Eight years ago (2013), The Black Daddies Club partnered with Dr. Carl James (York University), Dr. Lance McCready (University of Toronto, OISE) and the City of Toronto do a research project called Gathering our voices (report can be found on the report tab on the Black Daddies Club website). In our conversations around marketing and promotion for the research project, in where we wanted to capture the voices from Black fathers in the Greater Toronto Area. We landed on the idea of creating a series of video montages in where we would speak with various Black fathers in Toronto about some issues that we wanted to talk about in the research project and hear what they would have to say. The result was three videos that was created and edited with Toronto photographer Steve Carty.
The videos are still relevant 8 years later, and the issues that Black men were navigating in 2013 are still issues a lot of Black men are still navigating in 2021. The fact that we are navigating a pandemic with Covid-19 and we are not able to gather in our usual spaces and be able to speak freely with other Black men (i.e. barbershops), we have to think of innovative ways of creating spaces where Black men have the freedom to speak authentically and most importantly a space where Black men can resonate and even see themselves in the words that are said by other Black men.
One of the outcome from the research project, was that Black men in Toronto repeatedly said they wanted more spaces to connect with other Black men, for them to talk about various issues that they are navigating amidst other Black men and also to share their experiences as Black men and listen to other Black men’s experiences that mimics their own or that they can learn from. The Black Daddies Club has continued co-creating various spaces for Black men and the Black communities as a result of the recommendation from the “Gathering Our Voices Research, 2013”. The newest Black Daddies Club initiative Sunday Dinner, is creating this virtual space for Black men (Straight, Gay, Trans, Bi-sexual and Non-binary).
The Black Daddies Club co-presents Sunday Dinners, are monthly online discussions for Black men that takes place on the Zoom platform, these conversations takes place on the last Sunday of each month. The next Sunday Dinner will take place Sunday, February 21st, 5pm to 7:30pm. You can register for this free event on EventBrite