Belonging, Masculinity, and Black Boy Joy: Taking L's on the Way to Elevation with Craig Aarons-Martin

Educator and community builder Craig Aarons-Martin, founder of the Black Boy Joy Summit, has spent more than two decades doing transformative work in Boston's schools, and he is candid here about the rooms he still gets shut out of and why he keeps building anyway.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Craig, a New Orleans native, longtime school leader, and author, to talk about belonging, masculinity, faith, and what it takes to choose purpose while carrying real weight.

Craig traces his path from a summer school classroom in Louisiana, where a teacher named Miss Madeline handed him a math lesson at thirteen, to Dillard University, to Lesley University and the greater Boston area. He is honest about arriving in Boston over three hundred pounds, "a hundred and seventy-five pounds of that being depression," working his calling while mostly closeted, convinced that showing up fully himself could cost him his license. Ron opens the conversation from his own grief, having just buried his nephew Arnold, and that honesty sets the tone for everything that follows.

The two get into why vulnerability is so hard for men of color, what it means when a father starts learning to emote after forty years of silence, and how Craig built the Black Boy Joy Summit as a space for boys of color to see unsung heroes rather than only celebrities and seven-figure CEOs. Craig also names the harder truth underneath his visible success: a hundred outreach emails and twenty-five sponsorship proposals that went nowhere, and a calling he refuses to abandon.

Tune in to hear why Craig believes the breakdown always comes before the breakthrough, and why taking L's might be the necessary cost of elevation.

Chapters:

🌱 02:46 Craig Aarons-Martin on the journey of becoming

🧭 05:08 More years in the North, but a Southerner first

🤝 07:54 Why he finally said yes to brotherhood in his forties

🫂 12:52 The loneliness young men of color carry behind the feed

🍎 16:31 Miss Madeline, a math lesson, and the moment he became a teacher

💔 21:12 Arriving in Boston at 300 pounds, carrying depression and a calling

🏳️‍🌈 24:32 The double standard of who gets to be out at work

🧱 27:35 Two decades of excellence and the rooms still closed to him

🗣️ 32:15 A father learning to emote after forty years of silence

🏋️ 35:34 What men lock themselves out of when they refuse to connect

👑 40:17 Building the Black Boy Joy Summit for the sons he hopes to have

🎯 44:33 Taking L's on the way to elevation, and the breakdown before the breakthrough

Links:

Email: craig@ccmeducationgroup.co
Website: ccmeducationgroup.co
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/craigcmartin
Linktree: linktr.ee/iamcraigaaronsmartin

Reach out to Craig Aarons-Martin to learn more about the Black Boy Joy Summit and his work building brave, affirming spaces for boys and men of color in education.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473

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