- [Will] Coming up, on "One Detroit," our political contributors weigh in on the first debate between presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Plus, we'll tell you about an organization helping Detroiters become urban farmers.

Also ahead, September is Black Reading Month.

We'll tell you how you can take part in the observance.

And we have some ideas on how you can spend this weekend, and beyond, in Metro Detroit.

It's all coming up next, on "One Detroit."

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(gentle bright music) - [Will] Just ahead on "One Detroit," we'll show you how Keep Growing Detroit is promoting food sovereignty in the city.

Plus, we'll talk about the importance of reading books this month written by African-American authors.

And Cecelia Sharpe and Dave Wagner, of 90.9 WRCJ, share a list of activities for you and your family to enjoy.

But, first up, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off in their first, and perhaps only, presidential debate this week in Philadelphia.

The showdown comes as polls show a tight race just eight weeks before election day.

"One Detroit" contributors Nolan Finley of "The Detroit News," Stephen Henderson of "American Black Journal," and Zoe Clark from Michigan Public, offered their thoughts on how the candidates performed.

(gentle bright music) - Okay, gentlemen, so the early indicators are that Kamala Harris won the debate.

Nolan, you first, what do you make of that headline?

- Well, I think she won decisively.

I mean, I don't know that I would say it was because of a sterling performance on her part.

Just I think Donald Trump was nearly as bad in that debate as Joe Biden was in the first debate.

And, you know, when he gets flustered, when you get under his skin, he falls apart, and he just was all over the place.

I don't even think folks who are on his team thought he did all that well.

I mean, she did good in terms of her ability to take this debate to him, but still was evasive on questions.

And one of the things we needed from her last night was some revelations about who she was, and we didn't get a whole lot of that.

You know, it was her first live unscripted appearance and we still don't know answers to a lot of the key questions.

- Stephen.

- So how high on the checklist of don't dos for Donald Trump do you think was, "Hey, don't talk about that dog-eating thing in Springfield, Ohio"?

Like, how many times did his advisors probably say to him, "You know, just don't bring that up.

It's not gonna help you during the debate."

And, of course, she baited him very, very skillfully, which, you know, she can, she's a prosecutor.

I mean, this is somebody who is very accustomed to leading people to say things that maybe they're a little reluctant to say or that they've been told that they shouldn't say.

She got him real early.

And once he was off the rails, he couldn't find his way back on.

- No.

- I mean, the lack of focus and discipline was the debate after that point.

- That's right, I mean, he's an easy target when it comes to taking him off the rails, getting under his skin, and she was very, very good at that all night long.

You know, touching his hot buttons, "Nobody stays at your rallies."

You know, he took the bait every single time.

And you've gotta believe, if he did preparation, they say he did, you know, he's not really known for debate prep.

I mean, he didn't prep at all for his debate with Joe Biden in 2020, and, you know, so he showed up again thinking his sheer brilliance was gonna carry them through this.

You know, instead of, turning things around and taking this back to her, he took every piece of bait she threw out there, she kept him on the defensive all night long.

- Yeah, so I do think though, and I agree that there wasn't a whole lot of substance at the debate from either side, there never really is, debates aren't the place, it's not a policy lecture, but we did get some specific ideas from her.

This idea of a $50,000 credit for people who wanna start businesses, expanding the child tax credit so that it's $6,000.

There were a number of other sort of economic initiatives that she laid out.

But more important than anything I think is this vision she kept coming back to, of us seeing in each other more in common than what we see different, of us looking to the future together and working together to get to the future.

There was some very soaring language that she went to over and over again, all of it scripted, no question this was planned.

But I think that, if you're an undecided voter in this race, you are more likely to find that appealing than, you know, name calling, or denigration of the opponent, or of immigrants, or some of the other folks that Donald Trump took after last night.

And I think on that score, he lost much more spectacularly.

I mean, he was undisciplined and unfocused during the debate, I think everybody expected him to do that, but he has got to appeal to people who want something better.

And she laid out some things that she said would be better, but more than that, she talked about them in that optimistic togetherness tone that I think is awfully powerful at this stage in the presidential race.

- Nolan, I'm curious from your standpoint, the candidates needed to do two things on Tuesday night.

They needed to get their base, you know, excited and riled up.

I think, check, both candidates did that.

But they needed as well to persuade the persuadables.

In your mind, did former President Donald Trump do anything, to Stephen's point, to get some of these independent undeciders to go, "Yes, this is the candidate I wanna vote for come November?"

- You know, I don't think Donald Trump's gonna move those.

I think it'll be Harris who moves those voters one way or the other.

And one of the things we didn't hear from her is a clear separation from the last four years, and the last four years have not been great for people.

You have a lot of dissatisfaction out there, a lot of angst and anxiety still.

People have been through some rough times during the Biden administration.

I don't think she effectively separated herself from that.

She never answered the question that was asked to her about, "Is America better off than they were when you all took over four years ago?"

There was no talk about debt and deficits.

And all these, you know, wonderful plans that were being thrown out cost money, and we're running this year a $2 trillion deficit.

And I thought the moderators were amiss in not asking, "Hey, how are we gonna pay for all this?"

And I think Trump missed an opportunity in not pressing her on, "How are we gonna pay for all this?

What are we gonna cut?

What aren't we gonna do?"

- Do you think that this optimistic message then that the vice president is really working hard on, this sort of joyful warrior, can overcome some of these questions and real concerns that voters still have about the economy?

We've got about a minute left.

- Yeah, I mean, we'll see.

I mean, look, this narrative that Republicans are pushing about the last four years being miserable is, of course, selective.

Inflation is high, that's true.

But unemployment is 2% now, it was 7% when Donald Trump left office.

- 6.1.

- The Dow hit 40,000 recently.

People who are investors are making all kinds of money.

My house is worth 40% more today than it was in 2021.

There are all kinds of indicators that the economy is actually turning along.

It's that inflation, the things that you see at the grocery store and the gas pump are going wrong.

They've gotta be more disciplined about what that message is, that it is a complicated picture, and that if they've got a solution for inflation, they need to talk about it.

But the other things that we measure the economy by are going wonderfully, and they are certainly going way better than they were when Donald Trump left office.

I mean, the last two Republican presidents have left spectacular messes for Democrats to clean up.

That's the message that Kamala Harris needs to focus on.

- Look, gentlemen, as always, never enough time.

We have to leave it there, but we still got two more months to talk all about this, and, who knows, possibly even another debate.

So thanks so much, you two.

- [Will] The organization known as Keep Growing Detroit is on a mission to create a food sovereign city where the majority of fruits and vegetables consumed by Detroiters are grown by residents within the city limits.

I visited the urban farm at Eastern Market to learn more about its efforts to teach Detroiters how to grow their own food.

- Food is one of the most integral things that connects all of us, and is one of the most important things in terms of culture, economics, and who we are as a people.

You can learn a lot about who you are by what you're eating.

- Growing food is one of the most meaningful things you can do.

It connects you to the land and its people, and that's where I find meaning.

- Keep Growing Detroit started in 2013, and then one of our major programs, the Garden Resource Program, 10 years before that.

And so the main goal has always been about cultivating a food sovereign city, making sure that Detroiters are consuming vegetables grown by Detroiters.

And so one of the major ways that we do that is through the Garden Resource Program where we provide seeds, plants, support, additional garden resources and supplies, classes for people to get their gardens growing within Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park.

I am very proud to say that there are over 2,200 farms and gardens within the city that are connected to our program.

That wealth of folks who are utilizing that space in that way is something that is uniquely Detroit in a way that I don't think many people associate with us.

Particularly, since most folks think that we're the Motor City, we're an industrialized place, and we're sitting on, you know, over an acre of farmland right here in the middle of Eastern Market.

- Yeah.

From the gardens, how does that, I guess, ripple effect go into the community?

- When we say that we're cultivating a food sovereign city, it means that it's a way in which people have autonomy and accessibility to foods that they want to grow, foods that they want to eat, and they know how it's being grown, in a way that they don't have to depend on a grocery store, in a way that they don't have to depend if they have money in their pocket to be able to do so, in a way that they don't have to see like, "Am I gonna be able to get this one thing that connects me to my culture, this one thing that connects me to who I am?"

And so, for me, specifically, my parents came from the Philippines.

If I'm away from my family, I'm away from like many people who look like me.

I'm away from like the language that I grew up learning.

If food is the way in which I can continue to connect with this major part of who I am, then let that happen.

And, in addition, if it's a way in which I can grow it from seed, cultivate it and see it be grown, it's an even deeper connection than if I had gone to the store to go and buy it.

When I found out that ginger could be grown here, ginger is a ubiquitous thing in many of the Filipino foods.

But when I found out that it can be grown here and in this greenhouse, that made me feel like I can be here, I can be rooted here.

- What brought you to Keep Growing Detroit?

How'd you end up here?

- It has to do a lot with the community in Detroit.

I'm originally from Grand Rapids, and a lot of barriers of access in farming are found in Grand Rapids that aren't found in Detroit.

And a lot of that has to do with the community in Detroit being so supportive of urban agriculture.

There's just more resources and programming.

You know, we have the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund, we have organizations like Keep Growing Detroit that has the Garden Resource Program, and a wide range of urban farms all across the city that are ready to support each other.

- So Juneteenth, 2020, we launched the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund in collaboration with Detroit Black Food Security Network and Oakland Avenue Urban Farm.

These three longstanding organizations focus on urban agriculture right here in the city.

It was born out of seeing many times over and over again, white farmers in the city having capital and access to be able to own the lands where they are farming.

And in a city that's majority Black, that's a major disparity, right?

The focus was to be able to say like, "Okay, you need capital and connections?

Let's do that for you," Black farmers in the city who have been growing for decades in the same place, but do not own it.

So many times, like what folks are facing is they're up against a developer, they're up against someone who has thousands of dollars of cash on hand who can outright by that land.

So the land fund was created to be able to assist folks that they can have land security.

The fund, I'm proud to say, is now in its fifth year.

- Oh wow.

- We have now awarded 171 awardees.

- Whoa.

- Hundreds of thousands of dollars given, awarded, and I think about 18 acres that are now in the hands of Black farmers in the city.

- Just from my personal background, you know, it's like reclaiming the legacy that was lost for my ancestors that weren't able to, you know, freely work the land and build something on their own free will.

- What is different about farming in a major city, like the city of Detroit, versus farming in a rural area?

- First and foremost, we know that this is an industrialized city, and one of the biggest values that we have as part of the Garden Resource Program is that every membership includes a soil test.

So we make sure that, you know, the lead levels are safe within the place that you're growing.

Then, we do assistance for people who have community gardens to provide materials with raised beds.

Often I think you're talking about space and how much of that space you're able to grow.

- Most often, who are you seeing wanting to come and participate and learn how to grow, take this information back to their communities?

- It's everybody, it's kind of amazing.

The folks I think that are really into it the most are the most seasoned senior folks who are in the community, 'cause they remember what it's like to grow up having a garden.

We take a lot of time additionally to focus on early childhood.

We work a lot with early childhood centers and create little gardens where they can include garden-based learning into their curriculum.

Then, we also have a teen program, where it's a youth-apprenticeship program, it's our connection with Grow Detroit's Youth Talent, where they come here for six weeks throughout the summer with an intensive program in learning all of this.

- What is the most gratifying thing about the work you're doing here at Keep Growing Detroit overall?

- The most gratifying thing is seeing that people can do it.

I think there's a lot of times people are like, "I can't do that, I can't grow food."

And once people start growing their own food, people start to say things like, "Oh, I grew up eating this.

Oh, this is something that my grandma used to grow in her backyard."

- Right.

- "I haven't had this taste since they were alive, since they cooked that for me."

- Food sovereignty has to do with self-determination, and self-determination leads to freedom.

And so when you're growing food on your own land, there's a sense of freedom that you don't normally have when you're going to the grocery store and buying food.

- These are folks who are taking urban agriculture very seriously in the city of Detroit, and it has brought it to the forefront.

Farming is right here, and we can do it here in the city of Detroit.

- [Will] September is Black Reading Month.

It's a time to celebrate African-American literature and culture by reading at least one book, magazine, or journal written by a Black author.

"American Black Journal" host and "One Detroit" contributor, Stephen Henderson, spoke with Malik Yakini, a co-founder of the annual observance that began 45 years ago in Detroit.

(gentle mellow music) - Black Reading Month, something you co-founded.

Let's start with just the origin of that.

How'd you come up with this idea?

- Well, in 1978, '79, myself and my wife at the time, Nkiruka Yakini, and Dr. Keith Dye had created a company called New Directions Information Institute, and we were distributing Black magazines and books trying to get them in kind of mainstream stores throughout the city.

So we noticed that grocery stores, for example, at the checkout counter, there were various magazines, but none of the magazines dealt with the Black experience, or those who dealt with the Black experience, dealt with entertainment and issues like that.

There were no real serious Black publications in the places where people went every day to shop.

So our attempt was to get those magazines and books in those kinds of stores.

And so for about two years we were distributing going every month dropping off magazines, like "Black Enterprise," and "Africa" magazine, and others that dealt with serious issues of the day.

But when we came back at the end of the month, we noticed only one or two had sold.

So we realized that it was more than just getting the publications, getting access to the publications.

We needed a public campaign in order to promote the importance of reading Black books and magazines.

And so we met with a number of other Black-book distributors and Black-book sellers in Chicago with Third World Press in the summer of 1980.

And out of that, we decided to come back to Detroit and do something concrete.

There had been a lot of discussion on the national level about some kind of promotional campaign.

We decided to come back to Detroit and create Black Reading Month, September is Black Reading Month.

- Yeah, yeah, and this is something that's celebrated in many different places now.

I mean, it's kind of an international phenomenon.

- Yeah, well, you know, especially with the advent of the information superhighway, as they used to call it, you know, people all around the country and around the world have become familiar with Black Reading Month and are celebrating it or observing it in various ways.

The most fundamental way that we ask people to celebrate or observe Black Reading Month is to read at least one book by a Black author during the month of September.

That's kind of the low bar, but at least one.

You know, and that might sound like it's not a big accomplishment, but the reality is, in American society, the average adult has not read a book in the last five years.

And so we have a tremendous problem with literacy in general, but again, with Black people in this country, people of African descent, we have the problem of living in a society which has intentionally kind of covered up our history, our culture, and part of that is the tremendous contributions that we made to literature.

- You have an event coming up in September around this as well?

- Well, actually, we were trying to get an event nailed down.

We don't have it nailed down yet.

I wish I could give you the details.

But I would just encourage people to stay tuned to the September is Black Reading Month Facebook page for that potential Detroit event.

There is one in Avalon Village, and I don't have the date in front of me right now, but there's a children's event which is going on that's been going on for multiple years.

But the main thing is that we want people in their own homes, not so much, you know, we used to try to get people to come out to big public activities, but in their own homes, we want people to do a couple things.

One, as I said, to read at least one book during the month of September by a Black author.

And then, two, for those who are up to it, we ask them to participate in the Turn Off the TV Challenge.

That is to turn off the television for the entire month, except for shows like "American Black Journal."

- Except for "American Black Journal," of course.

- Yeah, no, but seriously, which speak to our experience and help to uplift us.

But we're trying to break people from the habit of kind of mindless television watching.

And so the Turn Off the TV Challenge during the month of September is really a fast of sorts.

It's a fast to break our addiction to television.

It's a fast that enables us to take the time that perhaps we were using watching television in the past and use that to read, and also it's an exercise in self-discipline.

- [Will] Summer may be waning, but there are still a lot of things to do, both outdoors and indoors, involving food, cars, musicals, and more.

Dave Wagner and Cecelia Sharpe, of 90.9 WRCJ, have today's "One Detroit Weekend."

- Hey, Dave, I'm so excited to be here with you to discuss the cool happenings going on in and around the Metro Detroit area.

- Well, it's going to be busy around here, Cecelia.

Let's start with the Black Food and Beverage Hospitality Summit going on at One Campus Martius, hosted by Black Food & Wine Experience.

The day will bring together some of the leading stars in the food and beverage world, so get ready to sample food and drink and learn more about the industry.

- [Cecelia] That sounds like a delicious time.

And you know, Dave, it's never too early for some spooky Halloween fun.

On Saturday, September 14th, it's just that with Frankenfest at Historic Fort Wayne.

There will be haunting and mystical pieces of art showcased next to monstrous exhibits, along with food trucks to satisfy anyone's appetite.

It's an outdoor event running from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

- [Dave] Also, Saturday and Sunday is the Canterbury Village Oktoberfest, where you can enjoy Alpine-inspired food and drink and have a ton of fun.

- [Cecelia] The theater season is really starting to ramp up, and at the Detroit Opera House is "Moulin Rouge!

The Musical," starting September 17th and running through October 6th.

- [Dave] And September is Hispanic Heritage Month.

And one way to celebrate is on Sunday, September 15th, Ya Salsa Dance Party at The War Memorial.

Armando Vega and his orchestra will be there entertaining.

Food will be available, and people can participate in a beginner's salsa class.

It's salsa all night long.

Well, at least until it ends at 10:00 PM.

- Of course, there's always so many events, museums, galleries, and more to check off your list.

So here are a few other options.

Have a great weekend.

(gentle mellow music) - [Will] That'll do it for this week's "One Detroit."

Thanks for watching.

Head to the "One Detroit" website for all the stories we're working on.

Follow us on social media, and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

(gentle mellow music) - [Announcer] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Announcer] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at DTEFoundation.com.

- [Announcer] Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

(gentle mellow music) (gentle music)