About 20 young African American students from throughout the Madison area came together for the 2nd Annual Determination to Succeed Back2School Summit on Aug. 23 at Capitol High School in Madison for an inspirational day of learning from mentors representing a variety of professional fields while obtaining important information and resources needed to be ready for their first days of school.
“We created a safe, vulnerable, and loving space for the young men to be seen, heard, and poured into. The young men had a lot of fun and took some important stuff away from the event,” Jamaal Eubanks, the founder of the event, tells Madison365. “A lot of them have signed up to be a part of the cohort that’s gonna be carried throughout the school year.”
Eubanks hosted the inaugural Determination to Succeed Back to School Summit back in the summer of 2024 with the goal of setting the tone for students at the beginning of the year by creating a fun, informative, and engaging opportunity for them to take advantage of as they prepared for the coming school year.
“This event first came about because, unfortunately, Black boys are the lowest performing in education, and that’s K-12 and higher ed,” Eubanks remembers. “Years ago, people would say to me, ‘It’s great that we have all these different things for girls to try and help them, but where is all the stuff for the boys?’ And it stuck with me.”
Eubanks wrote the book, “The Determination to Succeed,” a story of perseverance and resilience through the lens of self-reflection, for young people in the summer of 2020. Since then, he has developed The Determination to Succeed program, which has been contracted by local area schools and has had a great deal of success. Eubanks says that he has been talking to schools and school districts that wanted him to host an event to help boys get ready for school, but they said they didn’t have the budget. So Eubanks just decided to do it on his own.
The 2nd annual Determination to Succeed Back2School Summit brought young Black men and seasoned Black men together for a day of camaraderie. The summit featured different important presentations that provided information that the students could use and “conversations that needed to be had,” Eubanks says.
The event started off with the Determination to Succeed Workshop, setting the tone for the day with in-depth conversations. The speaker panel featured moderator Donald Dantzler, and a panel of speakers who shared their stories of perseverance, resilience, determination, and successes. Lunch was catered by KC’s Catering.
(Photo by Dynae Allice Photography)
Ezi Adesi, the director of Omega School, and Dr. Derek Johnson, the director of student engagement for the UW College of Engineering, were the two afternoon speakers. Both men are longtime, well-known professionals in Madison who related their own experiences to the young Black students.
“Derek Johnson talked to the boys about winning the game of life,” Eubanks says. “Ezi Adesi closed it by letting the students know about the importance of presentation and your image. He talked about branding and how you are your brand and your image in that first impression.”
(Photo by Dynae Allice Photography)
Every year after the event, Eubanks creates a community cohort to carry the mentorship program throughout the course of the year.
“Just to be able to put this event together again for the young people, and it being successful, and people really starting to talk about it and hear about it … that has been remarkable,” Eubanks says. “It was great to hear the boys talk about what it meant to them, and them actually wanting to be a part of something that’s going to go throughout the course of the school year. A handful of them are going to go with me to Circle City Classic [an HBCU classic football game in Indianapolis] on Sept. 26-27.”
All the students who participated in the summit received Nike backpacks with the Determination to Succeed logo on them.
“I think the boys enjoyed the event and the parents were very thankful that it took place,” Eubanks says. “I’ve already been thinking about next year, potentially bringing in some speakers to be on the panel, and adding some new wrinkles to the event.
“It’s great to be able to see the visions I have come to fruition,” he adds. “It’s great to see that the kids are excited about it. I knew the adults would be, but now to see the kids having a level of excitement and wanting to participate is what I hoped for, but I didn’t know how quickly or how soon that would take.”
