Photos by Monica Morgan
As a teenager attending Detroit Country Day School, Hiram E. Jackson once got into a fight after another student disparagingly said to him: “You can take them out of Highland Park, but you can’t take the Highland Park out of them.”
But on Monday, April 7, 2025 – standing in front of hundreds of friends, family members, mentors, colleagues, elected officials, and other dignitaries at the Boys & Girls Club of Highland Park– Jackson said that hearing that exact phrase today would be a compliment of epic proportions.
The CEO of Real Times Media and Publisher of the Michigan Chronicle received the honor of a lifetime, as his childhood Boys & Girls Club – where he became a member in 1971 at the age of 6 – was renamed in his honor following a $2 million renovation. With the dedication, the Hiram E. Jackson Club is the first of all the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan to be named after an African American.
For the past five decades, Jackson has been an “all-in” member of the club. As a child, he attended daily. The Boys & Girls Club of Highland Park was his first job, where he started working as a coat checker in the very room where he spoke during the club’s renaming on Monday. He returned frequently as a young adult, volunteering his time and money to support programming and community initiatives. Later, Jackson’s dedication to the club led him to a seat on the BGCSM board, and ultimately, he became the first Black chairman of the BGCSM board, where he served for more than five years and helped select the organization’s current president and CEO.
“Everything that I’ve ever done and everything that I’ve hoped to do is rooted in the time I spent as a youth at the Boys and Girls Club. It’s something that is very much a part of my DNA. I’ve witnessed the impact that it can have on children, on families, and on communities. That’s why I’m so committed to it. It’s really how I got to Detroit Country Day and how I got to Cornell,” Jackson said. “It’s kind of like when you build a house, you build a basement first as your foundation. The Boys & Girls Club is very much my foundation, and the things that have come after that have been successful because I just have an amazing foundation from not just my wonderful parents, but from being a Club kid.”
He explained that one of the first people he met while at the club was the late George Browne. Browne, a camp counselor, helped provide opportunities to the boys, and he was the catalyst for encouraging Jackson to develop a relationship with a young Courtney B. Vance. Vance, an Emmy nominee and Tony Award winner, is a native Detroiter who was also a member of the Highland Park Boys & Girls Club in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
Vance, now a Boys & Girls Club of America Hall of Fame member, became a mentor to Jackson, as he also matriculated through the club before attending Country Day and going on to graduate from an Ivy League college, just like Jackson did in the years after.
“Hiram came home from school one day and Mr. George Browne was sitting on his couch talking to his mother, and they told him he should apply for Country Day. He didn’t want to go to that school. He wanted to go to Lutheran West or Brother Rice or somewhere, but Mr. Browne told him he should call me and talk to me,” Vance told the Michigan Chronicle. “I’m about five years older than Hiram, so I had already gone through, and I told Hiram that if I could do it, he could do it. So he went, and we had another conversation a couple of years after he got there when he was deciding which college he should attend. Of course, I told him he should go to Harvard because that’s where I was. He made the wrong decision by choosing Cornell,” Vance said jokingly, “but I think it worked out for him in the end.”
Vance added: “I know that a lot of kids make it out of places where we’re from – Hiram and I – but I know that a lot of people don’t make it, too. I thank God that I was able to speak life into him not once, but twice. Somebody opened the door for me, but I kept a foot in it so people behind me could walk through the door, too.”
Vance also spoke about Jackson’s leadership while serving as the chairman of the board of directors. Jackson took over the role at a time when the club was in dire times. Several of the clubs were in fiscal and physical disarray. There were issues with building facilities having fallen into disrepair, membership was declining at certain clubs, and the organization had more than $1 million in debt, which Jackson uncovered when he and the board were combing through the financial statements.
“When I took over, I felt like the organization had lost its focus a little bit. My first mission was to remind everybody why we were there. It’s all about the kids. It’s not about the jobs, it’s not about the adults working there, it’s not about the board members. It’s all about the kids and the families that we serve,” Jackson said.
“The second mission was to identify just how big the financial hole was, and we had to make some tough decisions. We sold a couple of clubs, we, unfortunately, laid off some staff, and we made some other big decisions. But ultimately, we were able to get back into the black. Then, once we got our financial footing, we turned our focus to finding what we wanted to be a transformational leader – someone who is a prolific fundraiser, someone who really could meet these kids and families where they were in terms of outside-the-box, dynamic programming, and someone who really just loves the kids.”
Insert: Shawn Wilson, the president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan since November 2018.
Wilson came to BGCSM from Ford Motor Co., where he served as strategic lead for the Ford Resource and Engagement Centers (FREC), a $15 million place-based strategy to drive economic mobility for residents in Detroit neighborhoods. Additionally, Wilson worked with the Usher Foundation in Atlanta, doing community outreach and unique programming for the youth. His background, vision, and expertise made him the perfect choice to lead BGCSM into its reimagined future.
“Hiram recruited me for this position, but in addition to him being a notable alumnus of the Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan, his vision that really helped stabilize the organization. He stepped in at a pretty critical time in its history to take a big role. That’s why I and the board of directors wanted to rename the Highland Park club after him. He really had a commitment to not letting the club fail and just gave hours upon hours of his time – pretty much running it,” Wilson said.
“This is the first club named after an African American and that’s important because I think we all want the youth to build to see themselves in Hiram and understand that he came from where they came from. They can see all of his accomplishments and know that they can have those accomplishments and more if they charge the same path. And I know people don’t typically receive these kinds of honors while they’re still alive, but for him to be able to see these kids and talk to them when his name is on the building – that’s powerful for him and for them.”
While the dedication of the Highland Park Boys & Girls Club is what called so many to gather on Monday, it also provided Wilson, the club’s staff, and the youth who are members to show off the new $2 million renovation, which is part of a broader investment strategy backed by federal funding, corporate support, and philanthropy. The result: a vibrant space delivering real economic returns for families and patrons.
BGCSM projects the facility will generate $5 million in return on investment to families, including $100,000 in youth wages paid through Industry Clubs each year; $3.7M in childcare savings for Highland Park families; up to $4,400 per child per year; $625,000 in meal and snack savings across BGCSM locations; $484,000 in incarceration cost savings by helping prevent at-risk youth from entering the justice system; and $100,000 in small business support savings by offering below-market workspace through BGCSM’s startup programs.
The renovation includes a state-of-the-art Big Sean Studio, which provides programs for young people to learn content creation, sound engineering, and careers in entertainment; a commercial kitchen for hands-on training in meal preparation, nutrition, and food safety; an Innovation Lab where students receive practical experience in drones, robotics, STEM, videography, and coding; Fashion Studio & Design Space where students are introduced to drawing, garment construction, and industrial sewing; an Esports Lounge for video game creation, tournament hosting, and membership in BGCSM’s Esports Industry Club; a Mental Health & Leadership Room for programs like Mentally Fit, Teen Talks, and 1:1 therapy session enables social-emotional growth and youth leadership.
“I’ve known Hiram for over 30 years, and I’ve seen firsthand what his leadership and commitment to the community has meant to so many,” said Rev. Wendell Anthony, President of the NAACP Detroit Chapter. He was the first and youngest general chair of the NAACP’s Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner some 30 years ago, and he’s been fighting and serving ever since. From his leadership at Real Times Media and the Michigan Chronicle and well beyond, including his work in giving out hundreds of thousands of dollars to youth through scholarships with (Huntington Bank Chairman) Gary Torgow, Hiram has shown himself to be creative and innovative in the way he leads and serves.
“This is a fitting tribute to a man who has given so much to so many, and expected little if nothing in return other than to see that everybody gets a chance to be excellent. That’s why he does the Men and Women of Excellence honors – because he understands that there is excellence in Black folks. You know, legacy denotes you have left something of value – that you have left something that is worthy enough to read, to be remembered, to be emulated, continued and built upon, and what a fitting legacy of a life’s work, for a man to have something like a Boy and Girl’s Club named in his honor. I know his beautiful daughter and mother, and his son and father, who also bear the names Hiram Jackson, are beyond pleased with the legacy Hiram has built and will continue to build upon.”
For Jackson, the honor of having the building – his home away from home – renamed in his honor is a tribute that is hard to put into words, and certainly a tribute that money couldn’t buy.
“When I see my name on this building, I see the community that poured into me. This is where my journey started and now, it’s where thousands more will begin theirs,” he said.
“I wasn’t totally comfortable with having my name there because there were so many other people that I felt were more or as deserving. People who are famous have been in that club – people who I have followed. But it’s important to me. I’ve been blessed to get several awards throughout the years for the work that I’ve done and our success as a company, but having my name on this building, I think it sends a message that I am a person who has worked with the most vulnerable parts of our community. I’ve been committed to kids and our future. It acknowledges the fact that this club has played a tremendous role in shaping a lifelong career,” Jackson said.
“You know, I look at my life and my career as a sum total – the total of the parts of all of the people and places that have assisted me along the way. It’s the George Brownes, the Courtney B. Vances, the Ike Hoovers, my parents, my children, the community leaders like Rev. Anthony and so many others who’ve all poured into me and who have poured into Black people. And I’m really a product of those people and the people who have helped me along the way at each stage of my life.”
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