Let’s tell the truth: We’ve fallen into forgetfulness and apathy. Though our foreparents risked all that was dear to them to open a way for us, we have relinquished the fundamental Black values that guided their lives.
The great benefits that millions of us enjoy today don’t come from nothing. They have grown out of a long and glorious legacy of mutual love, faith in God and commitment to the children. These core values traveled with them over the seas and centuries. They emboldened enslaved Africans to get up from servitude, challenge racist practices, stand strong in the face of heinous acts of violence today’s Black people will never know.
We are the beneficiaries of unimaginable suffering and sacrifice and also strategic thinking, planning and action. But on our watch, with all our privileges, technology and supports, we are doing far less for our young than was done for us. We are the first generation of African Americans to allow the next generation to lose ground. Millions of our children are in peril; it’s their worst time since slavery, said Marian Wright Edelman. Yet, there isn’t a single issue we are organized around. Not one that Black leaders have agreed upon and are standing together on to work for change.
When we shrink back from the values and work that moved us forward, the consequences are life-destroying. The village falls apart. Today, on our watch, these are the chilling facts:
• Of all Black 4th graders, 58 percent are functionally illiterate and even further behind in math skills.
• In some cities only 18 percent of Black males graduate from high school.
• Life-stunting violence against Black girls and women, including sexual violence, is on the rise.
• Of all African American births, 6.6 percent are to girls under the age of 18.
• Everyday more than a thousand Black youngsters are arrested.
• A Black male is 700 percent more likely than a White male to be sentenced to prison; one in every eight Black men between the ages of 25 and 29 is incarcerated.
• Nearly one million Black men have been siphoned out of our community and imprisoned in a for-profit system built on unfair drug-sentencing laws.
• Suicide is rising fast among our children.
• HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for our young women.
• The leading cause of death for our Black boys is homicide.
All of this and we are not outraged—but pointing the finger at sagging pants, do-rags and the misogynistic and murderous messages in music we’ve allowed. Instead, let’s look in the mirror. Let us accept our responsibility for not governing the village more carefully. Our young in crisis don’t need more policing or punishment. They need us. They need our attention, guidance and encouragement. They need Black love.
“Mentoring works miracles,” says successful businessman and chairman of the National CARES Mentoring Movement, Thomas W. Dortch, Jr., a masterful mentor to many and capacity builder of the 100 Black Men of America over the decade he was chairman. Mentoring is a simple, innovative, low-cost solution to the massive social problems killing the spirit of so many youngsters and ruining life in poor urban, suburban and rural communities coast to coast.
A recent study by the California Mentor Foundation of 124 mentoring programs that had matched a total of 36,251 mentors with 57,659 mentees, delivered these amazing results:
• 98 percent of the young people matched with mentors stayed in school
• 98 percent of those mentored avoided a teen pregnancy
• 85 percent of youngsters who had a mentor did not use drugs
• 98 percent of the youngsters matched with mentors avoided gang participation
In study after study, this fact emerges: We must give our imperiled youngsters hope and opportunities to develop their talents and the skills that prepare them to be contributors to society and lead productive and fulfilling lives. The failing schools throughout poor communities – where often teachers lack basic supplies like chalk and children don’t have text books or working toilets – are merely holding pens and the pipeline to prison.
It’s time for us to act! Greatly disproportionate numbers of caring White sisters and brothers are mentoring our children. They are the first respondents. We are the last. The National CARES Mentoring Movement (NCMM) is a call to us—to our faith leaders and leaders in the public and private sectors and every able, stable Black adult—to come out of our silos and work together to galvanize volunteers to guide and encourage our vulnerable young.
National CARES is not a mentoring organization. It is a mentor-recruitment movement, the largest in the nation. We are working to fill the ranks of the thousands of mentoring organizations in desperate need of volunteers. In 54 cities, volunteer leaders of CARES Mentor-Recruitment Circles are leading the charge to enlist committed adults and connect them with the children in existing local, youth-serving organizations waiting for mentors.
Here’s the task: Let us do what Black folks have had difficulty doing for several decades. Let us get along. Agree. Link arms and aims and take care of the mothers and fathers of our tomorrows. Their future is in our hands. Dedicating just four hours a month can save and secure a life.
Log on to caresmentoring.com and input your zip code for a list of nearby mentoring opportunities. Or work directly with us and join or organize a CARES Mentor-Recruitment Circle and enlist your faith leader, family, colleagues and friends to recruit the caring adults needed to help our young struggling through a long dark tunnel.
We are the light at the end of that tunnel. We are our children’s only hope. We are the solution. Mentoring is one investment that has shown disproportionately positive returns. Even for our most challenged younguns—including those returning from incarceration—mentoring opens the way to high academic achievement, self-esteem, respect for our culture and community and living productive, self-sustaining lives.
Yes, we’re all busy, and the stress level for us is higher than ever given the sinking economy. But the way out chaos is self-care and service. Take off your overflowing platter all that is non-essential—mindless talk and TV watching. Make room for self-nurturance and a mission of value: caring for the least among us, our vulnerable children. That is all that the Holy Spirit is asking of us. Do God’s work and you’ll enrich and fortify your life. More than you need and blessings greater than you can imagine will be yours. This is my testimony.
Mentor a child. With family and friends group mentor our struggling young in a reentry program, an underserved school, a group home. Push your faith leader to do the work of the church, which also lies beyond the congregation. Support the educators and children in the nearest failing school with books, supplies, encouragement—and mentors. We know way showers, like Father Michael Pfleger in Chicago and Rev. Geoffrey V. Dudley, near East St. Louis. We will connect you.
Working together we will write a new history for our children. Mentoring is the answer. And it’s a privilege.
For information about the National CARES Mentoring Movement, log on to www.caresmentoring.com or call 404-584-2744. Join Susan Taylor for the launch of the Greater Denver CARES Mentoring Movement on Thursday, April 9 at Infinity Park Event Center in Glendale from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Admission is free but space is limited. For questions or to RSVP contact Gerri Gomez Howard or Rhonda Jackson co-chairs for the Greater Denver CARES Mentoring Movement, at 303-814-6910 or info@greaterdenvercares.com..
Editor’s note: Susan L. Taylor is Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Essence Magazine, Founder and CEO of the National CARES Mentoring Movement and a member of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation’s Black Women’s Roundtable.
