Devonta
Portrait with Paul Gilmore
Description: A boy stands alone, staring into a diverse crowd. He is poised behind a graphic mural in business attire. The words on the mural read, “Welcome to boy II King Community Development Family Day.”
Portrait with Zachary Maxwell Stertz
“It’s like when it’s time for me to do something, I just look at the people who have - how can I say it? - who have hope in me, who want me to succeed. I don’t even look at the negatives no more. I’m mature. I’m grown up now, so it’s time for me to stop looking at the wrong things and look at all the right things.
Me? I don’t care about money. If I get money, I want to give it back… I’m going to give it back to my community. I don’t want to be selfish. I want to see everybody doing something positive and not just fifty people out of seven million or seven billion.
You have to listen to the youth… To tell the truth, I think children, youth, they smarter than adults. Even if you done got your degrees and stuff, I just think they smarter than them. Because as years go by, who does everybody really look at? Everybody starts looking at the youth.
I just want to see a difference in the world. I’m tired of people saying “community” as in, like, a block. Just seven houses on each side. But “community” - I’m ready for everybody to stop saying it like it’s seven, fourteen houses on a block. I’m ready for everybody to think about everybody - the whole world.”
Milwaukee, 2018