DA: Mr. Ellis, I would first like to thank you for the opportunity to interview you.
A.E: Pleasure to be with you today
DA: Mr. Ellis would you like to give us your definition of what it means to be a Well Dressed Man?
A.E: Sure, well first of all, I have a holistic approach on what a well dressed man is. I believe a man’s image begins from an internal point, so it’s not just a man that wears a fine shirt and an amazing tie, but I believe it is also a gentleman that respects others, that walks with a certain amount of personal integrity. A well dressed man lives his life by a set of moral standards; he is a giving, compassionate, and generous man. It is a man’s character that’s most amazing and then I believe what he wears on the outside is a reflection of the Greatness that lies on the inside of him as a distinguished gentleman.
DA: I totally agree with that 100%. Your organization Tied To Greatness is a wonderful Organization, which instills the importance of image in society. What are some of the techniques used on the tour to help with this process?
A.E: Sure, let me explain a little more about Tied To Greatness. Tied To Greatness is a non-profit organization that has launched a national tour called the Tied To Greatness tour, and it targets the image and the esteem of inner city high school males. We launched an eleven city tour last year where we go into inner city high schools across the country and conduct an all male assembly, where you’ll see anywhere from 300 to 500 students per city. Seeing these students we garner support from men in the community, so we’ll have actors, professional athletes, entrepreneurs, and business executives, music moguls, judges, and police officers. We have great positive men that come out to impact the lives of the young men of the next generation. As you mentioned earlier, you said often when your going to an a special event and dressing well is a necessity and how people respond to you a certain way, image is a vitally important part of our every day lives. Image is definitely everything and it’s unfair to think that people will wait to get to know you before they make assessments on how you look.
So we teach young men that image is power and that you can use that image to work for you or against you, we always want our young men to put their best foot forward, so we want them to pull up their jeans and we want them to pull up their jeans and we want them to carry themselves with a sense of pride and dignity. So the men come to the school that that day and they serve as role models, and they teach the young men of their own personal experiences and how they’ve gained an level of success in life, and what part image plays in that situation. The day culminates with the Tie Tying ceremony where the role models get an opportunity to teach these young men how to tie a tie and it is an awesome initiative that leaves both the Role models and the youth the better for participating and the youth better for participating.
Tied To Greatness itself is not a mentoring organization, but we partnered with local mentoring organizations. We have a national partnership this year with Big Brother Big Sister a national mentoring organization. So when the men participate that day after feeling such an astonishing sense of accomplishment by helping this young man learn how to tie a tie and you see the light bulb turn on in his eyes as he begins to start the transition in to manhood, you feel as great sense of value that you left such an indelible mark on this young man. We say to the men we don’t want things to end here, we want you to have the opportunity to interact with these young men on an ongoing basis, at that time they are able to sign up with Big Brother Big Sister to continue an ongoing relationship with an young man in that community.
DA: I believe that is definitely amazing that these young men can see positive male role models who want to be apart of their lives and help them grow as a person.
A.E: Seventy five percent of these inner city high schools males are product of single parent homes. It’s really incumbent upon us as men from these communities to step in and intervene, because many things we easily take for granted like learning how to tie a tie, learning how to shave or how to shine your shoes. These are certain things that are rights of passage for men. Many of these young men don’t have a male figure in their lives, to guide them through those experiences so we want to lend a hand. It’s just so amazing in light of all that took place with the inauguration of our president Barack Obama; He is making a call to service.
DA: I am very interested to see what this brings to the youth as far as motivation.
A.E: One point that is pertinent to note is that it’s not enough to say that we have a black president as if to say we can now sit back and wait for him to bring about the change we need in our country. Each of us must share the burden of bringing tremendous change to this country. So just as our president has commissioned us as Americans to a call to service in our community, Tied To Greatness is such a viable opportunity for Men of color to come out and be apart of seeing change in the lives of our young men. With the high school dropout rate, crime rate, the homicide rate, the rate of early teenage pregnancy, and with the incarceration rate of young African American men, it is incumbent on us as men of color for us to be apart of programs and organizations like Tied To Greatness so that we can be apart of the solutions to many of the dillemas that plague our youth in society.
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