The goal of Growing Up Black is to learn about what it’s like growing up Black in America from the people who experience it first hand, while also providing an opportunity to diversify the narrative of the Black experience that we are used to seeing in mainstream media coverage. Growing Up Black allows folks from various communities to share their personal experiences and their hopes for the future and what they would like their legacy to be instead of relying on the media to dictate it for them.
VH1’s “Growing Up Black” is an unfiltered and detailed look at the diverse experiences of Growing Up Black in America from city to city. This docu-series features interviews from city locals, community members, and leaders to explore their personal narratives and gain a deeper understanding of what it truly means to grow up Black in America. Additionally, talent recounts moments of their life’s journey which have impacted the person they have become today. Growing Up Black provides cultural context and initiates a conversation about how the resilience of Black Americans allowed them crucial opportunities for identity formation and collective growth, despite institutional constraints. This docuseries was conceptualized at the height of the global pandemic and the height of The Black Lives Matter Movement, when Senior Producer, Heather Haynes was inspired to create a different narrative of the Black experience verses what she was seeing on mainstream media coverage at the time. Heather and her team faced many challenges producing this series, COVID-19 restrictions changed by the day and threw a wrench in the production schedule and casting, but the team pivoted where needed and preserved to tell as many stories as time allowed. Heather and her team hired local crews in each market to help give each episode it’s on distinctive look and feel and to add to the authenticity of the storytelling.
The pilot episode takes place in New Orleans and features talent including visual artist Brandan “B Mike” Odums, Civil Rights Activist and Freedom Rider Jerome “Big Duck” Smith, and former police chief of New Orleans Warren Riley, discussing the uniqueness of New Orleans culture and how it relates to their identity of Growing Up Black. The second chapter of the docu-series explores what it means to grow up Black in NYC, and how it is an experience like no other primarily because of its culturally diverse melting pot. This chapter features interviews with the legendary DJ Clark Kent, Chi Ossé, (The youngest ever elected NYC City Council member) and others discussing the uniqueness of New York City’s culture and people. The third chapter takes viewers into the deep south to highlight what life is like growing up Black in Atlanta, and show how Georgians shifted the culture of the United States over the last century. This episode features talent interviews from Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Mayor Elect Andre Dickens, the CEO of The New Georgia Project, Nse Ufot, Atlanta’s LGBTQ Advisory Board Member Miss Lawerence and more focusing on several socio-political topics that range from Black education to Black Georgia’s Voters’s influence on the 2020 Presidential Election
The remaining installments of Growing Up Black visit locations such as Los Angles, Chicago and Detroit focusing on topics such as Black Entrepreneurship, Civil Rights Activism, gun control, music history, visual arts and more.
Results (as of 7/29/21)
Views: 1.2M
Minutes: 7.8M minutes
AVD: 0:06:29
Net Subscribers: 1.4K
Growing Up Black was the highest viewed original video series on the VH1 YouTube channel. The goal of Growing Up Black was visibility of Black narratives beyond the mainstream media coverage of the Black Community.
