The 2025 Birmingham Black Male Summit: Empowering, Connecting, and Driving Change

The 3rd Annual Black Male Summit in Birmingham was an inspiring and transformative gathering that brought together thought leaders, professionals, and community advocates from across the region. Focused on strengthening and supporting Black men and the communities they belong to, this year’s summit featured engaging discussions, interactive workshops, and valuable networking opportunities.

Among the distinguished speakers was City of Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, who provided critical insights on the city’s health landscape. He noted, “When the U.S. has a cold, Alabama has the flu, and when Alabama has the flu, Birmingham has pneumonia.” His statement emphasized the ways in which national health disparities are magnified at the local level, emphasizing the urgency of targeted community interventions.

The Forge AHEAD Center (FAC) participated in this year’s event, contributing to conversations on economic mobility, public safety, and health equity. Carol Agomo, Ph.D., director for community outreach and engagement in Alabama for FAC, and Jared Ball, MPH, program evaluator for FAC, engaged with attendees to share the center’s mission and gain insights into the pressing health challenges affecting Black men in Birmingham.

Ball also reflected on the summit’s impact, particularly in engaging with students. “Meeting young people eager to apply their academic knowledge to public health issues was a highlight of our experience. We hope to further connect them with the work of the Forge AHEAD Center, inspiring the next generation of leaders committed to improving health outcomes in their communities.”

As we move forward, the relationships and insights gained from this summit will help advance our mission. We extend our appreciation to the organizers, speakers, and attendees who made this event such a meaningful and impactful experience.

Spotlight on the Birmingham Black Male Summit: Promoting Health Equity and Community Wellness for Black Men

The Birmingham Black Male Summit is on a mission to enhance the quality of life for Black men in Birmingham by addressing critical areas of mental, physical, emotional, and financial health. Through meaningful collaborations with organizations like the Forge AHEAD Center, the Summit amplifies its mission of advancing health equity. Dedicated to serving communities of color, the organization thrives through partnerships that amplify its impact.

As the Summit enters its third year, founder and coordinator Darrell Forte shares his deeply personal motivation for leading this transformative effort. For Darrell, this work is not just professional; it’s personal. Driven by a desire to change the narrative around Black men’s lives and to honor his father and brother’s legacies through community empowerment, Darrell emphasizes the importance of collaboration.

Year-Round Initiatives Supporting Community Wellness
The Summit’s work extends beyond its annual conference. Monthly community activations, direct-service mentoring, and a private group chat for health discussions foster ongoing engagement. Early morning gym workouts and educational events bring people together, bridging gaps and promoting understanding across the African diaspora.

A new resource guide—covering local healthcare providers, grocery stores, and essential services—is in development to further support community members. Available in both physical and online formats, this tool aims to meet people where they are.

2025 Summit Highlights: Education, Empowerment, and Action

This year’s Summit will feature keynote speakers who are leaders in health equity, entrepreneurship, and community resilience such as Derrick Brooms, Ph.D., professor and executive director of the Black Men’s Research Institute at Morehouse College, Abdie Mohamed, lead cloud governance engineer at Lockheed Martin, and Damion Wright, a leader from Intuit, the parent company of Mailchimp, TurboTax, and Credit Karma. A health panel led by experts will address critical health topics.

Feedback from past attendees highlights the Summit’s transformative impact. From success stories shared by community members to personal testimonials from Darrell’s own family, the event continues to change lives.

A Special Focus on Heart Health During American Heart Month

As we enter February, American Heart Month, the Birmingham Black Male Summit’s commitment to promoting heart health takes on special significance. Darrell shares a poignant personal story about his grandfather, who suffered a heart attack at just 42 years old. Stories like this reinforce the importance of regular check-ups and proactive health monitoring.

When asked what he wishes more people knew about heart health, Darrell said, “There is no age [minimum].” He emphasized that “heart disease has no name. It can be you. That’s why getting your blood pressure checked is important.”

Gardening for Health: SILC Project Cultivates Wellness in Deep South

Across Alabama and Mississippi, the Stepping into Lifestyle Changes (SILC) project is flourishing, proving that the simple act of gardening can yield far more than beautiful landscapes. With just a bit of soil, a handful of seeds, and a commitment to nurturing growth, SILC is demonstrating the profound ability of gardening to enhance lives beyond aesthetics. As we celebrate National Gardening Month, SILC embodies the remarkable power of community, innovation, and deep-seated dedication to promoting health and well-being.

Seeds of Change: SILC’s Journey

At SILC’s core are stories of personal growth and collective empowerment. Charlotte Love, the project’s study manager, recounts a particularly inspiring tale: “A participant started the program feeling discouraged and unhealthy. Over the course of the six months, the participant committed herself to ‘Stepping into Lifestyle Changes’. This included balanced nutrition and regular exercise. As a result, the participant lost 20 pounds and experienced a remarkable transformation in her overall well-being. She also established a network of support among the other participants.”

SILC represents an innovative approach to foster wellness in rural communities in Mississippi and Alabama. Monica Baskin, Ph.D., the project’s lead, says, “This study builds on prior research that demonstrated improved health behaviors and outcomes from a vegetable gardening intervention with both cancer survivors and persons living with other chronic conditions (e.g., heart disease, hypertension, diabetes). The study focuses on learning what factors are important with implementing and sustaining these type programs in community settings.”

Cultivating Health Locally

SILC’s success is largely due to its embrace of local culture and knowledge. Training community members as Master Gardeners sows seeds of change where most needed. “It goes beyond gardening,” Baskin states. “It’s about fostering a health culture rooted in local tradition.”

Despite its successes, SILC faces challenges, especially in engaging ample community-based master gardeners and navigating logistics of delivering gardening supplies to rural communities. However, the project’s resilience turns these obstacles into opportunities for learning and growth. Specifically, through collaborations with local Cooperative Extension Program offices, SILC has grown the number of community members that have become Master Gardeners. Certification as a Master Gardner involves completing an 8-week training and over 40 volunteer hours.

Witnessing SILC’s direct impact is a rewarding experience for Baskin. “It’s incredibly fulfilling to see participants sharing their successes — from weight loss to enjoying their harvest. It reinforces my belief in the power of community-engaged research.”

Seeding Future Policies: The Broader Impact of SILC

As the SILC project continues to bear fruit, its potential to shape health policies and community programs is immense. Baskin reflects on this aspect with optimism: “Findings from this study could inform community-based organizations and federal programs such as the Cooperative Extension Program on the factors that support the implementation and sustainability of evidence-based community-based gardening programs like this one. By demonstrating the health benefits and community engagement success of the SILC project, we hope to influence broader strategies aimed at reducing cardiometabolic diseases, making a case for integrating similar programs into public health initiatives across the country.”

Harvesting Hope for the Future

As SILC progresses, its effects are just beginning to bloom. “I hope our efforts inspire others to continue this work, spreading the benefits of community gardening and healthy living,” Baskin expresses.

In the spirit of National Gardening Month, Love and Baskin offer gardening wisdom rooted in personal and project experiences. Love suggests, “Plan early, be flexible,” emphasizing the importance of adaptability. Baskin shares her family’s gardening journey. “My now 20-year-old daughter got my family interested in gardening when she was in middle school. She was part of an ecology club where she learned how to start a container garden. We have since had one each year and have been thrilled with the outcome: delicious bountiful tomatoes, peppers, basil, thyme, and other delicacies have made it into our family recipes and have led to great memories for me and my family.”

As gardens across the country begin to flourish this National Gardening Month, the SILC project reminds us of the deep connection between our health, environment, and communities. Whether through a container garden or a community plot, each plant grown marks a step towards a healthier world.

Forge AHEAD Center Announces Third Cohort of Scholars

The Forge AHEAD Center (FAC) is pleased to announce the latest recipients of its pilot funding for the third cohort. Four early-stage investigators were selected for their innovative research aimed at improving outcomes for cardiometabolic diseases across Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. This new cohort investigate pressing health challenges like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension in communities that are often underrepresented in research. Pilot and feasibility funding is a cornerstone of FAC’s mission to push forward health equity by providing research that makes a real difference in people’s lives.

We celebrate the Cohort 3 Scholars for their commitment to important health issues. Their projects are critical to the Forge AHEAD Center’s mission to reduce health disparities and promote healthier communities through research.

We’re honored to recognize the following awardees:

• Jennifer Caldwell, Ph.D., MPH, assistant professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center – Project: “Linking GAINS: Linking Genetics and Improving Nutrition in Scotlandville”
• Kaylee B. Crockett, Ph.D., assistant professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham – Project: “Adaptation and Initial Feasibility of a Primary Care-based Dyadic Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Intervention: ‘Heart Care Pairs'”
• Lama Ghazi, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham – Project: “Post-Emergency Department Discharge Clinic Telehealth Program for Patients with Uncontrolled Hypertension”
• Amber W. Kinsey, Ph.D., assistant professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham – Project: “An integrated cardiometabolic intervention targeting physical and financial health: A pilot study”

To support their research journey, scholars will receive both strategic guidance and mentorship, empowering them to conduct research that’s impactful in their respective domains. This funding underscores Forge AHEAD Center’s dedication to funding projects that have the potential to make a meaningful contribution to reducing health disparities, fostering sustainable, community-focused health initiatives.

We’re eager to see the positive impacts these scholars’ projects will have on advancing health equity and enhancing the well-being of individuals throughout the South.

For more insights into the scholars and their work, please visit the Forge AHEAD Center website.

The next cycle of funding is open for applications. We encourage early-stage investigators who qualify for pilot award funding to apply. Letters of Intent (LOI) are due June 25, 2024. You can find more details about the Pilot Award Program and RFA timeline here.

Our Scholars’ stories: Gazaway empowers high-risk CKD patients with ownership of medical journey

Shena Gazaway, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Family, Community and Health Systems in the UAB School of Nursing, explores how to empower high-risk chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients and their caregivers in healthcare settings through her project “Impart multi.”

The project goal is to engage with high-risk patients and their caregivers who progress through kidney disease at a greater rate because of risk factors such as uncontrolled blood pressure and diabetes, says Gazaway.

Black/African Americans with chronic kidney disease and uncontrolled high blood pressure or diabetes face a higher risk of developing severe cardiovascular disease and their kidney disease getting worse more quickly than other racial demographics.

Many factors contribute to this risk, such as socioeconomic barriers. Gazaway’s study specifically focuses on the barrier of access to supportive, informative resources. Healthy outcomes require two-way quality communication between medical teams and the patient or caregiver.

Gazaway says all her work, which has historically focused on end-of-life decision-making, is guided by a group of community advisory members: two who are living with chronic kidney disease, two who are care partners of someone with chronic kidney disease, and one who has experience as a social worker in a dialysis clinic.

While their work has previously focused on end-of-life decision-making, Gazaway says the team expressed passionate interest in taking that concept upstream and finding ways to equip patients and caregivers earlier in the disease timeline. Because of Forge AHEAD Center’s funding mechanism, they can explore this new path with the same concept of decision-making.

Gazaway’s why

As a caregiver to her grandmother-in-law who later died from CKD, this work is deeply personal. “We grew up in a rural setting,” she says, where access was limited.

“Even though we are not in a rural setting in this study, patient activation and conversation are important. Patients and families need to be the drivers of conversation. Patients who are minoritized are often not the drivers of their clinical conversation,” Gazaway says.

“You are the owner of your medical journey. You are the owner of your healthcare experience. I don’t think our health care system does a good job of reminding people of that,” she states.

Her work seeks to change the way many Black/African American communities experience health and healthcare.

Encouraging ownership over medical journey

“Impart multi” consists of education sessions with patients on communication, social support usefulness, or a combination of both. The team wants to understand how educational sessions empowering patients and caregivers can impact decision-making and how patients or caregivers receive support from their medical team.

To teach this personal empowerment, the project focuses primarily on coaching patients and caregivers on how to ask questions. Correspondingly, patients and caregivers learn tactics of how to advocate for themselves in the medical and healthcare setting.

“I want people to know they have permission to ask questions. In some of our pilot work with end-of-life or serious illness, we see people forgetting—when they are in the medical space—that they have the permission to ask questions.”

Educational sessions are delivered to 32 Black/African American adults with stage 3 or 4 high-risk CKD by a lay coach navigator through telehealth or telephone, directly “in the community in people’s homes.”

“We are teaching coping activation, education, and decision-support skills designed to help patients enter an appointment empowered, to talk about what they need and to get the resources they need…We want to enhance communication and the ability to self-manage and enhance self-advocacy at the medical appointment.”

Building momentum

Gazaway says her team plans to share results scientifically and in the community.
She envisions giving patients a one-pager with must-ask questions that help them feel they deserve quality care and will empower them.

Ultimately, the foremost goal is to learn what components of this intervention have the most impact. After the study concludes, Gazaway says they hope to take the most active components to apply for more funding.

Empowering Communities: Dr. Tiffany Haynes’s Innovative Approach to Health Equity

The Forge AHEAD Center was honored to host Tiffany Haynes, Ph.D., at the University of Mississippi Medical Center this week as part of our scientific seminar series. Dr. Haynes, associate professor in health behavior and health education at the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, engaged with FAC members in Jackson, sharing her experiences and insights, further enriching our understanding and commitment to health equity.

Dr. Haynes shared her enlightening presentation, “Fostering Health Equity for Black Men: Insights from the Barbershop Talk Project,” to a hybrid crowd Wednesday. The project, part of the Center for Research, Health, and Social Justice (CRHSJ), is a testament to the innovative approaches required to address health disparities among Black men, focusing on stress management and the reduction of unhealthy alcohol use. Situated in barbershops across Arkansas, this initiative leverages these community hubs to offer early detection and intervention for unhealthy drinking behaviors, tackling significant health risks like cardiovascular disease and cancer. Dr. Haynes emphasized the distinct challenges Black men encounter, stating, “This is important and necessary,” to highlight the vital need for support mechanisms beyond alcohol in addressing the unique stressors faced by this group.

Throughout her presentation, Dr. Haynes imparted lessons learned from implementing the Barbershop Talk project, emphasizing the importance of social justice and community engagement. She candidly shared, “This is not work for the faint of heart,” acknowledging the challenges of navigating a healthcare system not originally designed for such community-centric work. The success of the community-informed SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral to Treatment) model demonstrated the profound impact of tailored, culturally sensitive interventions on individuals and families. Echoing the broader influence of this initiative, a community advocate and supporter of the project shared in a video, “Since I’ve stopped drinking, I’ve had friends and family members looking at me. And older guys saying ‘Man, you still sober? I’m trying to get there.’ To have these older guys looking at me – that says a lot,” highlighting the ripple effect of positive health behaviors within the community.

In alignment with the Forge AHEAD Center’s mission to reduce health disparities and foster equity, particularly in the Deep South, the Barbershop Talk project serves as a shining example of the type of innovative, community-driven research and interventions we aim to support. Dr. Haynes’s approach of incorporating health education and interventions within community settings reflects Forge AHEAD’s commitment to empowering communities toward improved health management. “The model of going to where people are is one that we should use,” Dr. Haynes remarked, advocating for accessibility in health promotion efforts. By spotlighting transformative projects like Barbershop Talk, the Forge AHEAD Center continues to advance its mission, not only enhancing health outcomes but also empowering individuals and families toward a healthier, more equitable future.

View the recording of the presentation below.

Join us at our next seminar in April, where we will host Seth A. Berkowitz, M.D., MPH, associate professor in the Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. He will share about “Food Insecurity, Diabetes, and Distributive Institutions.” For more details and registration, please visit this page.