In this article, the author talks about a summer program at the African American Adolescent Male Summer Literacy Institute which aims to improve literacy skills of black male teens. The African American Adolescent Male Summer Literacy Institute is now in its fourth year at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC). Alfred Tatum, director of the…

The social and educational life risks associated with being a Black male in the United States are not novel concerns. However, researchers, policymakers, educators, and other stakeholders have yet to consistently identify programs and interventions that can mediate the inequities that confront young Black men. Some researchers have indicated that…

A neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, hard hit by violence, approached the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility on behalf of its youth. The chapter responded by developing a psychosocial after-school intervention for early adolescent males, which participants named Peaceful Posse. Youth showed up consistently for the groups, after…

There have been a number of empirical approaches to understanding the factors that contribute to violence among black males, and there are a number of theories that try to explain black-on-black violence. After a review of some of these theories, this paper suggests certain aspects of programs to combat violence among African American males.…

Examines six mentoring programs conducted by fraternities and other organizations to ascertain the perceptions of participants of the effectiveness of their involvement. Results with 51 mentors and 54 African-American male adolescents support the positive impact of mentoring programs. Mentoring can be an important component of multifaceted…

Recognizing that violence is demographically concentrated in the male minority in inner cities is a necessary starting point for discussions of how to combat this violence. A conference on the prevention of youth violence was held in May 1996 to throw light on the problem of youth violence directly and specifically. Participants in this conference…

A Responsibility Model-based (RM) (Hellison, 2003) cross-age teaching program was developed to promote the leadership of a selected group of youth from underserved communities. The participants, called the "Urban Youth Leaders," were eight 11 to 15 year old boys who taught various physical activity skills to a group of 40 fourth graders for eight…