In 2020, Dr. Jocelyn Smith Lee was awarded a highly competitive $100,000 Grand Challenge Award through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her winning proposal – one of 28 selected from over 1,200 – sought to disrupt dehumanizing narratives of Black boys, men, and families and reclaim their humanity.
Now, the faculty member in Human Development and Family Studies and her team have launched their narrative change campaign, In All Ways Human, in Baltimore, Maryland. The results of their work bring hope in the aftermath of COVID, skyrocketing gun violence, and the visible loss of Black lives to police violence.
“This right here will change the perspective on how people look at us,” says Kevin Harvey, Jr., participant and community advisor. “Every portrait up here is gonna change the world.”