- What's up, y'all?
I'm back, hanging with Bailee Madison.
Give it up! (crowd claps and cheers)
My next guest is a former high school teacher
who saw great potential in his young male students,
many who were Black.
He couldn't understand why, with so much promise,
so many were failing.
It wasn't until he learned to tap into their emotions
in a very unique way that he was able
to help them change their grades and for many,
the course of their lives.
That makes him our Rad Human.
(bright rock music) (crowd claps)
Please welcome the founder of Ever Forward Club,
Ashanti Branch, everybody!
(crowd claps and cheers)
- Hey, Kelly.
- [Kelly] How ya doin', Ashanti?
Please say hi to Bailee.
- Hi, I'm Bailee!
- Hey, Bailee. - (laughs) How ya doin'?
(Bailee laughs)
- [Ashanti] Good.
- We've been sitting here talkin' about your smile.
You have the greatest smile ever.
- [Bailee] Mm-hmm.
- It's so beautiful.
(laughs) - It is, it's twinklin'.
- Thank you. - I know!
It's a great smile. (laughing)
Well Ashanti, can you tell us more
about your experience as a teacher?
- Yeah, when I was a first year teacher
back in 2004, I had never wanted to be a teacher.
I wanted to be rich, I wanted to be an engineer.
But teaching called me and when I became a teacher
that first year, there were these young men in my class
who were super smart, but they were failing math.
I was the algebra teacher and I was like,
"You're smart, but why are you failing my class?"
I took it personal, so I said,
"Look, maybe I can try something.
I'm gonna invite of you to lunch."
I said, "I'll buy you lunch once a week.
In exchange for lunch, teach me how to be a better teacher."
And that was the start of the Ever Forward Club.
I didn't really know what I was doing,
but what I learned in those lunch meetings
was that smart wasn't cool for them.
So they acted in ways that made them look cool,
which didn't equal looking smart and I'm like,
"I know that very well."
I knew that firsthand, that behavior of trying to fit in
by not showing people, how smart you were.
- Yeah, 'cause you say you can relate to them.
You know where that comes from, right?
- Yeah, I was raised by a single mother.
My father died before I was born.
I grew up in Oakland, California and it was rough,
and I knew that there was some rules
around what it meant to be a man.
In my house, being nice and kind and caring and loving,
those were all really important qualities.
But when I went out of the house,
there was different rules about what it meant to be a man.
It was being tough and strong,
and dominating and taking over stuff.
And I'm realizing that, man, this is exactly
what these young men are doing.
So a teacher, when I was in middle school,
really changed my life and she said to me,
"Ashanti, look, I know you're sad
that your father died before you were born,
but life doesn't give you what you want.
Like it gives you what you get
and you've gotta make the most out of it."
And I remember that sentence changing my life.
I was angry up until that point, really angry.
And I think that when I was trying to create
in Ever Forward was kind of what that teacher did
for me, is a space to be seen.
She saw me for more than just what I was letting her see.
'Cause I had a good mask that I put up
in front of the outside, but I was going through life,
I was feeling a lot of sadness and hurt and home drama.
But she helped me kind of pull it out.
- I love that.
It's like, you're not your pain, you are your possibility.
That's a really magical thing to teach other kids,
as well as learning yourself.
But Ashanti, I have to ask you,
so how does Ever Forward Club help these young men?
- So, the young man meet weekly
and now we're doing it virtually, but it's a space
for them to take off this emotional mask, right?
Where they have a space to go
and be more of their full self.
I think a lot of young men are boxed
into this confined masculinity of what you can show
as a man and be still respected as a man.
But what if you had a space where you could talk
about being sad and being afraid,
and being worried and being confused,
and being lonely and no one was laughing?
And no one was making you feel less than a man.
So we create that space for young men and give them
a brotherhood to say, "In this space,
even though the world's not ready for you to be expressive
like that out there yet, here, it's not only respected,
it's almost expected. - Expected, yeah.
- And it's okay.
- Yeah! (crowd claps)
Oh, I love this. - I love that.
- But Ashanti, you've developed a unique way
to help young men open up.
Can you tell me a little about that?
- Yeah, we created this workshop called,
"Taking Off the Mask," and "Taking Off the Mask"
is an experience where with one picture and six words,
we help people go deeper than maybe they usually would.
I mean, people can actually do it on the website.
It's 100kmasks.com and what they do is,
they draw a picture, usually a picture of a mask.
And then we think of three words on the front of the mask
which are things that you gladly let the world see.
That's the front.
And then you think, at back of the mask,
as three things you normally don't let people see.
And they're anonymous, and we've collected
over 50,000 masks from over 20 countries.
Over 500 teachers have signed up to be a part
of this movement with their students.
And we've just seen people get a space
to recognize that wait a minute, somebody else
in here is going through the same thing?
Somebody else my age, in my city is going
through the same thing?
It's been absolutely amazing. (crowd claps)
- Yeah, I love that.
- Goosebumps. - I know, I know.
- When I started Ever Forward Club in 2004,
there were very few spaces that I saw people focusing
on what the young men needs were.
They think that they become a man
when they can get a license or they're 21, they can drink.
But we have this teenage years
where you're trying to figure it out.
So we got boys walking around,
have no purpose, have no value system around
here's my role as a man in this community.
'Cause I'm still a teenager, not a little boy
and I'm not a man, I'm a teen.
I'm a young man, so what is my role?
Oh nothing, just to figure it out when I become a man.
That's dangerous. (crowd claps and cheers)
- Wow, I'm here with Bailee Madison and Rad Human,
Ashanti Branch, the founder of Ever Forward Club.
And that was a clip of Ashanti in the new documentary,
"Beyond Men and Masculinity."
I love that clip, aw, it's such great teaser.
Well, joining us now, everybody, is Clive.
He joined Ashanti's Ever Forward Club when he was 12
and says the mask workshop changed his life.
Hi Clive, how ya doin'? (crowd claps and cheers)
- Hello.
- Well, you look so handsome.
- (chuckles) Thank you.
- [Kelly] Aw, you got a cute smile too,
all right. - Yeah, hi Clive! (laughs)
- So Clive, tell us about your involvement
in the mask workshop.
- Yeah, so I met Ashanti when I was around 12 years old.
I was raised by my single mom and my grandmother.
My father was absent and it was kinda hard,
but we did fine enough without him.
Around middle school, I began
to feel negatively influenced by some of my peers
and it felt like I was trying to be somebody else.
I started to lose myself,
and I didn't really know what was wrong.
There was a disconnect between my home life,
my life at home and my life at school,
and I didn't really know how to make it right.
So my mom enrolled me in Ever Forward Club.
It was an after school program offered at my middle school.
And I only joined because I thought we
were gonna go on a lot of field trips
and we didn't go on a lot, (laughs)
coming out of Oakland, but it ended up being a crutch
for me during one of the hardest times in my life.
And then in 2016, my mom passed away and it was one
of the most difficult things I've ever had to go through.
Ashanti probably helped me the most through that time.
If I hadn't been in Ever Forward,
I probably wouldn't be here.
- Well, we're glad you're here.
- Wow, Yeah. - Really glad.
- That's a lot on a young person as well,
on anyone's heart, but especially on a young person.
Especially going into high school.
All right, so Clive, what does your life look like now?
- So my life now, I am 19 years old.
I currently attend CSU Northridge in LA.
I'm taking school virtually, online classes.
With the coronavirus quarantine,
the pandemic stopped all things, but it's looking up.
I'm constantly being assisted by Ashanti.
I can always go to him whenever I need something.
And I have a support system, my little sister
and my older brother, my family and my friends
that don't live with me, but they still reach out to me
and make sure they love me and take care of me.
And so, yeah, it's pretty good, it's looking up.
- That's awesome, man.
Well Ashanti, you recently launched an online movement.
Can you tell us about it?
- Yeah, so it's called the Million Mask Movement.
I mentioned it earlier, but one of the things
that's really exciting about it is we
are helping students who get excited
about this movement to take this to their peers.
And so, the Million Mask Movement is a global movement
where we're hoping to inspire people
to take that one picture and six words,
and maybe first it's anonymous.
But maybe they'll find a little more courage
and find one person in their life
that they can share the mask with.
And maybe another person, and everyone doesn't deserve
to know what's behind the mask.
But if you got at least one person,
we feel like that feeling of loneliness is not so big.
And so with the 50,000 masks we've already collected,
the 20+ countries that are already a part of the movement,
we're just excited about this next journey of what we can do
and really, it wasn't about the million number,
but it was about helping people recognize they're not alone.
- Hmm, I love something you just said
and I read it in a book and I'm trying
to remember the book right now, but you just said deserving
of seeing what's behind your mask and I love,
'cause I feel like often, we try and tell our story
to people or we try and find validation
with people that aren't deserving of your story.
They're not even, they're not empathetic people.
And it's like finding those people
that really deserve to see behind your mask,
finding those people who deserve to hear your story
because they genuinely care about it.
And I think that that's really important,
what you just said, but Ashanti,
it's inspiring that your Ever Forward Club is flourishing
because of its dedication to young men like Clive,
and our season-long partner, Pilot Pen, agrees
and they know how powerful words can be.
Words can change minds, change hearts,
and turn the impossible into the possible.
Clive, they know that your journey has not been an easy one
and they wanna see you stay in college and keep growing.
So Frixion, the erasable pen of "The Kelly Clarkson Show,"
is giving you $5,000 and we hope that helps.
(crowd claps and cheers) (chuckling)
(laughs) His face.
You didn't say a word, you literally did this.
You were like... (laughing)
- Yeah, when you hear somebody's giving you $5,000,
it's kinda hard to find...
(laughing) (clapping)
Thank you so much.
The words escape me, I'm so grateful.
- No, we believe in you.
We think that like Ashanti,
he's such an advocate for you as well
and we were so excited to have you on the show.
We're so excited to help you but also,
I hope that you're excited because you being
this bold and this brave in this moment
is helping some other young men
in other places be brave and bold as well.
But everybody remember, don't show those people
what's behind your mask if they're not deserving.
Find the people and surround yourself
with the people that deserve it.