Black Love, Inc. is Carving Out Safe Spaces for Black Men

The Black Love Summit might not be what you expect. Going solely on the docu-series available on the Black Love + app could lead you to think the day might be rounds of couples detailing the ups and downs of their relationships. As a matter of fact, as a man who knows I ultimately want to be a husband and father, I came to this space and learning of Black Love Inc. expecting to hear couples detail those exact things. What I got instead was a push in the best direction — inward. Kicking off the day, Codie Elaine Oliver took to the stage as co-creator of Black Love to ask the room, “What is Black love?” The responses sounded off immediately — “Evolving. Resilient. Entrepreneurship. Liberation. God. EVERYTHING.” Everything. 

These spaces are a blessing to me and I know that. That as a man who had not seen a marriage up close growing up, these couples’ willingness to open up about their relationships gives me insight I’d rather not live without. Their vulnerability is the laying out of blueprints and roadmaps that many people don’t have even years into their relationships. It’s the ultimate cheat code for our community to observe not just the reality of being in relationship, but how to sustain in relationship, how to grow in relationship. In my shortsightedness and focus on my end goal, however, I’d bypassed something else that exists here that I didn’t think I needed. That even in the stories of relationship, there are lessons in brotherhood, fatherhood, and manhood. By the second conversation, Co-Creator of Black Love, Tommy Oliver, pulled two long-time friends on stage for a conversation that bubbled those lessons up to the surface.

“Young, Gifted, and Black,” a panel featuring Tommy, actor Algee Smith, and actor Melvin Gregg was set up to focus on how true brotherhood can help Black men thrive personally and professionally. Each of them navigating the entertainment industry in different aspects acknowledged how challenging the space can be. From the lack of diversity in decision making, to just the experience of building and landing projects. “It’s the family you choose,” Algee said. “It’s people you feel good being yourself with because depending on who you’re with, you become them.” In that short hour, the trio carried honest conversations about what accountability looks like in those friendships, but more importantly how those friendships hold you up and push you to be the man you want to be.

Across hours of interviews, 41 episodes, countless articles, panels, and discussions a running theme surfaces that brings me back to the meaning of Codie’s question at the top of the day — Black love is everything. In every story of a man knowing “when,” a father coming into his own, or a son navigating grief, the thread that ties this community is that it all starts with each of us as individuals. After hearing Tommy, Melvin, and Algee go into detail around what brotherhood looks like to them and how it’s impacted their experience as fathers, every man that stepped on-stage demonstrated how self-understanding stood at the center of everything. 

Later came the Husbands’ Panel with Tommy, Bill Bellamy, Adrian Holmes, Chance Brown, and Kenny Burns. It took comedian Bill Bellamy to say it plainly: “What I do like about the courage of [engaging in therapy] is if you do try it you will learn things about yourself that you’ve never known because you don’t have nobody that’s neutral to just listen to you clean.” As the day went on I could hear the brotherhood panel and the husbands panel side-by-side. On one end in both discussions led by Tommy, Melvin and Algee in their early ‘30s openly figuring things out navigating career and relationships. On the other end, Bill, Adrian, Chance, and Kenny wiser with more lived experiences and saying directly how coming into understanding themselves made them better men.

Coming into these spaces, I know I’m probably going to find more women than men. More women who are eager to engage in discussion about how to navigate and build relationships, but who are also hoping to better understand the men in their lives. We’ve long accepted that the conversation, the reflection, the open and vulnerable discussion just aren’t “things Black men do,” but if anything the husbands’ conversation highlighted why it might be time to push past the “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” mindset if we truly value Black love. 

What I saw playing out during the Summit was that we don’t have enough spaces like this where Black men from different ages and backgrounds are coming together to give each other the answers. We’re so committed to “figuring it out on our own” that we miss the opportunity to do things better and easier in less time. The Husbands’ Panel was chock-full of learnings from men who’ve just lived more life than I have. Learnings that surprised them. Learnings that made their relationships stronger or even saved them from the brink. Why would we not want other Black men to know that? Why would we not want younger Black men to hear these experiences and help them make better, more sustainable choices? 

I’d long accepted that Black Love was just going to be a woman’s space. A place where women come to talk about what they want, how they want. And yet, Black Love is carving out safe spaces for Black men too. Black love, is to commit to the understanding that Black women (while the most crucial part of our community) should not be the only ones committed to learning about it and sharing what they learn to benefit someone else.

We as men must be less indifferent to vulnerability and dialogue because of the opportunity we have to build stronger relationships for ourselves and for others. As I continue on my path to understanding what it means to be the husband and father I want to be, I accept that pride and ego will only hinder me. I accept that if setting those things aside will ensure I’m able to show up better, more quickly, more consistently — I have a duty to do so. Black love is not woman’s work, it’s Black people’s work, it’s our work.