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Public Speaking Coach Helps Prepare Boston Youth to
Bring Their Message of Peace to the City and the World
It’s not always easy to look someone straight in the eye. But it’s even tougher when you’ve grown up in a culture where making eye contact can be not just uncomfortable, but downright dangerous. The young people that public speaking coach Carla Kimball works with at Boston’s City Mission Society come from urban neighborhoods where violence is the norm, and holding someone’s gaze and cultivating a powerful presence can get you in very big trouble. For many youth living on gang turf, the goal is to be invisible.
Yet the teenagers and twentysomethings in Kimball’s Speaking Presence group at City Mission Society (CMS) have pushed through their fear and resistance in a committed effort to find and raise their voices. They’re doing so because they have a message they want to spread throughout the city and the world—a message of peace.
Most of the young men and women in this group are friends and relatives of Jahmol Norfleet, who was shot to death in 2006 outside his Roxbury, Massachusetts, home. He was 20 years old, and had served a one-year prison sentence for unlawful possession of a gun—which he began carrying after he was grazed in the head by a bullet on his way to high school. In the year before his death, Jahmol led a peace movement among the youth of Boston that earned praise from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, local police, the community, and clergy, and attracted widespread media coverage, including a cover story in USA Today.
In the weeks before Jahmol was murdered, he decided he and his friends should create a video chronicling their struggle and efforts, as a way to spread their peace movement to a wider audience. His vision has now been made real. After his death, a core group of young people, including Jahmol’s sister, Teah, and his girlfriend, Kendra, were apprenticed as associate producers of a video called Jahmol’s Vision, which is being produced by film producer Tony Bennis under the auspices of City Mission Society, an urban social justice agency that serves more than 4,500 people each year.
City Mission Society is the oldest multi-service agency in New England. In 2006, it celebrated 190 years of service to low-income families and individuals throughout Greater Boston. In spite of this history, however, the agency places a high premium on staying current and using creative methods of reaching and serving its target population.
“This is not the first time CMS has turned to Carla Kimball for help in coming up with creative ways to address social justice issues,” says CMS Executive Director Rev. June Cooper.
Founder of the Cambridge-based RiverWays Enterprises, Kimball holds an MBA from the Crummer School of Business, Rollins College, and a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from Lesley University. Her work with clients helps them to develop a speaking presence by becoming relaxed, natural and engaged with their audiences. She is the developer of the ABCs of Presence in Public Speaking Toolkit (a weekly subscription series) and the DVD The Seven Crown Jewels of Public Speaking Presence.
“Carla has shared her gifts with dozens of CMS clients who are formerly incarcerated individuals,” Cooper says. “She helped them gain the skills and self-confidence necessary to share their stories of successful re-entry into their communities. Carla is able to help people in shaping and asserting their personal stories in a way that is supportive and effective, added Rev. Cooper.
That is exactly what she is doing for this group of young people—which includes many kids who have been gang members and several who have done time. As production of the video comes to a close, they are about to take the next step in the process: getting their project out to the public and providing a context for the video that will give it even greater impact, increasing the possibility of change. To do that, they need to be able to speak with power and presence—whether they’re talking to city leaders, elementary school students, or potential donors.
“We hope they’ll be able to go out and speak before or after they show the video, to give their audiences real-life examples from this little piece of history and of life in this community,” says Rev. Cooper. These young people will put a face on the challenges they struggle with promoting peace in a climate of escalating teen handgun violence but they can only do that with the skills necessary to convey their stories.
That’s where Kimball comes in. She has conducted five two-hour sessions with the group, helping them to build presence and access their individual and group voices. “I’m helping these kids tell their story and get their message out in a way that is comfortable for them,” Kimball says. “We’re discovering how to best elicit that quality of presence so they can be truly heard.”
One exercise Kimball did weekly with the group was to have each member look at the others with a soft gaze in silence for 10 to 15 seconds, and then say his or her own name with determination and ownership.
“This is difficult for anybody, and particularly for self-conscious adolescents, because we simply don’t go around looking at each other in silence—and also because eye contact in the inner city can have a lot of different meanings,” Kimball says. “But they did it willingly and happily because they are so committed to getting their message out despite their discomfort with the process.”
At first the kids were nervous and embarrassed, says Cooper, who observed the sessions, but after a few tries they began to feel the power of the practice. “These kids are learning how to sustain real seriousness and intentionality,” she says. “They’re starting to realize there’s so much power in being able to be in silence and to build presence. It’s really wonderful when you can see transformation happening in front of your eyes.”
To learn more about the Jahmol Norfleet Video Project and view a sample of the video, visit http://www.cmsboston.org/what_we_do/jahmolnorfleet.html.
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