How Michael Hyman '74 Turns Insight Into Impact

Michael Hyman '74 says he was 11 years old when he became an activist. “My interest in activism got started because I was in South Carolina, and I’m a child of the Civil Rights Movement.” 

It was the early 1960s. Like many Americans, Hyman and his grandparents sat down together most evenings to watch the evening news with Walter Cronkite. He learned about the Vietnam War and social movements of the time. But he overheard other conversations, too. 

“I was a part of a church that was rooted in social justice and civil rights—and also the idea of community,” Hyman recalls. "A lifelong mentor, the Rev. [Dr. William P.] Diggs invested so much in young people like me. And it just so happened that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and William Diggs were close friends at Morehouse College. Diggs shared many Sunday dinners at King's Auburn Avenue home in Atlanta. They also shared a commitment to social justice," he adds. "So, there was a connection to what was happening elsewhere and what we were experiencing in Florence, South Carolina. It was unifying and inspirational."

Hyman didn’t just take notes from his mentor; he took action. In sixth grade, he forged his grandmother’s signature on a school-choice form—the state’s attempt to stall the implementation of desegregation laws. The following school year, he would join a handful of Black students attending a white school in Florence. 

“By the summer, I had forgotten I enrolled in the white school and never told my grandmother,” Hyman says. “She didn’t find out until Rev. Diggs called us to the church one summer evening to let us know he supported our decision. My grandmother stayed calm and composed during the meeting. But when we had multiple offers for a ride home that night, she said, ‘We’ll walk.’ That was the longest walk I’ve ever taken.”

Though his grandmother was angry at first, her love was never in question. “She told me it was going to be difficult and asked if I was sure I wanted to do this," says Hyman. "I said that I was. And from that point on, there was nothing but support. And once word spread through the neighborhood, there was even more support for this little boy who was headed to the other side of town to do this thing.”

Making Space for Voices
“This thing” ultimately provided Hyman with an opportunity to head north and attend The Governor’s Academy. More specifically, it was at his new school that he met a representative from A Better Chance Program—a nonprofit that helps young people from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds attend private or independent boarding schools or high-performing public schools. 

“By fourth grade, I knew I wanted to get out of the South,” Hyman says. “That summer, we drove to Michigan to visit family, and I was amazed that the world that I saw on television actually existed. That Black people went into stores. We went to eat at lunch counters, and everybody sat where they wanted to be. I remember coming back to South Carolina and thinking, ‘I can’t stay here. My life will not be what I want it to be.’”

Hyman got that same feeling when he visited Governor's in the early 1970s. “I fell in love with the place. I stayed overnight, went to classes, and ate meals with students who looked like me. Everyone was so welcoming. And it hit me, the idea that this is what education is about.”

My English teacher, Elizabeth Baratelli, inspired me about critical writing and thinking by allowing my story to come through in conversations...

That reaction proved more than accurate once he began attending the Academy. “My English teacher, Elizabeth Baratelli P'72, inspired me about critical writing and thinking by allowing my story to come through in conversations. Instead of a book report retelling the author’s story, she said, ‘We want to hear your voice, your opinion about the story or a character.’ Those kinds of conversations reached me,” recalls Hyman.

And when there was a book that didn’t initially speak to Hyman, Baratelli would find one that did. “She allowed me to write papers on stories from Black authors. And once I’d become comfortable with the idea that I had something to say about those particular stories and what they meant to me, then we would go back to Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities. I understood those things a lot better the next time around.”

A Journey Forward
Since leaving Govs and graduating from Franklin & Marshall College, Hyman has forged a career that allows him to share that with others. More than two decades ago, he joined Domus Kids, a nonprofit organization in Stamford, Connecticut, that works to set disengaged and disconnected youth and young adults on a path to self-sufficiency. He currently serves as director of diversity, equity, and inclusion and co-leader of The Equity Institute at Domus. Before that, he ran the organization’s family-focused Chester Addison Center. 

“The things that we put into young people make a difference, and that’s what I’ve tried to do,” says Hyman, who is an ordained minister and served as president of the Stamford chapter of the NAACP. In 2022, he was elected vice president of Stamford’s Board of Education and has completed a term as the Board's president. “I try to instill in people that the opportunities are there. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I am going to make you aware of opportunities and help you to understand that you can do it if you put in the work, time, and effort—and believe in yourself.”

The latter is often the biggest challenge. But Hyman says, “That’s what Domus is all about: looking at young people who have been marginalized by a lot of different things—culture, race, economics, the judicial system—and setting them on a journey forward. The self-sufficiency piece is empowering them to encourage themselves when no one else is.”

We never give up on people, no matter how bad it might get.

Building that kind of confidence is core to Domus’ approach, including initiatives for school engagement, workforce development, and community re-entry after release from incarceration. 

“The meaning of Domus’ name is that love lives here,” Hyman says. “We never give up on people, no matter how bad it might get. It’s the idea of having longevity and sustainability.”

 

 

That, Hyman adds, requires a group effort. “When we work with young people, we don't necessarily work just with that individual. We know something about their families, their environment, where they live, and their challenges. Over the years, Domus has learned that creating a runway for success cannot simply be about providing a service. We also have to provide advocacy.”

At the state and local level, the organization partners with boards of representatives, city councils, the mayor’s office, and the police department, among others. 

 

“That sense of community is a part of who I am,” Hyman says. “It goes all the way back to that kid in South Carolina listening to Rev. Diggs. That type of encouragement and permission to grow, from Elizabeth Baratelli, from the pastor of my church, from other community folk—it lives inside of you. You can’t help but want to share with others.”