HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA VOICES OF HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA Carol L. Adams • Na’im Akbar • Noel S. Anderson • Maya Angelou Esther Akasi Armah • Baayan Bakari • asha bandele • Harry Belafonte Carl C. Bell • Dereca L. Blackmon • C. Diane Wallace Booker Lashan Browning • Khephra Burns • Michael A. Burns • Michele Pierce Burns • Madeleine Moore Burrell • Tom Burrell • Leon D. Caldwell Iva E. Carruthers • Veronica Conway • Michaela angela Davis Joy Angela DeGruy • Thomas W. Dortch, Jr. • Michael Eric Dyson Andriette Earl • Glenn Ellis • Therman E. Evans • Shelia Evans-Tranumn George C. Fraser • Marcia Ann Gillespie • Shawn A. Ginwright Cheryl Tawede Grills • Adelaide L. Hines-Sanford • Shani Jamila Theresa Kay-Aba Kennedy • Barbara Lewis King • Joyce E. King Kofi A. Kondwani • Khary Lazarre-White • Carol D. Lee (Safisha L. Madhubuti) • Sara Lomax-Reese • Damon Lynch III • Haki R. Madhubuti Julianne Malveaux • Joel P. Martin • Linda James Myers • Wade W. Nobles William Paden • Jessica C. Pinkney • Kevin Powell • Beloved Reese Sheila R. Rule • Yvonne Samuel • Lena Sherrod • April R. Silver Sobonfu Somé • Joseph A. Strickland • Susan L. Taylor • Iyanla Vanzant Terrie M. Williams • Akoshia Fatimah Yoba • Malik Yoba EDITED BY SUSAN L. TAYLOR COVER ART: KEBA KONTE DESIGN: [email protected] A National CARES Mentoring Movement Initiative ANWF_0116F_COVER.indd 1 6/25/15 5:09 AM HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: CORBIS HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA EDITED BY Susan L. Taylor National CARES Mentoring Movement, Inc. Third World Press Chicago COVER PHOTO: Keba Konte GRAPHIC DESIGN: [email protected] CREATIVE DIRECTOR: LaVon Leak ASSOCIATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Monica Whittick ART DIRECTOR: Donna E. Moxam ART DIRECTOR: Sandy Lawrence PHOTO EDITOR: Leah Rudolfo RETOUCHING: Sundree.tv Third World Press Publishers since 1967 Chicago © 2010 by National CARES Mentoring Movement, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Queries should be addressed to Third World Press, P.O. Box 19730, Chicago IL 60619. Second Edition Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Control Number: 2010937617 ISBN 13: 978-0-88378-322-1 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 6 5 4 3 2 1 WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG The National CARES Mentoring Movement is devoted to closing the huge gap between the relatively few Black mentors and the millions of vulnerable Black children on the waiting lists of mentoring and youth-support organizations. As of this writing, we have a presence in 57 U.S. cities. National CARES is not a mentoring organization in and of itself; we are a movement that seeks to recruit and connect Black volunteers with their local youth-serving programs. To that end, we have created A New Way Forward, an innovative mentor- recruitment initiative designed to create an ocean of gravely needed mentors who are practicing principles of wellness in body, mind, spirit and community, and who are devoted to seeding a consciousness of self- love and high achievement in the minds and hearts of the children they mentor. A project of National CARES, A New Way Forward will provide volunteers with the information and training needed to serve Black children and other under-resourced youngsters at the highest levels. This effort has been made possible by the generosity of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Fannie Mae, Inc., and the indispensable time, talent and treasure of the people who make up our Braintrust. WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG This manual is a work in progress and is intended to ignite di- rect action for us, as a people, to move through our collective hurt and cultivate effective pathways to healing and wholeness. The manual and its companion training are being piloted, evaluated and refined as we receive vital feedback from participants across the na- tion. In your hands, the work comes alive. Pilot sessions are tak- ing place in Oakland. As National CARES raises additional funds, more trainings will be held in other cities. We are committed to offering this transformational training wherever our children are suffering—beginning in the 57 cities where our devoted CARES mentor-recruitment leaders are working each day to save young lives. A New Way Forward Braintrust WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: KEBA KONTE A Pledge to Rescue Our Youth By Dr. Maya Angelou Young women, young men of color, we add our voices to the voices of your ancestors who speak to you over ancient seas and across impossible mountaintops. Come up from the gloom of national neglect; you have already been paid for. Come out of the shadow of irrational prejudice; you owe no racial debt to history. The blood of our bodies and the prayers of our souls have bought you a future free from shame and bright beyond the telling of it. We pledge ourselves and our resources to seek for you clean and well-furnished schools, safe and non-threatening streets, employment which makes use of your talents, but does not degrade your dignity. You are the best we have. You are all we have. You are what we have become. We pledge you our whole hearts from this day forward. Written by Dr. Angelou expressly for the National CARES Mentoring Movement WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG For their phenomenal work in setting the course of this project by molding the first drafts of material from nearly 60 scholars, practitioners, activists and advocates, we thank the following writers: Sheila R. Rule, team leader & Rev. Yvonne Samuel Akoshia Fatimah Yoba Dr. Noel S. Anderson WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG A NEW WAY FORWARD CONTENTS FOREWORD BY SUSAN L. TAYLOR PG 02 EDITORS’ NOTE BY ASHA BANDELE AND SHAWN GINWRIGHT, PH.D. PG 04 TRAINERS’ STATEMENT BY DR. JOEL P. MARTIN AND DERECA L. BLACKMON PG 06 MESSAGE FROM HARRY BELAFONTE PG 08 HERITAGE MEDIA WATCH PG 10 PG 89 SPIRITUALITY COMMUNITY PG 21 PG 95 STRESS MENTORING PG 33 PG 103 WELLNESS PROFILES IN EXCELLENCE PG 47 PG 124 PROSPERITY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PG 61 PG 140 RELATIONSHIPS FOR YOUR LIBRARY PG 69 PG 142 CREATIVITY PG 83 WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: PETER CHIN | 03 Susan L. Taylor National CARES Mentoring Movement CEO and founder Susan L. Taylor is the architect of A New Way Forward, a National CARES healing initiative and training manual, for which she served as editor-in-chief. Susan is pictured here at home in the summer of 2010 with her granddaughter, cousins, nieces and their friends. Clockwise from noon: Bakari Taylor, Ania Hughes, William Plummer, Zakiya Moore, David Wright, Amina Suzanne King, Nisa Bandele, and Malaika Taylor. ONELOVE One of the truths I have most relied on in Movement organized an intergenerational my life is that which tells us how our group of some of the fi nest minds to create a ancestors triumphed over tragedy. Beyond consciousness-changing curriculum to doubt, we are the people who refused to die. anchor Black people solidly in our Highest Enduring heinous acts of violence and Self, help us heal our hurt, depression and assaults to their psyche and soul, our self-denial, rarely named or recognized but foreparents donned their spiritual armor—a internalized over generations—and today walk-on-water faith—and kept moving prevents us from caring well for ourselves forward. Bequeathed to us from them is a and our vulnerable young. A New Way powerful legacy it often seems we have Forward is for our transformation. It is a forgotten. We are not on the rough side of healing and wellness training for our body, the mountain—it has been traversed by those mind, spirit and community, an offering of who pushed ahead while lifting the children restorative principles and practices to help over terrain more jagged and steep than we African Americans stand strong in love and will ever know. Let us lift up that legacy and unity, and repair the village. The trainings navigate what, in comparison, are hills. are to help “reculture” us—to invite us back Like you, I ache over the state of home to our beautiful selves. emergency in Black America: that we able They are for a critical mass of willing, adults are allowing our vulnerable young to community-loving Black people—the high fall. That we are leaving outside our and the humble—who want to de-stress and sanctuary doors “the least of these.” That fortify our spirit, who want to lead healthy, legions of our children are without peaceful, productive lives, who want to textbooks, art and technology training in mentor and advance our struggling young failing schools. That 85 percent of Black and imperiled communities. fourth-graders read below grade level and a A New Way Forward is created to million Black males are on lockdown. That revitalize us, to heal the incalculable damage there is no strategic alliance among Black done to our body, mind and soul by more leaders, no agreed-upon agenda. That we’re than three centuries of slavery, Jim Crow so stressed, moving fast, but losing ground practices, and racism. It is to root in us what in every quarter critical to Black progress. our ancestors knew: No matter how rough We have no time to waste. the course, we must believe the promise. We The work is ours to do, and the call to are not at the mercy of outside forces. Our action is now! power resides where it has always been— In 2009, the National CARES Mentoring within us, with our God, and in unity.