University students and faculty gathered in the student theater to discuss manhood in a workshop titled “Manhood Revealed”. Hosted by Andre Williams, the workshop was hosted on Nov. 16 2023 beginning at 5 p.m. The event was also attended by Robert White, a professor in the Alabama State University Department of Humanities. The legal focus workshop was the idea of White’s students.
“I had four students four years ago who formed the crux of the legal focus group,” White said. “Interestingly enough it’s a student organization that was carried on by adults, and so now we’re on the campus legitimately and moving forward.”
A main topic of the workshop was teaching young black men how to defend themselves legally from trigger happy police officers looking to incriminate and lock them up for no wrongdoing. According to White, it is paramount that young black men learn these things.
“It ties into the law,” White said. “And it ties into social theory and ideas and the human experience and you can tell by the response of the students that came that they were interested in what we were saying.”
Sophomore Gavin Stewart was one of White’s students who attended the event and found the things he learned to be helpful.
“I’m in Dr. White’s African American Humanities class and he told us that this event was gonna be going on,” Stewart said. “I think it was a great discussion. I got to learn a lot about manhood and how to handle yourself.”
LaQuan Williams is a senior who was in one of White’s classes in fall 2021. He has been attending the event since then and came early to the fall 2023 workshop to help set up.
“This is my second one actually,” Williams said. “We did a law school workshop on Tuesday, and that was very successful as well. This semester has been about us building and recruiting people and getting people involved so some members joined today.”
With the new members recruited, Williams hopes that they can take the next workshop to the next level.
“It holds importance because it’s about making an impact,” Williams said. “My personal goal is to make an impact on somebody’s life.”
Andre Williams is a senior software developer and a senior instructional designer. “Manhood Revealed” is William’s own creation, and he volunteered to help bring it to life.
“I’ve done it so many times,” Williams said. “Usually it’s an open session. I’ve tried to do power points but it bores people, especially young people, so what I’ve done is more open discussion.”
He continued.
“Masculinity is something I think a young man needs to discover on his own. I think a clear definition needs to be given about manhood because it’s such a mystery. Everybody has a definition for it, but I think a good old textbook definition, something that is more independently owned versus owned by media, books or other people, but it’s something that a person can decide for themself.”
