Kendall Bryan was beginning another day at the summer jobs program he directed in Northeast Washington a couple of weeks ago when two city officials arrived for what he thought was an unscheduled tour.
In the preceding days, the parents of two youths alleged that Bryan made “inappropriate” remarks on two occasions while running his organization, the Amy Jacques Garvey Institute.
The institute, named for the wife of civil rights activist Marcus Garvey, has since 2007 provided summer jobs for predominantly black teenagers and young adults who live east of the Anacostia River.
In one incident, a youth described as the Garvey Institute’s “only non-African American” enrollee became uncomfortable after Bryan said the summer program was “important” in addressing “the concerns of black youth in the DC area,” according to the termination letter Bryan received last week from the Department of Employment Services.
His language, according to the agency’s letter, violated the D.C. Human Rights Act, “which prohibits discrimination based on race,” among other things.
In the second incident, Bryan was accused of using “profane and inappropriate” language while interacting with young people, according to the employment services agency, which oversees Bryan’s group as part of the Mayor Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program.
Unique Morris-Hughes, the agency’s director, declined to discuss the second complaint. “I cannot share any details other than we looked into it and felt it was completely necessary to take action,” she said.
Bryan, 37, whose summer program received $250,000 from the District from 2015 to 2018 and was to receive an additional $45,000 this year, dismissed the allegations as “poppycock.”
He said no one from the employment services agency interviewed him about the complaints before deciding to close his program.
“Any notion that I’m racist is disgusting,” he said. “I will not allow anyone to characterize me as verbally abusing youth.”
Forty years ago, Mayor Marion S. Barry (D) established the summer youth employment program to help teenagers find jobs.
As part of the $20 million program, enrollees at the Garvey Institute and hundreds of other participating organizations receive hourly wages between $5.25 and $14, depending on age; they range from 14 to 24 years old.
Sherice Muhammad, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 7, described the Garvey Institute as having an “established, excellent reputation” in her community. The program offers coaching for job interviews and college preparation, plus instruction in writing, photography, videography and journalism. It also organizes field trips around the city.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) visited the program last summer, giving brief remarks and taking questions from young people, Muhammad and Bryan said.
“What Mr. Bryan is known for is working with kids with extenuating circumstances,” she said. “They have issues going on at home. Some of the girls have children. Some are taking on the caregiver role with parents and grandparents. The institute really targets at-risk students who need the attention.”
Council member Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), whose legislative committee provides oversight of the summer jobs program, visited more than two dozen host organizations in 2017. She said she was impressed by some and had reservations about others, including the Garvey Institute, which worked out of the Douglas Memorial United Methodist Church on 11th and H streets NE.
Silverman visited the Garvey Institute first because its roster of enrollees was among the largest in the city. When she arrived, Silverman said, she found 20 youths at the site, even though 120 were enrolled. When she asked Bryan about the low attendance, she said, he explained that when “he told them that I was coming, they didn’t want to come because they were scared of me.”
Bryan confirmed that he made the remark and said “it was a lame attempt at a joke.”
He said a number of enrollees were working off-site.
At one point, two teenagers “came up to me and said they had concerns about the program,” Silverman recalled. “They said they weren’t doing anything and that they wanted to be somewhere else. The concern was that there was no structure to the program.”
At the end of her visit, Silverman said, Bryan gave her a gift: a black T-shirt with the words “Feminist as F---.”
“I was speechless; it was so inappropriate,” Silverman said.
Bryan said the gift was intended as a demonstration of his respect for Silverman, whom he described as a “strong advocate for women’s rights. I’m an advocate for women’s rights. I meant it as solidarity for our cause.”
Bryan’s father, Kingsley, a former D.C. police officer, started the Garvey Institute in the 1980s, naming it after Marcus Garvey’s second wife, a Jamaican-born journalist and activist.
Kendall Bryan said he took over the program in 2007 after his father’s health declined.
After District officials closed the Garvey Institute, the program’s enrollees abruptly found themselves reassigned by the Department of Employment Services to other organizations participating in the summer jobs program.
Angela Lorick, 22, a pregnant mother of two small children who lives in Southeast, said that as a result of the Garvey Institute’s closing, she lost two days of pay — $196 — “that I was counting on.” She said she was reassigned to another program downtown but was then told by the District that there were “no more spots.”
Lorick said Bryan treated her and other participants well and “never yelled at us.”
“I saw all these kids curse him out, and he still bought them ice cream,” she said. “He was trying to make sure they had their money and their jobs.”
Michelle Pandza, 54, who has taught photography intermittently at the Garvey Institute since 2005, said the sudden closure “came as quite a shock to all of us” and sent a “horrible message” to the young people.
“Did anyone talk to any of the kids who were happy when they were there?” she said. “The kids didn’t want to go anywhere else.”
Pandza, who is white, said the program largely focused on African American youths and “social justice issues,” such as gentrification. Bryan has “always been very welcoming to me, year after year, she said. “No one has ever made me feel uncomfortable.”
The District’s termination letter to the Garvey Institute — written 13 days after the program was closed and the same day The Washington Post made inquiries — alleged officials had found youths “sleeping, using personal cellphones, and inappropriate language.”
The letter also asserted that Bryan had “admitted to describing the Institute’s program as being for black youth” and that he also acknowledged that he had “used profane and inappropriate language.”
Bryan said he told city officials that he was sorry they had to deal with the complaints. However, he said his apology didn’t mean that “I admitted to any wrongdoing.”
“I don’t like this narrative,” he said.
Bryan said he disputed that he allows enrollees to sleep while at the program, though he added, “There’s a case of narcolepsy going through the kids of Washington, D.C.”
He denied that he acknowledged telling them that the program was tailored to African Americans.
As for profanity, he said that on the day before his program was closed, he intervened when two female participants were about to get into a physical altercation.
“There was a lot of chaos. I may have said something,” he said. “It was an argument that could have turned physical. I didn’t want the younger child to get beat up.”