Isabella Grullón Paz

At a meeting on campus last week designed to set their goals for the year, they talked about labor organizing, volunteering for Morgan Harper’s congressional campaign and hosting a town hall-style event focused on climate change.

“It’s all related, even though they look like separate issues, ” said Daija Kidd, an African American studies and sociology double major and co-chair of the YDSA chapter, as she tried to get the other members to think about new campaigns for the year.

“We have these very specific events that we go to, like the climate strike,” she said. “But I want to do something that is ongoing because that is the purpose of democratic socialists. I don’t want us to finish doing one big thing and have that be it — I want to keep it chugging along.”

The group’s effort to take on an aggressive and expansive agenda reflects the enormous energy on the far left heading into the 2020 election and part of the appeal of democratic socialism in this cycle: setting an array of big goals to help deepen a movement that goes beyond one-off protest events and marches.

For many young, progressive Americans, democratic socialism is a far better representation of their ambitions of far-reaching structural change across the economy and society than the agenda of the Democratic Party, which they see as overly influenced by corporate interests, big-money donors and moderate traditionalists.

The attempt at Ohio State to define objectives also comes as the Democratic presidential contenders are locked in a battle over what direction the party should take in order to win in 2020. That dynamic will be on display Tuesday night less than 15 miles from OSU, at Otterbein University in Westerville, the site of the fourth primary debate

Two top candidates, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have successfully pushed the primary conversation to the left. The DSA saw drastic growth in its membership when Sanders, himself a democratic socialist, ran for president in 2016, and there are now nearly 60,000 members across the country. (Warren, who has pulled ahead of Sanders in polling and is a leading candidate for the nomination, backs many of the same progressive priorities as Sanders but has also said she is “a capitalist to my bones.”)

The national leaders of the Young Democratic Socialists of America have seized on Sanders’ momentum with younger voters to expand their group’s membership, too, growing from 25 registered chapters in 2016 to 84 in 2019, according to a YDSA organizer. Chapters have begun to spring up at high schools, as well.

The chapter at OSU was small for the past two years, with only 10 or 11 active members. Still, the group managed to create a campus campaign around Fight for $15, an effort to raise the minimum wage of university staff members to $15 an hour. They won that battle in August.

Now, each meeting draws 40 to 50 members, each one with a different reason for joining and something unique to fight for.

For many of them, Sanders was their introduction to the left. They see the DSA as more than just a vehicle to advance the rights of workers — it is also a home for progressive policies and issues that they don’t see being addressed by the major political parties in a way they agree with.

“I don’t think they’re totally abandoning capitalism per se, but certainly they’re more likely to embrace policies tied to what we characterize as socialism,” said Melissa Deckman, chair of the political science department at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, who is working on a book about the political engagement of Generation Z. “They’re interested in free college tuition or in expanding health care.”

As they grew up in the wake of a recession and watched the effects of climate change unfold, the Black Lives Matter movement form and same-sex marriage be legalized, the students were often just a click away from finding the next progressive policy to support.

Nathan Webster, a second-year electrical engineering major at Ohio State, learned about the Democratic Socialists of America through protests in his hometown, Painesville, Ohio, aimed at abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I come from a largely Latino town — some of my friends lost their parents to Border Patrol,” Webster said.

“Near the end of high school, I realized what politics were and where I fall on the political spectrum,” he added. “Originally I told myself, ‘OK, I’m a Democrat,’ because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know that there was something that could be more left.”

For Ricky Vehar, an environmental engineering major, coming out as gay and then coming out as trans moved her closer to the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

“From my background, you wouldn’t really expect me to become super left. I grew up in a middle-class family, in a good suburb,” she said, adding that watching “the discrimination that those communities face not just because they’re gay or trans, but because the system incentivizes discrimination against them, moved me toward the left.”

James Fisher, a second-year student and a co-chair of the OSU chapter, joined the group for similar reasons: They support giving trans teenagers and adults better access to health care through “Medicare for All.”

“Medicare for All can benefit the trans community in their ability to get good health care, and that’s something that a lot of trans people struggle with,” Fisher said. “It’s embedded in the language of Medicare for All, that there’s no exclusionary measures to it.”

Others joined the YDSA because they saw the benefits of nationalized health care firsthand. During a yearlong program in England, Johnny Amundson got very sick and was hospitalized for a month. His program enrolled him in the National Health Service, and he ended up paying just $200 in medical fees, he said.

“I saw that there’s a difference between being able to have insurance, which my family has, and being able to have health care,” Amundson said. He is now a fourth-year journalism and Russian double major at Ohio State, and he was one of the first members of the university’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter.

Nikki Velamakanni, a political science major, joined YDSA when she realized that she didn’t want to join the College Democrats chapter on campus because of the stigma around it.

“It’s known to be more centrist, it’s known to be more compromise-y,” Velamakanni said. “Whereas the left is more, ‘We stand for this and we’re going to fight for it.’”

Deckman attributes the rise of the YDSA to the changing perceptions that younger voters and soon-to-be voters have about government and democratic socialism, and the idea that younger people tend to be more liberal with each passing generation.

“They’re more willing to have a bigger role for government to play in our lives,” she said. “This younger generation is growing up seeing what deregulation is doing to the Earth, is doing to their ability to afford college, among other things. I think that’s why they’re finding democratic socialist ideas appealing.”

Some of their parents were introduced to socialism during the Cold War, giving the word an entirely different meaning.

“Older Americans who lived during the Cold War, they link socialism strongly to communism. So there’s this idea that if we raise socialism, our freedoms, especially religion, are going to be compromised,” Deckman said. “And I don’t think that sort of baggage matters to younger Americans.”

For Evan Schmidt, a second-year economics major, “socialism is a word only. It doesn’t necessarily have a direct correlation to any sort of regime or empire, which allows for that reconstruction around it.”

He grew up in Manchester, Vermont, where the idea of democratic socialism was less taboo thanks to Sanders. When he moved away, out of what he describes as a “sheltered neighborhood,” he had his first experiences with people who grew up with less than he did.

It ignited his passion for democratizing the workplace and helping others to achieve the same class mobility his family enjoyed. He joined the Young Democratic Socialists of America, he said, because he thinks “it’s what the Democratic Party should be.”

This article originally appeared in

Why Some Young Voters Are Choosing Democratic Socialism Over the Democratic Party

COLUMBUS, Ohio — As Tuesday night’s Democratic debate approached, members of the Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter at Ohio State University tried to figure out where to focus their energy.

“I wanted to prove I could build a successful digital outreach campaign and show the importance of social media grassroots in elections,” Carrol, 18, said.

The page now reaches as many as 1 million people a week, has collected 19,000 likes and has brought 1,000 donors to Buttigieg’s campaign through a customized fundraising link.

Carrol’s effort is not a surprising one. Dating back at least to the sit-ins against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 and subsequent activism by young people in the 1960s, youth-led movements have often helped define political moments.

Reflecting the emphasis being put on young voters in the 2020 race, five Democratic presidential candidates are scheduled to answer questions from students and young voters in CNN town hall-style events Monday beginning at 7 p.m. from Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.

The Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 and a focus on young voters in the 2018 midterm elections has put increasing emphasis on them as an important demographic, particularly for Democrats. Nearly 60 percent of people 18-24 say they are Democrats, while just a third say they are Republicans, according to an analysis of Pew Research Center data over the last year.

But it remains to be seen whether young voters will turn out on a large scale. Even with the youthful support for Sanders in 2016, a study by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement found that Sanders “did not inspire a surge in turnout from young Democrats.” Less than 20 percent of young voters turned out in primaries in Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire, according to exit polling by Edison Research.

Still, Democrats see enormous potential.

“Young voters are listed as low-propensity voters,” said Louis Elrod, president of the Young Democrats of America, the youth arm of the Democratic Party. He explained that because many young people do not donate to campaigns, or do not have a voting record yet, campaigns usually do not take the time to talk to them like they would other voters. “You hear this bias all the time that young people are apathetic. We’re not apathetic.”

In the past four years, young people have called for big structural economic and social changes by forming organizations such as March for Our Lives, United We Dream and the Sunrise Movement. The ferment is a reaction both to the Trump administration and to legislative decisions of older generations who will not bear the full brunt of their decisions on issues like climate change and student debt.

“This election feels like a question of our generation and how it will shape the next 20 to 30 years of this country,” said Greisa Martinez, deputy executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led group that supports migrants, regardless of their documentation status.

“Our lives are on the line,” she added. “We are going to do everything possible to elect the right people with vision and with gut and with leadership.”

Democratic 2020 hopefuls have taken note and are trying to tap into this generational energy by promoting progressive issues that are animating young voters.

“You see most campaigns taking up Bernie’s talking points from 2016 — it’s become the norm now,” Elrod said. What used to be seen as far-left platform positions, he said, are now “standard if you want to reach out to the next generation.”

Climate change, health care, immigration reform and creating a more functional economy are central concerns for two generations, millennials and Generation Z, who often align ideologically when it comes to more progressive issues but come from different eras.

“These young people who are different stages in their lives will be the ones making more decisions in the future,” Martinez said.

People born from the 1980s through the mid-1990s are generally considered millennials, and those born afterward are Generation Z.

“Four years ago, millennials were pretty much the youngest voting generation,” Elrod said. “They remember the time before the internet. The next generation is going to be the best-informed generation in American history. They’re going to be the largest generation in American history and the most diverse generation in American history.”

According to the Pew Research Center, in 2020 1 out of every 10 eligible voters will be a member of Generation Z, and millennials “will account for a smaller share of eligible voters than they did in 2016.”

For many campaigns, youth outreach has mostly been focused on engaging college campuses.

“Right now, the way that we’re thinking about organizing young people is through the institutions they are a part of, so college students and high school students,” said Yong Jung Cho, constituency organizing director for the 2020 Sanders campaign.

Chris Hayden, a spokesman for Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said the campaign would include “an expansive digital operation that includes traditional social media platforms and channels like peer-to-peer texting,” and that its strategies were being led by youth vote directors based in Boston and Iowa.

Elrod said a focus on campuses can leave out many younger voters.

“There is that perception that all young people are in a college campus,” he said, “and while that is extraordinarily important, what we have found and have been pushing for is that the party and campaigns need to push for young people not in college, earlier rather than later.”

Michael Bossetta, a fellow at the Center for European Politics at the University of Copenhagen, who specializes in new forms of political participation through social media, noticed through his research of Facebook ads that Buttigieg, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington were among the candidates aggressively targeting people ages 18-25. He said that even though younger voters cannot donate as much as older generations, “they have more tech skills that can create very organic messaging and growth.”

As a case in point, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur and a political newcomer who has run a campaign oriented toward social media, has reached the threshold of at least 65,000 individual donors needed to participate in the Democratic debates this summer. Some more established candidates, like the former housing secretary Julián Castro, still have not reached it.

Breaking down policies into bite-size components that can be expressed visually on social media platforms like Instagram can help tap into younger people online, Bossetta said.

“It’s this concept of light politics,” he said. “The content that is sort of shareable, light in the sense that it can travel across social media, and not heavy in terms of policy. They’re sort of very universal messages.”

For the Yang campaign, “being a memeable person” is important, said Zach Graumann, Yang’s campaign manager. He added that memes made candidates seem accessible and approachable.

“That’s where $1,000 a month is memeable,” Graumann said, referring to the campaign’s signature proposal of a universal basic income that the government would provide to every American adult.

Some fear that reducing issues to Instagram-friendly images and memes can produce hollow and superficial politics, but Bossetta said young people can be astute, skeptical consumers of news.

“They’re pretty good at what’s authentic and what’s not,’’ he said. “They’re so in tune with the idiosyncrasies of the social and cultural dynamics of these platforms that they know when something is totally scripted, slightly scripted or genuine.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/politics/youth-voters-2020.html" id="bbed4a9b-0a9e-3249-a27d-553345618f13">The New York Times</a>.

Democrats Seek Young Voters, and the Memes That Move Them

Lucas Carrol, a freshman at Boston College, was sitting on his bed in his dorm room, bored on a Sunday, when he decided to create an unofficial “Pete Buttigieg for President” Facebook page. It was four days after the South Bend mayor announced his exploratory committee in late January.

But Rupert is hoping to make some history of her own, as well. She is just the third black woman to run a presidential campaign — Donna Brazile managed Al Gore’s campaign in 2000, and Maggie Williams managed part of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 run.

Castro, the former housing secretary, is running far behind in public opinion polls and fundraising. But he is campaigning steadily, and he recently met the donor and polling requirements for the first Democratic debate, likely securing him a spot and giving him a chance to broaden his reach with voters.

Rupert previously worked at various groups dealing with economic, racial and social issues, but this is her first time working on a campaign. The transition to electoral politics has been a seamless one, she says, because she sees her new job as a continuation of her career-long fight for justice.

Rupert recently spoke with The New York Times about how this election is different from past cycles and the role race will play, both as a policy issue and on the Democratic stage. (This interview has been edited and condensed.)

Q: Is it strange to you that it’s 2019, and it’s still so rare to be a black woman running a presidential campaign?

A: It’s real strange to me. I know so many amazing black women, like, we’ve got to get on this. But I also have a lot of hope that that’s changing. People are realizing how critical it is for campaigns and their leadership teams to reflect the communities that they are trying to resonate with.

Secretary Castro always puts together diverse teams, so I know that his commitment is a genuine one. I’m sure that there are some people who are hiring from an optics perspective of having a diverse team this cycle. What people are going to see, though, is that in order to be successful, you need a diverse team. It’s so much more than just hiring a diverse pool because it’s the moment to do it.

Q: What challenges do people of color who run for office face that white candidates don’t?

A: There are a couple of things. I think the American public metabolizes conversations about race being led by white people differently than they do when those same conversations are being led by people of color. I think there’s greater comfort, in some ways, hearing from a white candidate talking about how we need to confront white nationalism, and there’s discomfort when that same rhetoric comes from a candidate of color. We definitely grapple with how can Secretary Castro talk about race and racism in a way that is true to him and his experience, without being resisted in a way that white candidates just don’t have to deal with.

The other is a little bit more subtle. Right now there’s a lot of conversation around this idea of authenticity. Well, the tough thing about being a person of color in this country, is that one of the first things you learn in order to succeed is that you can’t always be exactly who you are. We’re conditioned to a certain level of inauthenticity. And so, to suddenly be told that thing that made it so that you could succeed is now going to become a liability, is challenging.

Secretary Castro tells the story about how people think he’s too squeaky clean, and he responds that he comes from a place where you don’t get second chances. We don’t get the opportunity to just fail up. If you messed up, that could be it. There’s a cruel irony to people of color growing up being told you have to be twice as good to get half as much. It’s so tied up in the way that we understand and perceive professionalism and whiteness as more closely aligned.

Q: How did you feel when you saw that Joe Biden released a campaign announcement video in Spanish?

A: It’s a sign of the times. I think that people recognize that Latino voters will have a huge say in how this cycle plays out, and I think a move like that is a signal that this is a community that no one can take for granted. You can’t run for president and not speak to the Latinx community.

Q: Do you see that as someone stepping in your lane? Competing for your votes?

A: From an electoral standpoint, it’s positive, it’s how we get a better policy. As far as a competition thing, I don’t see that as a single lane. There’s this weird dichotomy that we keep getting told, that you can either compete for folks of color or for white folks in the Midwest. I think that’s a false choice, and I think one of the most effective things Secretary Castro has done is point out that false choice.

For example, everybody has an affordability crisis, and it manifests itself in a different ways. We don’t treat issues as taking them out of a bucket and addressing them. We really want to get at the root cause and talk about how all these things are related. You can’t talk about college affordability without talking about the achievement gap, or bettering teaching as a profession, or addressing the school-to-prison pipeline. You have to look at it more holistically.

Q: With this primary field being the most diverse in history, do you think a white man could win the Democratic nomination for president?

A: I definitely think so. I’m always a little surprised at questions like that, because not only can he, history shows us that there’s a huge advantage. The idea that somehow being a white man has suddenly become a disadvantage is distracting from what the real project of representation is.

The way white men who are running answer that question, though, will be very telling. Because I think that no one will be able to be successful without acknowledging — given a field this diverse, and given the changing demographics — if they are the right person at this time. I think we would be doing ourselves a disservice to think somehow being a white man has now become something that they’re going to have to overcome.

Q: Are you worried about building momentum for Mr. Castro?

A: Honestly, no. Every day we talk to more people who are having the exact same reaction: They like these ideas, and they want to make sure that his ideas are the ones getting talked about.

We just came back from She The People, which was the first-ever presidential forum specifically for women of color. Working for a candidate whose ideas resonate with this constituency, I was so thrilled because he got to air some of these ideas with folks who make up the backbone of the Democratic Party.

I would rather have moments like that, where his message resonates with the women who are going to be the organizers for this election, who are going to be the people setting the tone, demanding answers and pushing things forward. I would rather see him be a top-tier candidate in a moment like that than anything else.

This article originally appeared in <a id="28132a79-0014-31ab-a997-2f84dc644b22" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/us/politics/julian-castro-2020-maya-rupert.html">The New York Times</a>.

'You can't always be exactly who you are': A chat with Maya Rupert

Maya Rupert has a tough job: As campaign manager for Julián Castro, she is trying to help elect the first Latino president in U.S. history.

“I wanted to prove I could build a successful digital outreach campaign and show the importance of social media grass roots in elections,” Carrol, 18, said.

Reflecting the emphasis being put on young voters in the 2020 race, five Democratic presidential candidates are scheduled to answer questions from students and young voters in CNN town hall-style events at 7 p.m. Monday from Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.

The Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 and a focus on young voters in the 2018 midterm elections has put increasing emphasis on them as an important demographic, particularly for Democrats. Nearly 60 percent of people 18 to 24 say they’re Democrats, while just a third say they’re Republicans, according to an analysis of Pew Research Center data over the last year.

“Young voters are listed as low-propensity voters,” said Louis Elrod, president of the Young Democrats of America, the youth arm of the Democratic Party. He explained that because many young people don’t donate to campaigns, or don’t have a voting record yet, campaigns usually don’t take the time to talk to them like they would other voters. “You hear this bias all the time that young people are apathetic. We’re not apathetic.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="bbed4a9b-0a9e-3249-a27d-553345618f13" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/politics/youth-voters-2020.html">The New York Times</a>.

Lucas Carrol, a freshman at Boston College, was sitting in his dorm room, bored, when he decided to create an unofficial “Pete Buttigieg for President” Facebook page. It was four days after the South Bend mayor announced his exploratory committee in late January.

Democrats seek young voters, and the memes that move them

<h1>In 2008, Larry Ossei-Mensah returned to New York after spending years in Switzerland studying marketing and hospitality. Or at least that was the pretext — he went there to find himself as a black man.</h1>

Back in New York, he walked into the House of Campari’s show “Defining a Moment: 25 New York Artists” and was immediately drawn to the works of Titus Kaphar and Rashid Johnson, artists who would soon become modern black masters.

That show helped propel the career of Ossei-Mensah — a Ghanaian-American who grew up in the Bronx — as an independent curator and entrepreneur. A co-founder of communities like ArtNoir and a writer, critic and teacher, the 38-year-old is seemingly everywhere. In September, he became the Susanne Feld Hilberry senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (known as MOCAD).

He talked to The New York Times about his transition to an institutional role and connecting the dots, connecting people to what inspires and excites them. (This interview has been edited and condensed.)

Q: How are you? You’ve been traveling for a week straight.

Two weeks. I started my first show at MOCAD, “Parallels and Peripheries,” which is Part 2 of a series that started in South Florida [Miami Beach]. It looks at how artists use their practice as a platform for inquiry, storytelling, asking questions. Particularly thinking about artists who function on the margins. That could be black and brown artists, that could be queer artists.

The show in Miami was specifically all women. And then, in the case of this show, it was looking at artists whose work functions at the intersection of art, technology and science. It’s 12 artists, 10 women.

The show also relates to the fact that, in my experience of growing up in the Bronx, most things that I find to be culturally exciting come from the peripheral. So I opened that, and then opened up another show, “Race and Revolution: Still Separate, Still Unequal,” at Penn State, which I co-curated with Katie Fuller.

I opened two shows in one week, which is not smart, but it worked out because it fed two different desires. I’m a Gemini, so it feeds two brains.

Q: What do you find culturally exciting?

People who are looking to instigate a conversation that might not be in the mainstream, voices that might not always have a platform. Because I look at a lot of art all the time, I see a lot of shows, but then there are the things that stimulate me because it’s historic or an artist who is trying to break the form.

Q: What’s it like, marrying your years of independent curating with working at MOCAD?

With MOCAD, it’s definitely a continuous work in progress. You’re continuously trying to make the shows weirder or more tactile. With the independent shows, it’s pretty much one and done. At MOCAD, you have got to keep it interesting, asking different questions, seeing what people were responsive to and what they weren’t.

And I think, over time, the shows that I do at MOCAD will have a slightly different lens than the independent stuff, because the independent stuff is just me and whoever I’m collaborating with. Whereas at MOCAD, there’s more of a process. MOCAD’s definitely taught me how to be more patient and not try and do everything at onetime. That will seep into my other projects where, it’s like, OK, how do I do three dope programs that are going to change the game now?

Q: How has it been, moving around back and forth between the Bronx and Detroit?

I think the nomadic component of my practice is really kind of what fuels it. New York has its own energy, pace and tension. And Detroit is a city that’s redefining itself, and to be part of that moment — it’s just a rare life opportunity. But then I’m also traveling everywhere all the time.

It’s going to slow down at some point, but I think that’s where my head is at, because so much of my life is about connecting the dots. Right now I’m single, but if I’m blessed to have a family, I’m not going to be able to move as much, so I’m planting these seeds, building my tribe.

Q: How do you see your role in this reinvention of Detroit?

I’ve done my best to be aware and listen and not try to project my ideas, and to spend time with artists and curators on the ground, who really know the city. Detroit is a very nuanced space, so for me, it’s about how can we amplify the magic of Detroit. How do we find the diamonds in the rough who have been grinding, doing their thing, and give them a platform?

That doesn’t just mean an exhibition in the museum, but it could be recommending them for, like, an art prize or a show. I never want to be a savior, I always want to be a good neighbor, and add value where I can. And I’m cognizant about how a lot of cities are going through a similar shift.

Q: A shift in what way?

Like, when I tell people I’m from the Bronx, they’ll say the Bronx is gentrifying. Where I am? No. Where I live? No. The day that happens, I know that I’m in trouble. And I’m still there because of that reality check.

Working in the space that I work in is a privilege, but when you’re dealing with an everyday reality, friends are dealing with whatever they’re dealing with — it brings you back to center. That grounding is important. It gives me this edge to hustle because [opportunities] are not going to be given to you.

So, in the case of Detroit, it’s how do we create that space, or amplify the magic of that space, in a generous, generative way. And how do you bring people with you? How do you watch out for each other? How do you make sure everyone is good? Because you got a lot of people who will put up a front, to save face. Nah, we got to do this together.

Q: Do you think you’re redefining what a gatekeeper in the art world could be?

I think so. I mean, it’s a reality that I won’t say I’m in denial about, but I’m cognizant of it. I try to be careful not to embrace it to the point that, like, I become something that I don’t want to be. I don’t abuse it. But, for me, it’s also that a lot of this is coming from illusion, and I’m not caught up in the illusion. For me it’s more about supporting people who are passionate, working hard, deserve a shot, deserve the attention.

I think that I’ve built a lot of trust, and so much of this is about trust. But, you know, you put in the work, you show up. I think all of this comes from this weird desire to be a great cardinal. There’s so much that curators will do in the background that artists will never see. For me, it’s more like personal nourishment. You’ll never hear me say, “I discovered this person.” That feels weird to me. I would like to say that I was more part of someone’s process.

Q: What’s next for you?

Figuring out what the next shows will be at MOCAD. I’m working on my first public project, a billboard project, that will be in Kansas City. And continuing to spend more time in Detroit, do more studio visits and putting my hand on the pulse. As long as it’s fun, I’m fine. If it stops being fun, time to do something else.

This article originally appeared in <a id="d5946be8-8c09-4967-a42b-c3ff57a4cfa4" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/arts/ossei-mensah-detroit-art.html">The New York Times</a>.

Constantly on the Go, Looking for New Voices

Back in New York, he walked into the House of Campari’s show “Defining a Moment: 25 New York Artists” and was immediately drawn to the works of Titus Kaphar and Rashid Johnson, artists who would soon become modern black masters.

Constantly on the go, looking for new voices

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