This episode was the most inspirational episode of The Places We’ll Go Show so far, we were lost for words at how eloquently Cephas Williams spoke about the importance and urgency of people to take real action in order to move the black conversation forward, and start to build a positive reality for future generations of the black community. Cephas also spoke about “the power we hold as marketers, to reinvent the world we live in”, and how big of an impact this can have on the black community if the right people cared enough to enforce change.
Who is Cephas Williams?
Cephas is the founder and photographer behind the ground breaking 56 Black Men campaign and Drummer Boy Studios. He previously studied architecture and started his first business in 2009.
After taking a series of portrait photographs of 56 Black Men in hoodies, he launched ’56 Black Men’ as a campaign in the UK to change the narrative regarding black men in the media and as an introduction to a much wider conversation.
Since launching the campaign on the 23rd of December 2018, it has had both a local and global impact, and has since been featured in The Guardian, The Metro, The Independent, on Channel 5, Sky News, BBC and Aljazeera amongst others, creating both a local and global impact.
Cephas believes everyone should have a fair chance to change their narrative and so utilising his degree in Architecture, he created Drummer Boy Studios in 2017. Cephas set out to merge his passion for architecture and his passion for the community in a bid to create physical spaces that cater to those who often suffer the brunt of gentrification. The studio ran as a creative hub, a workspace with creative facilities; conducive for growth, innovation and collaboration for people interested in the creative sector including industries such as Music, Film, Media, Enterprise, Fashion and Gaming.
Upon doing this, Cephas was confused as to why things like this were not being spotlighted in the media, after all the work and money and time put into creating this space within the community and the success it gained. He had also secured a partnership with BDP to become the official development partner for the business.
Despite this, he was still facing opposition from people in the local council office and not being supported with the positive work being done. This pushed him to think about how many more Black men are doing great things but are never heard or spotlighted. Cephas started to question further, why is it that things like this never make headline news? And why the prevailing headline news about Black men was always surrounding knife crime or violence here in the UK. As a result he decided to create the 56 Black Men campaign to challenge the negative stereotypes of Black men in the media and spotlight positive achievements of the black men through the series or portrait images.
In recent years Cephas has been successful in galvanising support for his businesses from key partners and industry leaders including companies such as Accenture, EY, O2 Telefonica and Clear Channel as well as people such as, Paul Polman (Ex CEO of Unilever), Simon Pegg and others.
At this time Cephas is focused on a new message towards a wider Black British conversation through The Black British Network. In his recent public letter to his son titled Letter to Zion, Cephas explores a heart felt message and his thoughts around the much needed change we need to see in the world, with specific reference to the Black community and the need for us to come together to see long lasting change.
