This past November, Ohio inducted their first Muslim judge for the Franklin County Municipal Court.
She has been practicing as a prosecutor in Lancaster and defense attorney with her own practice in Columbus for years.
We’ll learn more about her journey pursuing law as a Bangladeshi Muslim woman.
Founded in 2006, Wild Goose Creative is a nonprofit arts organization that serves as a community space for artists.
They recently announced a new executive director, a curator with years of experience in nonprofit programming and arts education.
Research suggests that urban African American girls are significantly exposed to more traumatic stressors than children of other racial groups.
That’s the statistic that inspires Black Girl Rising, a research project exploring urban adolescent African American girls’ experiences.
Guests:
- Ajmeri Hoque, Franklin County Municipal Court Judge
- Janelle Bonfour-Mikes, executive director, Wild Goose Creative
- Fran Frazier, founder, Black Girl Rising
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from All Sides and WOSU where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye State with an interesting story to tell. This past November, Ohio inducted their first Muslim judge for the Franklin County Municipal Court. Ajmeri Haque, a Bangladeshi-born New Yorker moved to Columbus to attend Capital University Law School. Since then, she's practiced as a prosecutor in Lancaster and a defense attorney with her own practice in Columbus for years. And she joins us today. Welcome to All Sides, Judge Haque. Thank you, thank you. What made you decide all those years ago that you wanted to pursue a career in law? Why law?
Ajmeri Hoque: Actually, I will start from the beginning a little bit further back than law school is that I came to Columbus for actually OSU. I went to OSU undergrad and after that I started out as a biology major, pre-med major and I kept failing chemistry. That was to be expected because I was never really good in chemistry. Um, but.
I knew I was good in political science. I liked government. And so I started to change my major. I changed it to political science and writing. And then after I graduated, I was like, what am I gonna do with this? And then I decided, I think I'm gonna try law school. And so that's what happened.
Juravich: Okay. Was there any part of you that was like, did want to be a doctor minus the chemistry part, or did you suddenly fall in love with the idea of law?
Hoque: No, I did like science and biology, and I did anatomy and all those classes, and it was something I was interested in, but I was more interested in politics and law and more government work than what I was doing.
Juravich: What about the jump to becoming a judge? Did you think that was gonna be an opportunity for you?
Hoque: Never, never. So I, you know, going back, way back, I was born in my grandma's house in Bangladesh, in a village. And so when I say that there was no idea for my family, for me, for all that, it was really truly no idea. You couldn't tell anybody that someone who was born in a tin roof house in the villages of Bangladesh would become a judge in Ohio 40 years later. But so that was that was never something anybody even dreamed about.
Juravich: Well, then tell me about the dream. Like when did your parents decide to come here or like, how did that dream come about?
Hoque: So my parents, when I was two, they moved here with me and one of my brothers, who was born at the time. And we settled in New York City, as many immigrants do, and my parents were working multiple jobs. I had started learning English when I went to school, so I didn't know English before I started kindergarten. And from there, we just kept trying to move our way up.
We moved to Columbus, like I said, because I was going to Ohio State. Ohio State just seemed so magical when I visited and such an amazing school campus that I just couldn't stay away. And my parents moved with me because we were a very traditional family at the time. We're so pretty traditional. And when they moved with me, they actually bought their very first house in the country here. I've always lived in apartments before that. So I guess they were also kind of
Juravich: How did a New York City girl fall in love with Ohio State from afar like that?
Hoque: Um, so I, I lived in New York city for many of my, most of my life. And then my parents actually started to own their own businesses when I was a little bit older, like an older teenager. So they bought a gas station up in Connecticut. So we lived there for a few years and they upgraded to a motel in Florida. And I lived there from my senior year only. And when I went down to Florida, I was like, I got to come back up North.
So I had applied to a bunch of schools up North, including Ohio State. Most of them other ones were actually in New York. And I just don't know. I don't, we visited Ohio State and I was like, this is such a cool campus. There's so much to do. It was so vibrant and there was so much energy. I was just like, I'm coming here.
Juravich: All right, yeah, you were a Buckeye at heart. You just didn't know it. I guess so. Let's talk a little bit about the court you're in. Your court's jurisdiction is misdemeanor criminal cases and civil cases where the amount at issue is $15,000 or less. So most people might not understand what that is. So can you tell me what are some of the common cases you deal with in your court?
Hoque: I would say most of the cases I deal with are criminal cases and when it's misdemeanor it's OBI's, so driving drunk, domestic violence cases, assaults, a lot of thefts, a lot disorderly conducts, especially when it is summer and it's nice out and maybe you had a couple of drinks and you get rowdy and sometimes the cops have to come out and kind of control the situation. So there's that.
And then for the civil cases, it's a lot of landlord tenant cases, also a lot of credit card debt. So that happens to be mostly under 15,000. Sometimes it's small contracts. People are going into contract with each other and businesses do and it doesn't work out. So that's the majority of the cases that I handle.
Juravich: Of that whole list that you just gave, what are some of the most difficult ones or the ones that really stick with you?
Hoque: So I was a criminal defense attorney for several years before I joined as a judge. But then before I became a criminal defense attorney, I was also a prosecutor. And I will say the DV domestic violence cases are some of the toughest ones because you want to help people. You want to make sure people are safe. And you want make sure that that incident that happened didn't happen, doesn't happen again.
But a lot of times as is with real life, people are gray. Um, people are complicated. If there's much more at issue than just that one incident, a lot of times there's all these relationships and emotions and feelings and folks can't stay away from each other. Um, they don't want to stay away from each, even if you are quote unquote, the victim. Um, you may want to forgive that person for, for whatever reason.
And many times as a judge, my hands are kind of tied. What is agreed upon by both the defense attorney and the prosecutor at that point, and then also what the victim wants to. But sometimes if it's too really egregious, I do put my foot down and I'm just like, no, I think you guys need to be separated. But that's rare, I will say that's, that has to be something really, really serious. But yeah, I thing those are.
Juravich: Most complicated cases. And I know you've only been in your position for a few months, but have you seen like do the same people come back or is that something that you come across? I mean.
Hoque: I've been in criminal law for 13 years or 14 years now. Yes, absolutely. They came back when I was a prosecutor. They came when I as a defense attorney. And they're definitely coming back now as a judge. So yeah, you do see a lot of the same faces. So my role as a prosecutor was different and how I would handle it. And obviously my role at the defense attorney, my arguments were different.
And now as judge, I really have to make the decision whether or not. It's something that I need to be considerate about if they're coming back over and over again. Whereas when I was a defense attorney, which was the majority of my career, I was like, oh, he's gonna be fine, he'll be okay. So it's a different argument, it's different mindset that I have to bring now.
Juravich: This is Fascinating Ohio From All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking to Ohio's first Muslim judge, Franklin County Municipal Court Judge Ajmeri Haque. So I just mentioned, you're the first Muslim judge in Ohio. You're the fist naturalized citizen to be a judge in Franklin County. Do those distinctions make you proud or do you prefer no labels like that?
Hoque: Um, I'm, I, I am okay with the labels. I think it means a lot to the community members. I think, it means to folks who want to see themselves in those positions. And I think does, it does bring a certain awareness to everyone that you really can be what you want to be. Um, however, I I'm so much more than that. And I, and I bring a so much experience than just being those two labels. So I do like to talk about a lot of different things than just. Being a Muslim or being a naturalized citizen.
Juravich: OK, well, tell me tell me one more that you would like to, because that's how I characterized you, Ohio's first Muslim judge. So tell me something else you'd like me to know about you.
Hoque: I mean, I think that the fact that I am a woman, interesting. I actually, a lot of the judges in Franklin County Municipal Court are women. And I love that. I love the fact that we are broadening the legal career in this and the fact that we some of the most forward thinking in the state. Because I will tell you, in law school, it was about 50-50, women and men. However, when I went to practice and actually do litigation. The numbers dropped drastically.
And I can't tell you why, because I still don't know why. But when I was practicing criminal defense, it was maybe a handful of women doing criminal defense in court every day who are private criminal defense attorneys. I'm talking outside of the prosecutor's office and public defender's office. There's always a handful. People who do court-appointed work. So that is the work where a public defender office can't take this client, but this client is indigent.
So he's or she still needs representation. So private defense attorneys are on these lists that get appointed by the court to represent them at a reduced cost. And I was one of the few women who were on there. And, I think it makes a difference because we bring a different perspective to what is happening. I think the fact that I have a background of also going out to my clients' houses and their work. I think that a lot of... Defense attorneys, never did that.
And they still don't do it, and I always did it. I think I bring that experience of actually going all over the state and going into people's homes, having them open their doors, them showing me how their lives are. And I was able to bring a different perspective to court and to their stories to the judge with this. And I think that I'd like to talk about that. And that is something that I think differentiates my practice that I did. With other attorneys who practiced.
Juravich: We talked about this a little bit, but if you could talk to your younger self, would she believe that you're sitting where you are today? Oh, there's no way.
Hoque: There's no way. Like I said, I came from a very traditional family. I was very much told, oh, you are going to be a doctor. And that's because at that time, my parents thought that that was the only form of success. They came here in the 80s. They knew that if you're in medicine, that's a stable career. They're working really hard to make sure we're stable. And so I don't blame them for that.
You're gonna be a Doctor. You have to get married. You know, you have kids and that's kind of like the life path that has always been told to me. I did get married. I do have one daughter, but I didn't become a doctor. I became something that actually no one in my lineage has ever been, which is an attorney.
Juravich: So recently on social media there's been a lot of clips of courtrooms and judges and there's always this a lot discourse about whether judges should be more easy going or should be more stern. What's your philosophy when you're judging cases? Do you like to be the easy going side or do you try to be more stern?
Hoque: I think that it has to be case by case. I don't want to go into every single case with one attitude. First, not everybody is the same. Not everybody deserves that same treatment. I will say today, earlier today, I was very strict with a certain defendant because he just was not listening to me. And this was the third time, second or third time he was in front of me and he just wasn't listening.
And so yeah, I was stern and I raised my voice and I just had to make him understand what I was saying. And then right after him, there was a first time defendant who came and I feel like I was very easy going. I just followed what was the recommendation from both sides and I make that happen. But you can't have one attitude for everyone because then that's not justice. How is that justice when you are prejudging people and making them uncomfortable for no reason?
You want people to come, court is scary. Let's start there. Court is scary. For anyone who doesn't have experience. If you get a court notice, if you're a juror, anything, if your a witness, you don't know what's gonna happen. You're coming into this environment where there's hundreds of people, it's stressful, you're worried. You don't want to have a judge who's gonna sit up there and just yell at you for no reason. So for me, I try to keep that in mind. And so I don't wanna come off mean or aggressive for unless it's completely something that it can't be helped.
Juravich: In your work as a lawyer before you became a judge in the past, you represented Ohio State students who were arrested for protesting against Israel's actions in Gaza. Can you tell me a little bit about what that was like? Um, I
Hoque: As a criminal defense attorney, I believe in the Constitution. As a judge, I believed in the constitution. And that was my role, is to make sure that their rights were protected. They were out here protesting. And my role as an attorney for them was to make that their first member right was secure.
Juravich: And what do you hope for your future, your future career, your future role as a judge, any career goals? I mean, you told me twice now that you didn't expect to be sitting as a Judge right now, let alone being a lawyer. So now that are a Franklin County Municipal Court Judge, you know, do you think about what's next?
Hoque: Ax, no, because I've only been on the bench for four and a half months. I would like to do this job well. Oldest daughter of every member of our family, we have a stereotype where we like to accomplish what we're doing. And so I wanna make sure that I got this and I'm very privileged right now.
I wanna be sure I'm doing the right, like. By everyone and that people who are coming in front of me feel as though they're being treated well, they're achieving justice, you know, some people are going to be mad. That's the role of a judge. That's okay. I just want people to make sure that they are treated well and I want people to feel as if they're heard and so that's kind of my goal as a judge is to make sure that whoever comes in front me can be heard and will feel respected.
Juravich: Alright, so I'm not going to ask you if you're going to run for the Ohio Supreme Court or something now. You want me to jump ahead in your career?
Hoque: Oh my god.
Juravich: No, no.
Hoque: Well, that's several prongs above me. I can't even think about that.
Juravich: All right. All right, we'll we'll leave it there. I just want to thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for telling me your story and your career. We've been talking with Ohio's first Muslim judge, Franklin County Municipal Court Judge Ajmeri Haque. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Thank you, and coming up, we're going to be talking with the executive director from Wild Goose Creative. That's when Fascinating Ohio from All Sides continues on 89 7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from All Sides in WOSU where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye state with an interesting story to tell. Located in Franklinton, Wild Goose Creative is a non-profit arts organization that serves as a community space for artists. The organization was founded in 2006 and recently announced its new executive director, Janelle Bonfour-Mikes. She is an artist with a decade of experience in the arts and nonprofit programming, and she joins us today. Welcome to All Sides Janelle. Hi, thank you for having me, Amy. So were you involved with Wild Goose Creative in some capacity before becoming the executive director or did you bounce in out of nowhere?
Janelle Bonfour-Mikes: Yeah, I had been involved for a while. My first show post-grad school was actually at Wild Goose in the Clintonville location. My artist talk was in 2020 in March, so the day everything shut down, we all got notifications on our phone while we were talking about- While you were talking about your art.
Juravich: That's fun. What a fun memory. All right, so was that your first exposure to Wild Goose Creative, like hosting the show there? It was, yeah. Okay, so you basically hosted the show and then the whole world shut down for a while. So tell me what made you decide to go after this role to become the executive director?
Bonfour-Mikes: Well, I fell in love with the organization in 2020. They took a risk on my work. It was an experimental photo exhibition. Nothing was framed. It was installed really similar to Instagram. And I was just enthralled with them. And then in December, I was talking to some friends about what my dream job would be. I'm a freelance performance artist as well.
And then the job came open and Not only do I love the organization, but it's my dream job curating exhibitions, developing programming for artists, and then expanding into more opportunities for performance, which I'm really excited about.
Juravich: Okay, yeah, that was my next question. So what does it mean to be the executive director? Your role involves, I mean, you're running the show, you're the business and running the people who are helping you. So tell me more about what your duties are day-to-day as executive director.
Bonfour-Mikes: Lots of answering emails, figuring out budgets, talking to potential donors, developing membership plans so that we are accurately developing new programming to align with what our artists want to do, want to see, and what their needs are right now. This varies all the time.
Juravich: So for someone who has never been too wild goose creative, or you know, you had an old location in Clintonville, you're now in Franklin, we'll get to your buildings in a minute, but besides being an art gallery, tell us what you do. So.
Bonfour-Mikes: We have various programming, free or low cost. We offer figure art with nude models, so it's a live mark-making drawing session. And then we have a program called Portfolio, and it's free to attend. And it incorporates various community members along with the artists in the current Wild Gallery exhibition.
We have Tea Talks, which is a trans storytelling event, and we have Speak Easy, which is similar to The Moth, and that's a really fun storytelling event. And then one of my near and dear to my heart programs is the Community Arts Incubator. So we pair emerging artists with established artists in the community, and they work together for nine months for the mentee to develop a piece of work.
And during those nine months... The whole cohort meets once a month and they hear talks from accountants on how to properly do your taxes, marketing, all of that. And I was a mentor for many years and so it's really, really special to me.
Juravich: I know you haven't been there from the beginning. Wild Goose Creative started in 2006, but do you know why it's called Wild Goos?
Bonfour-Mikes: So, from what I've been able to glean, it's the spirit of wild geese. They're a flock and they work together, but they each have their own identities. And so I think that that's where it came from. We have to work together to make any improvement forward, but we need to keep our sense of self as we do so.
Juravich: And I noticed there's a goose named Shirley on your board of directors. What's that about?
Bonfour-Mikes: So she's a cement porch goose with a lot of different clothes. Naturally, yeah. Right? And she was a present to our current board president from one of her friends who was moving across the country and it just is so perfect for us. So very Midwest, right? Right.
Juravich: So do you dress up Shirley? Do you have, do you put the clothes on her and have her in a place of pride?
Bonfour-Mikes: I do, very much, she's by our front door, she makes an appearance on Instagram every so often.
Juravich: She's just really wonderful. Perfect. Yeah. If someone was moving across the country, they had to leave the goose here. That has to stay in the Midwest. I'm sure. Yeah. This is Fascinating Ohio From All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. And we're talking about Wild Goose Creative with executive director Janelle Bonfort-Mikes. So this weekend, you're going to be hosting what is called The Tiny Show. Can you explain what is it? What's going to going on?
Bonfour-Mikes: It's during Jenny's and Landgren's Strawberry Jam, and it is a show where all work is under six inches in all dimensions, and so we've got sculpture, we've tiny little miniature magnets, various paintings, mixed media, and we have over 160 pieces, so it's a jam-packed show. Once you purchase the work, you can take it with you, and It's in our new space, which is really exciting. It's our first show in our new space. We just picked up the keys the other day and so all of the work is really cute and very special and very intimate.
Juravich: Yeah, tiny art shows are having a moment, if my Instagram is telling me, you know? Yeah, yeah, so basically it's just, it's the same thing you would see in a big gallery, just tiny-sized, right?
Bonfour-Mikes: Yeah, exactly. And I think one reason why it's becoming so popular is prices for small works of art are cheaper than prices for large works of Art. And so it becomes an accessible way to start your art collection, which I think is really beautiful because I hope that eventually everyone has an art collection.
Juravich: Yeah, and it's a great talking piece for, you know, when people visit you. Okay, so we've mentioned it a couple of times. Let's talk about locations. So Wild Goose Creative started in Clintonville and then in the 2020-ish range moved to Franklin and now you're moving to a new space. So let's start with the most recent. Tell me about the new space
Bonfour-Mikes: 250 steps from our old space, just diagonal at the intersection of McDowell and Westtown. And it was time for a change, the areas being redeveloped. And so we were just like, let's, we've got a new executive director, me. And so the opportunity came up to move locations, try something new. We're still gonna have a stage, we're still going to have our wild gallery, we're gonna have our programming.
Juravich: Okay, are you closing the other location then, and just focusing on the new location? Yes, our- Because it's across the street. Right. Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, so tell me about this move. What does the new locations offer, like why pick to move across the streets?
Bonfour-Mikes: So, it's still in Franklinton, which we love being in the Franklinton Arts District. We're all family down there, and so that was important to us. And it's different than any other location that we've been in, and they each have their own identities, and, so, this location is one room. Our old location was two, and then we've got large windows, which are gonna bring in so much natural light.
Our stage is going to be near the door, and then we have a backroom kitchen area, which will allow for more space in the main area so that we can operate our liquor sales and everything from there. And we have the basement for storage, which is awesome.
Juravich: Okay, so this is an upgrade from your previous location. Would you consider it that?
Bonfour-Mikes: I think it's on par, I think is just different. I don't know if there's a way to really compare them. Okay. And so it.
Juravich: Officially with this tiny show, right? Is that right?
Bonfour-Mikes: It does, so we'll be open this weekend from 11 to six Saturday and Sunday, and then we start the big move. So that location won't really be open until our July Franklin 10 Friday exhibition.
Juravich: And I wanted to take a few minutes just for you to talk about yourself as an artist. You have shared your art on a national level. Can you tell me about the, like describe for our audience the kind of art you create?
Bonfour-Mikes: So it's experimental performance and I, so I have a BFA in modern dance performance and choreography and then an MFA in visual art with a focus in performance. So I create long durational performances that often I'm creating a world within that span of time and they're often autobiographical but very abstract and slightly esoteric.
And so my most recent performance was with a fellow local artist, Alyssa Ohashi, and we received the GCAC Artist Projects Grant last year, which is a $10,000 grant from GCAC to create one project over the course of a year. And we used painter's tape to create lines on the wall, so like a mural, but also moving that into the space to create three-dimensional structures between the wall and columns and pedestals.
And then as the performance went on, we started to move the movable things and then everything started to collapse, which is what we wanted. And so we were really looking at the fragility of structures and how we may think that they're really strong, but it just takes one slight thing to make everything collapse. And then we have to work together to create it again.
Juravich: And whenever you're showing this to people, do you do it once live, or you videotape it, and most people are seeing it replayed?
Bonfour-Mikes: We do it live, this past performance series, we performed twice, one at CCAD and then at ROYGBIV. People can watch it online on our Instagrams, but it's best experienced live. You get to hear the tape, see us up close and create that moment together with the audience.
Juravich: That you did it twice, were they the same? No. Yeah, okay.
Bonfour-Mikes: So we start with a loose score. So that's basically brief direction. From zero to 10 minutes, we are creating the structure. From 10 minutes to 15 minutes, we start to move things. And then 15 to 30 minutes, we're trying to get it back together, which is impossible. Yeah.
Juravich: Times would you practice that before you would reveal it to people?
Bonfour-Mikes: For that one, we probably practiced 30 to 50 hours with that. Okay.
Juravich: Now, a lot of your art is about trauma and in our thoughts. Tell me about the message that you're trying to convey. Just talk a little bit about the deeper meanings from your perspective. I know that people who view it will have different meanings too.
Bonfour-Mikes: So I really hope that when people view my work and especially the work that really focuses on trauma, they recognize that they're not alone and not that I'm speaking for them, but I'm speaking with them and all of our stories are important and so just creating that community for people who have experience trauma in whatever that means for them, you know? And to... Allow people to feel what they need to feel and to understand that there is strength in the vulnerability if that's the route they want to go.
Juravich: Now, you also have experience in nonprofit management. You have experience curating exhibits. How do you think, you know, in the months to come, because I know you're very new with the executive director job, but how do you that your past nonprofit management experience, your curation experience, how is that gonna come into play in your new role?
Bonfour-Mikes: So I, since I'm the executive director, I oversee everything. With curatorial, I'm overseeing the curation committee, which is made up largely of volunteers. And so my advice and input and thoughts are taken into consideration with that. And then I help hang shows as I can and help the artists figure out where to put their work. And then with nonprofit management, I have one employee, but then a plethora of volunteers.
And so being able to manage people and take into account what everybody wants and needs. And my former experiences with Arts Education Nonprofit in Nashville. So I think the strength of working not only with children, which we're all big children, and then. Working with facilitators who would teach the classes and help design curriculum, and really that's everything that my job currently is.
Juravich: What's your vision for the future? You know, your five-year plan, the mark you hope to make on the organization. You mentioned briefly earlier that you want to add more performance. So tell me about your future goals.
Bonfour-Mikes: So future goals, I want to continue on the path that we are with creating accessible programming. And so like I mentioned, our programming is all low or no cost. We don't have a fee for any submissions. They're free. And then we also don't require a CV for any submissions, because that is also a barrier that we realized that a lot of artists... Won't submit because they don't know what a CV is. And then, so continuing on with that, really developing.
Juravich: You mean like submitting a resume with it? Is that what you mean?
Bonfour-Mikes: Yeah, so a lot of submissions will require a CV. So that is an existing. Showing prior.
Juravich: Experience, but you're trying to find new people too. Okay, I got it.
Bonfour-Mikes: And then helping them to learn what a CV is and really reducing those barriers to presenting work as well as presenting performance. Performance is really expensive because you often have to rent your theater. And so working closely with the board to develop a program that allows for performers, music, theater, performance art, Two. Utilize the space in a way that is accessible financially to them
Juravich: All right, well, so just to end on, so you have the tiny show, and then you're gonna take a little pause while you move, and then what can people expect to see in July whenever you have your official big opening?
Bonfour-Mikes: Yeah, so our closing is June 12th. So we have one more event in our current location. And then in July, we have two street artists, Chad Kessler and Hawk Tracker. And so it is going to be a really fun and lots of bright colors, really interesting installations that are happening in the new space.
Juravich: Alright, we've been talking about Wild Goose Creative with the new executive director, Janelle Bonform-Mikes. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. And coming up, we're going to talk with the founder of Black Girl Rising. That's when Fascinating Ohio from all sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from All Sides in WOSU where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye State with an interesting story to tell. Research suggests that urban African-American girls are significantly exposed to more traumatic sensors than children of any other racial group. That's the type of data that inspires Black Girl Rising.
The organization is partly a research project exploring urban adolescent African-American girls experiences and how they are affected by them, as well as a group that provides services and programs to young black girls. And joining us now is the principal investigator and founder of Black Girl Rising, Fran Frazier. She has more than 30 years of experience in consulting, specializing in issues related to racism and racial equity. Welcome to all sides, Fran. Thank you, Amy. So, Black Girl Rising covers a lot of ground. Can you give me a rundown of what you do, your title of principal investigator? What would you say you do mostly? Well, so that title.
Fran Frazier: Really is related to the research that we did several years ago. I didn't know that that's what I was even when I was doing the research, but I partnered with the State Department of Mental Health at that time, and we looked at the lived experiences of 411 black girls in four Ohio cities, so Columbus, Dayton, Akron, and Lima. The director at the time wanted us to look at at least three major cities and then one small city that had a large black population.
So we conducted focus groups at first to get an idea about what the girls were concerned about, what was literally affecting their mental and emotional health. And then I wanted to know a lot about how they sleep. Are they happy? What are their dreams? Who do they live with? What is their relationship with God? How do they feel about being black and female? Just to get us a really good about what life is like for black people.
Juravich: Girls. So and these girls were ages 11 to 11 to 18 is that right? Yes. And so I'm guessing because of the questions that you just said they were you you interviewed them is that, right? There was an interview? Well actually they were surveyed. They were survey, okay.
Frazier: So we actually had the girls in front of us taking the survey. So we worked through women's groups that I knew in those cities. Because I really wanted the girls to know that what they were doing was literally creating history. So we didn't want to email it. We didn't wanna mail it to them and have them send it back to us. Really wanted them to be a part of the whole process.
And so the girls came from. Two-parent upper middle-class black families to girls in foster care because we wanted to get a sense of what the face of black girls in that particular city looked like and what their experiences were
Juravich: I know this is a big research project and, you know, I'm going to ask you to answer this in like two minutes, but what did you learn? So what did we learn?
Frazier: We learned that. Majority of the girls liked being black. They didn't mind being female. They didn't always like how they were treated as black females or how people actually saw them. They believed in God, whether regardless of the name God had, because the girls came from lots of different religions and different sects of Christianity. They felt like they had a good relationship with God.
What was interesting, that only 16% of all of the girls who completed this survey felt that they had appropriate skills to deal with conflict. So that was interesting for me. Yeah, because then... Giving girls opportunities to even understand what conflict is, how normal it is, and the ways in which unresolved conflict can stay with you was something that we kind of isolated and said, okay, this is something we need to address.
Juravich: You've you have written that you formed this group because you would see a young black girl and you would look at her and wonder Is she at promise or at risk true? Can you tell me more about that?
Frazier: Yeah, you know, um, I don't know. I remember when I was a black girl. Um, and I think I still hold on to that girl. I was going to say you're still a girl.
Juravich: Girl. Yeah, you're still a girl at heart. Yeah. There you go.
Frazier: Um you're very much aware that people are looking at you. If you're a person of color, pretty, pretty much you, you're very much always aware of your color. And so based on. Based on people's experience of being with a black girl or seeing a black girl, you really don't know whether are they seeing me in a deficit way or are they see me full of promise.
Juravich: Yeah, that phrase, at promise or at risk. I mean, that's really powerful. I mean and I, you know, as a mom, I would want to hope that everyone sees them at promise. Right? But were you finding, and that's why you formed this organization that you were seeing more who felt the at risk part than the at promise? You know.
Frazier: We, I started like maybe 20 years ago or longer working with school districts around climate issues, school climate issues. And at the time there was a particular concern about black girls. The girls seemed to be angry, depressed, unhappy, easy to motivated to fight or push or harass. So that became what I was really interested in. What's really going on that you want somebody to bump into you so you can hit them back.
And so that's what really got me looking at the mental and emotional health of black girls. The APA, the American Association... Association of psychologists. So I can't say that correctly. We got it. Okay. Good. Conducted a resiliency and strength survey of black youth. Some time ago, I think 2008, but one of the things they said was To place black youth at promise rather than at risk literally means that the entire community has to be behind these children.
That these children need to know that the people who are raising them, who are teaching them, who are mentoring them, who are providing leadership for them really have their back. And so that's where the promise came from. So what do we need to do to make sure that the girls that we engage with. Feel like what they're getting from us is putting them at prom.
Juravich: This is Fascinating Ohio from all sides on 89.7 NPR News and we're talking about Black Girl Rising with founder Fran Frazier. I wanted to talk about some of the programs that you offer for young black girls. I don't know if there's any. I mean, you have several. I don't know if there's anything in particular that you wanted to highlight, but can you tell me, do you have a favorite one or do you want to talk to me about the real woman program? Tell me about some other programs. Yeah.
Frazier: So probably two. So the first one is we have a black girl think tank. We started that think tank maybe 12 years ago. We had a conference and we invited the girls after the conference to help take a look at the data we collected. And the same 18 to 20 girls kept showing up all the time. So we kept inviting them back and. They started talking about the issues that were literally affecting their behavior.
So I wanted them to go deeper into that. And so they did. And they decided that there were six areas that literally affected how they felt about themselves on a daily basis. That the black community. Didn't seem to recognize because they were not that helpful. So colorism. Body shaming, lack of conflict resolution skills, teen depression. Homophobia in the black community.
Juravich: I don't know if that was six, but we're close enough. Okay, so the thing, yeah, that's okay, but the think tank, so do they still meet? Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah, how often? We're probably.
Frazier: I'm cohort of think tank members. So these girls are taught critical thinking, small group facilitation, how to build community with girls who come from diverse backgrounds, and how to communicate across barriers. And so they take the issues that they're concerned about. We teach them research skills. So they'd learn how to write white papers.
Juravich: Oh, wow. Okay.
Frazier: Yeah. How to present those papers. We have a Black Girls Summit every year. It takes the girls about six months to take a look at the issues they want to look at. So right now, they're looking at safety. And they're look at community violence against Black girls. And so that's last year, they did the research on those topics. They also have to come up with policy recommendations. They also meet with elected officials and community leaders to share their findings and what they'd like to see happen collaboratively with them.
Juravich: The group you're talking about right now, who meets in this think tank and who's working on these policy issues, are they all from Columbus?
Frazier: Um, actually they're from Franklin County. So our girls come from Dublin, Pickerington, Whitehall, Worthington, Upper Arlington, as well as Columbus.
Juravich: And you also have, you plan events, and you have an event called Love Letters to Black Girls. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Frazier: Sure, a couple of years ago, if you remember, Makaya Bryant was shot by a policeman. She was being bullied and called the police, called 911 asking for help. So when the police showed up, she was trying to protect herself. She had a knife and the police came right out of the car, shot her and killed her. I was incensed, and I emailed 100 women I knew and said, I wanna talk about this later.
Love for you to show up. I don't wanna start an organization, don't want to fundraise, don't to march, but I wanna do something. And I offered the idea of writing love letters to black girls to let them know that there was a community of women who really cared about them. And so those love letters got published in a book.
Juravich: Oh, OK. And.
Frazier: And so we have groups of women like Junior League, Delta Sigma Theta, Sigma Gamma Rho, church women's groups, my own book club, the No Name Yet book club. And these women go to schools, recreation centers, libraries and read love letters out of that book to girls.
Juravich: Lovely. We only have 30 seconds left, but just real quickly, your logo has three girls holding hands. What does that symbolize to you?
Frazier: Collective work and responsibility, that I've got your back, I won't let you go. And it's also part of a dance song that black girls used to sing a long time ago. Rise, Sally, rise, wipe your dirty eyes. I'm with you. So that's really what that means.
Juravich: We've been talking about Black Girl Rising with founder and principal investigator, Fran Frazier. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, Amy. And you've been listening to Fascinating Ohio from all sides on 89.7 NPR News. If you missed any part of the show, visit our website, wosu.org slash all sides. You can subscribe to our podcast, listen to every show that way, and every episode is in our free mobile app. This is All Sides from 89. 7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for joining us.