Finding the Gold Within

Black Men in College - Challenges and Success

What does it mean to be young, black, male and dare to step out of invisibility?

Finding the Gold Within follows six Black men from Akron, Ohio, through their first years of college. Despite their high levels of confidence and critical thinking, the stark reality of being away from their families and communities brings a series of crises. A sister dies in a car accident; a home gets broken into, a brush with the law, racial jokes and provocations never seem to end.

Each young man is tested. Can he keep his eyes on the prize? Each of them is determined to disprove society's stereotypes and low expectations. Many will have to overcome the fate of their missing fathers, some that of their scheming uncles or drug-dealing cousins.

The young men of Finding the Gold Within are allowing us to have an intimate look, but they are also looking back at us. They are stepping out of invisibility. Cinematically, the film is exploring America's historically embedded fear of "Blackness." The willingness of our six protagonists to be fully awake, to struggle and create new cultural identities, individually and collectively, will inspire us all.

Official Selection at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

"With a lens that is both arrestingly artistic and at base sympathetic - this film is a portrait of young black males navigating through an unsympathetic world. It never succumbs to cliches that romanticize or dramatize, but provides a rare platform for the quiet voices of those in the experience." - Troy Duster, Emeritus Chancellor's Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley