The Match, The Fuel, & The Flame
By Justin Hill.Ai
Many of the men present stand on stage waiting their turn to introduce themselves.
Yesterday, inside the cafeteria of Fairview Middle School, I witnessed a moment that felt bigger than anything written on a flyer. Bigger than a book launch. Bigger than an event. Bigger than anything I expected to experience.
It felt like walking into a spark that had just learned it could become a fire. But that isn’t where the story starts.
The story begins with a woman, a woman named Shonda Knight, who wrote a children’s book called My OmniLife: I Can Be Anything! A book designed not simply to entertain, but to plant something inside black boys that life will spend years trying to take away: the right to imagine themselves without limits.
The moment I heard the event had been moved from its original location, I worried. Logistically, I expected less energy. Visually, I expected fewer opportunities. Symbolically, I expected a diluted moment. Rain has a way of scattering people, and venue changes usually scatter meaning.
But I was wrong.
The school made the moment whole.
It kept us out of the weather, yes, but more importantly, it grounded the message in the very place where identity is shaped and shaken. Schools are where black children begin to absorb the world’s stories about them, some true, most not. They learn to spell their names in one room and learn to doubt themselves in another. To deliver a message of possibility in that environment is not small. It is corrective. It is restorative.
When I stepped inside and looked through my lens, I saw something I rarely see gathered in one place: black men, in full spectrum. There were law enforcement representatives, STEM professionals, a former FAMU president, a county commissioner, a Leon County School Board member, a meteorologist, and the Director of Football Relations at Florida State. There were elders, mentors, and fathers and a host of other black men representing different career fields in our Tallahassee community
These were men who have lived, struggled, succeeded, and survived enough to stand in front of children as living proof of what’s possible.
These men didn’t show up out of obligation. They didn’t show up to perform. They didn’t show up for applause. They showed up because a black woman asked them to.
And there is something sacred in that. Something our community knows instinctively but rarely says aloud: black progress often rests, not only in the hands of men, but with the assistance and care of black women who carry vision with the quiet force of necessity.
It was Shonda’s book that struck the match. It was her voice that gathered the fuel. And what I witnessed yesterday, the men, the families, the joy, the unity, and the pride is what happens when the match touches fuel.
But the flame?
The flame is what burns after. The flame is the child who takes that book home. The flame is the girl who watched black men stand tall in a space where she learns every day. The flame is the mother who felt safer, supported, and respected simply because the room held strong men moving in alignment. The flame is the boy who saw an image of himself in the book and in the room reflected back from both pages and people. The flame is the woman who recognizes the burden of community doesn’t have to rest solely on her shoulders or any man who feels the same burden of trying to do it by himself.
Photography teaches you to pay attention to the silent parts of a moment. To listen with your eyes. And what I saw from behind my camera yesterday was a story unfolding at two levels, the seen and the unseen.
The visible story was beautiful. There were kids dancing, men speaking life, families smiling, books being signed, black excellence standing shoulder to shoulder, and joy bouncing off cafeteria walls that usually echo with middle school uncertainty.
But the unseen story - the one underneath, is what took my breath away.
I saw girls watching black men with curiosity, admiration, and relief. We don’t talk about this part enough. We talk about how boys need to see men. We talk about mentorship. We talk about representation for young males. But girls also need to witness Black men unified, supportive, peaceful, disciplined, joyful, protective, and present.
Women need to see black men loving each other, affirming children, and partnering with women without ego. Respect grows from exposure. Belief grows from proximity. Healing grows from consistent example.
Yesterday, those women and girls saw black men in their fullness, not defensive, not guarded, not performing strength, but embodying it.
As I moved through the room, capturing moments, I kept thinking about this truth:
Excellence that exists only inside the four walls of a man’s home isn’t necessarily excellence for the community.
A man can be a phenomenal father and still be invisible to the boys outside his home who need him. He can love his wife deeply and still leave the next generation starving for guidance. He can be a protector in private and a ghost in public. Yesterday showed what happens when private excellence becomes public responsibility.
Children from a local Boys and Club prepare to take a picture with Shonda Knight
Men often say they want to “lead.” But leadership is not loud. Leadership is presence. Leadership is posture. Leadership is showing up where your community needs you, not where you feel comfortable. And the truth that hit me hardest yesterday is this:
Black women have always been the backbone of our progress, not because Black men are incapable, but because black women have learned how to activate us.
Shonda had the vision.
The men brought the bandwidth.
The children brought the need.
The school brought the soil.
And the community brought the fire.
Local music legend, DJ Demp provided the soundtrack and energy for the occasion.
This wasn’t a watered-down event. This was a perfect storm, spiritually timed, logistically guided, emotionally charged, and culturally necessary.
The real power of the day wasn’t in the speeches or even in the photos I took. It was in the shift that happens when a community remembers what it can do together.
The book was the match.
The event was the fuel catching flame.
And the legacy - the flame that now burns with ferocity is what happens next.
It burns in the imagination of black boys who now believe they can be anything. It burns in the pride of black girls who saw black men show up in strength and unity. It burns in the women who watched men step forward without needing a spotlight. It burns in the men who realized they are needed beyond their own households. It burns in every adult who walked out of Fairview Middle School knowing they witnessed something real.
Leon County Sheriff, Walt McNeil (far right) and some of his staff were in the building to support the cause.
I left that school yesterday grateful. I was grateful for the men who showed up. I was grateful for the children who showed up. I was grateful for the women who held the space. I was grateful for the book that made it possible. I was grateful that my camera captured meaning. I was grateful to have been there to witness the moment.
This is what BlackDad is founded on. It’s not perfection., not performance, or ego. Instead, it’s presence, unity, visibility, partnership, and legacy.
If this is what can happen because one woman wrote one children’s book…then imagine what can happen when a community decides to keep striking matches.
– Justin Hill, BlackDad
