S7E36 -More Is Caught Than Taught How Umoja Debate League is Rewriting Detroit’s Civic Culture with Jerjuan Howard

“Leaders have to be a little delusional and have a lot of audacity.” From the first minutes, Jerjuan Howard plants that flag and then shows the receipts—why “youth development, community development must go hand in hand,” how a Gen Z squad of 30-and-under staff is running a league of 300 students across 20+ schools, and why “Detroiters…have everything that we need already—it’s just about coming together to make it happen.” In this Detroit is Different conversation, Jerjuan and Khary trace a straight line from porch talk to policy: debates on whether to demolish the RenCen, backyard chickens and food grading ordinances, and the big one—“African cultural sovereignty… vs. political representation.” Jerjuan calls himself a middleman between elders and the youth—“my grandma used to say, ‘eat the meat and throw away the bones’”—so Umoja turns what kids already love (“kids already like to argue”) into a vehicle for critical thinking, city pride, and leadership. We dig into the audacity behind taking Detroit kids to Africa, the team-captain model that makes students league ambassadors, and why “indirect action is… just as responsible” as bad policy when communities are ignored. He lays out the build on Puritan: the open-air Umoja Village, a once–25-year-vacant building becoming a Black-authored bookstore and third space one block away (“for us and by us”), and a community-driven health clinic on deck—proof that Legacy Black Detroit isn’t nostalgia, it’s blueprint.

Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different.

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