The New Hue Aims to Change Society's Perceptions of Black Men

Editor's Note: The Tangled Thread is thrilled to announce a partnership with The New Hue. Together we hope to help one another to change the dialog about race in America and to mentor young people, especially young, black men about potential instead of limitations.

JOLIET, Ill. -- The New Hue was born as a mission. Chris Braggs was watching his social media news feed going in a direction he did not want it to go and he decided to do something about it.

“I had seen a lot of negative attention on social media in regards to black men,” he said. “A lot of negative pictures, just a lot of negative content.

“I just needed to saturate social media with more positive images of black men.”

So he began to do that - a force of one.

“It started with just me,” he said. “I found myself being one of the people saying somebody should do something about these kids, somebody should do something about the representation of black men.”

“I guess I just told myself be the change you want to see.”

In September of last year, Braggs decided to invite other black men to join him on his quest and The New Hue was born.

“I realized it would be more effective to have more people with me,” Braggs said.

Braggs employed the help of Anthony Bradley, Courtney Ellis and Donnis Draper.

Ellis and Braggs were on their way to Chicago - to a hat store in Wicker Park that Braggs had started frequenting and Ellis liked the look of - when the two began discussing the project.

"As we were going, we got talking about society," Ellis said.

Braggs told Ellis about his desire to change how black men are seen.

"I’m like, dude, I am on board," Ellis said. "It became less and less about the hats."

“What we do is, we get together maybe once every two weeks and we all have ideas we jot down throughout the week and we decide what we can come up with in that time,” Braggs said.

In the time since September, the group has created individual photo shoots with themes and stories, videos chronicling the backgrounds and futures of the men. These shoots are a precursor to what the group will do in the coming year with four young, black men they will select as mentors.

All four men - Bradley, Ellis, Draper and Braggs - grew up in Joliet and want to see the positive change begin in the community. They also want to be able to be a bridge.

"We are in the middle between the young men (we will mentor) and the men that mentored us," Ellis said. "We can build a connection that may not be as strong without us being able to mentor them."

"We’re learning from the kids and the kids are learning from them."

For Ellis, the photo shoot was more about what he desires in everyday life than his career.

Ellis is a Joliet Firefighter/Paramedic. But when he and Chris were discussing what kind of a story of life Ellis wanted to tell, Ellis had only one goal - to express peace.

"The story I was trying to tell is for me it’s the serenity in silence and really being self reflective," he said. "I really value my silent time, just to try to reflect and be able to figure out things in my head.

For me, the photo shoot represented the serenity and the peace of just being; that’s sometimes a hard thing for us to just be to just be present."

Photographs were not going to be enough to change the dialog, however. What was needed was community.

On March 18, The New Hue hosted an introductory black tie event at Juliet’s in Joliet.

“It was supposed to be just a mixer just so people could figure out who The New Hue was,” Braggs said.

Braggs was really hoping for a turnout of about 100 people. One hundred fifty showed up.

The location - Juliet’s, a restaurant with a second story open space located in downtown Joliet, was selected because the idea of a formal event was actually born there.

“We did a video shoot called the burial,” Braggs said. “We had body bags and we went out to a field and we acted like we were digging holes with the body bags.

“We were burying stereotypes.”

“Once we finished that video shoot, we went to Juliet’s and we were dressed up and we were sitting there looking at each other,’ he said.

And one of the founding members had an idea.

“I think it was Anthony Bradley who said something,” Braggs said. “We should really do a black tie event.”

The event was not just an opportunity to introduce people to The New Hue, but also an opportunity to raise money for a mentorship program that grew from an interaction with another founding member.

At the end of the night, more than $1,300 was raised to help the five founding members select four young, black men to mentor in the coming year.

The mentorship program happened because a young, black man getting his haircut by Draper was talking about how he thought there was really no hope for his future.

“It hurt Donnis as well because this kid is only 15 or 16 years old,” Braggs said.

So The New Hue decided to make the black tie event a fundraiser.

“Why don’t we specifically veer off a little bit and try to do something where we could get the attention of the youth,” Braggs said. “Raise a few dollars to start a mentor program.”

The group will select four young men between 13 and 19 and will create a whole day to boost their self-esteem, their worth and change the dialog they hear as young, black men.

“We will spend the day with them one at a time,” Braggs said.

They hope to speak to the boys, but also listen.

“We also want to know what he expects from his elders,” Braggs said. “How does he feel that we can help bridge the gap between everybody.”

Ellis said it was strong black men that made the difference in the lives of each of the members of The New Hue.

"We all grew up together," Ellis said. "I don’t think it's a coincidence that we ended up in the right path.

"It was the men in our life that we were accountable to; there were men that were teaching us how to be men.

"All of those things were things that we learned from our elders."

#BlackLivesMatter #thenewhue