Washington Post Series on "Being a Black Man"

The Washington Post has undertaken a tremendous feature project that will be reporting on Black men in America. I am already impressed with the depth of this project and the amount of newsprint and staff time the paper has devoted to it.

I look forward to hearing how this series is received within the African American community and discussing it with the clients of my new agency, The 2050 Group, as well as my students at Johns Hopkins University.

The first article in the series, by Michael A. Fletcher, ran on Friday with the following explanation:

"In the coming weeks and months, The Washington Post will explore the lives of black men through their experiences -- how they raise their sons, cope with wrongful imprisonment, navigate the perceived terrain between smart and cool, defy convention against the backdrop of racial expectations. On Sunday, The Post will publish the findings of a major poll conducted jointly with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The nationwide survey measured the attitudes of black men on a variety of issues and asked others for their views of black men."

Fletcher framed the Post's contribution to history with a quick summary of research since 1900:

"Over the past 100 years, perhaps no slice of the U.S. population has been more studied, analyzed and dissected than black males. Dozens of governmental boards and commissions have investigated their plight, scholars have researched and written papers on them, and black men have been the subject of at least 400 books.

In the early 20th century, researchers pioneered a still-evolving movement to pinpoint a biological link between black men and crime. After the social turmoil of the 1960s, experts spotlighted the rampant deprivation and lack of opportunity among black men that lent urgency to President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.

Later, the focus became the diminishing opportunities in cities, where well-paying manufacturing work was vanishing, locking many unskilled black men out of the job market. That gave way to concerns about drugs and crime and the fraying of the family structure, as 70 percent of black babies were being born to unmarried mothers and incarceration rates soared.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund hosted a 1985 panel discussion that called young black men "an endangered species," a label that stuck even as some black men were making strides toward the middle class and a new level of social acceptance.

In 1995, the Million Man March, spearheaded by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, drew hundreds of thousands of black men to the Mall in an unrivaled show of unity and concern for one another. The gathering seemed to signal a watershed moment of self-reflection.

Since the march, black men have met in thousands of groups to address their problems, reinforce their progress and understand their lives with greater clarity. Perhaps the latest, most dramatic evidence of this involvement is "The Covenant," a book charting a plan for black self-improvement that was an outgrowth of commentator Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union forums. The book has been a No. 1 seller on the New York Times nonfiction paperback list."

As it turns out, I am in the middle of reading "The Covenant with Black America" which is a powerful, well-written book edited by Tavis Smiley. Before reading this book I was amazed and excited by the buzz I was hearing in the African American community about this book and then thrilled by its position at the top of paperback charts. Though I have not finished it yet, I alredy plan to recommend it to everyone who seeks to understand or connect with the African American community, it's that important and valuable. I will post on this book soon.

To read Friday's cover story of The Washington Post, "At the Corner of Progress and Peril," click [here].

To read Sunday's cover story of The Washington Post, "Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait Shaded With Promise and Doubt," by Steven A. Holmes and Post polling director Richard Morin, click [here].