Knight Foundation recently announced the winners of the BME Leadership Award, created to honor black men in Philadelphia and Detroit who step up to lead the community. 

The 20 black men were recognized for making Detroit and Philadelphia stronger and received a combined $443,000 to stregnthen their communities. 

Tomorrow, members of the public are invited to meet the winners from Detroit, hear their stories and learn more about their winning projects. 

The following is crossposted from SXSW's blog

Knight Foundation will be back again in full force at SXSW 2012 as a participant in the Trade Show, the presenter of the Accelerator News category and sponsoring the Future of Journalism track of programming.

Please mark your calendars and join us at the following events:

            March 8 – iMA Conference Key Note

            March 10 – Media Innovation Fair at Brush Square Park.

            March 12-15 – SXSW Trade Show

            March 12-14 – SXSW Accelerator

Knight is committed to seeing journalism to its best possible future. Over the past four years, they have invested more than $100 million in a Media Innovation Initiative. So far, our funding has helped launch more than 200 community news experiments. 

When I first starting falling for Michigan years ago (a courtship that eventually led to starting Michigan Corps in 2010), my affection for this place was always rooted in people.

I had never been somewhere where everyone was so self-aware of place and eager to participate in place. I had to join in and wondered, What if we could use technology - and more - to make it easy for everyone to share in this place’s renaissance and work with one another on consensus change?

Citizen Effect’s launch of Detroit4Detroit last week showcases the best of that aspiration.

That's why Knight Foundation supports the project, which is helping 150 Detroiters partner with local organizations to lead 150 social-change projects across the city. This Free Press article offers a sense for the kind of work Detroiters will be leading across issues like education, health and food security.