION OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT TO A BROADER AUDIENCE. HER WORK HAS BEEN SHOT AROUND THE WORLD INCLUDING NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, AFRICA, SOUTHERN FRANCE, ITALY, AND AUSTRALIA. BRE’ANN WHITE HAS EXHIBITED WORK IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM OF PHIL, ARABIC NATIONAL MUSEUM, PLAYGROUND DETROIT, UICA OF GRAND RAPIDS, N’NAMDI CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, NORWEST GALLERY, AND SAVEARTSPACE AND HAS BEEN FEATURED IN NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS SUCH AS TEEN VOGUE, HOUR MAGAZINE, ESSENCE, NETFLIX AND HARPER BAZAAR.

Quinten Hull is one of my favorite photographers, he mixes french 1960s esq street photography with fashion. He learned the basics of photography playing Grand Turismo, a video game that gives an option to ‘photograph’ cars in the video game and control shutter speed and aperture. He quickly picked up a film camera and used 35mm, developing the film through a friend. He did that for 6 years! That craftsmanship gave him a unique approach to photography.