7 Questions with Leroy Hughes, National Organization of Concerned Black Men (Audio Interview)
7 QUESTIONS WITH LEROY HUGHES, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF CONCERNED BLACK MEN
Since its inception in 1975, the National Organization of Concern Black Men has been dealing with issues of concern to black youth. Leroy Hughes, director of operations for Concerned Black Men, talked to me about the issues that should concern all black men in America.
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Transcript of Interview
1. What are the issues Concerned Black Men is currently working on and what issues should be of concern to black men in this country?
LH: We primarily focus on youth related issues as well as issues affecting men. That involves a focus on male reproductive health, mentoring, tutoring. We concentrate on abstinence projects, teen pregnancy prevention, AIDS prevention, adult literacy and fatherhood initiatives. We work with young men to improve their parenting skills, job readiness. We try to develop best practice programs to strengthen the community and we try to create best practice programs that target youth in our community so that they can become productive citizens to society and develop the skill sets to become the foundation for their community now and in the future. We try to promote and develop programs for parents so that they can employ skills to help those very same kids to be the best that they can be and to try to encourage and maintain the family unit.
2. What are some of the issues, locally and nationally, that are particular to black youth?
We are extremely concerned about the achievement gap, especially among young boys; the fact that African-American boys are really lagging behind their peers. We are concerned about truancy; we are concerned about high school dropouts. One of our primary goals is to increase the academic performance of youth and try to develop programs that’ll keep them in school. Right now we are heading up a project called “The Boys of Color: 2025 Initiative.” As part of our young males of color achievement initiative, we try to identify best practice programs across the country that assist young boys and try to close the achievement gap and keep them in school. [We] try to figure out how we can infuse those best practices into local school systems and get dollars from foundations and maybe the federal government to help support programs to deal with this achievement gap issue. We all know about the dilemma affecting African-American youth, boys in particular.
3. Do you think the government is doing enough to address these things?
We can appreciate some of the initiatives the government is trying to promote to boost the achievement gap, but more really needs to be done. We’re talking about more funds to support afterschool projects, mentoring and tutoring projects. We encourage and try to work with other community-based organizations to create awareness for the need for the federal government to intervene. In concert with the federal government, it’s the responsibility of every community-based organization to develop programs and plans locally to address whatever dilemmas their communities are going through. Each community really needs to identify on what is the pressing issue of the day that they should focus on, and then form partnerships to deal with that. Then community-based organizations are in the best position to deal with the federal government and make their demands.
4. With the Jena 6 and Genarlow Wilson cases, is your organization talking more about criminal justice issues or are the young people you mentor more concerned about those issues?
We’ve been focusing on those issues for quite some time, since our inception in 1975. What we’re trying to do more so than ever before is really focus on the issue of parent education. We really feel that if parents are educated about their rights and responsibility as citizens– and what they can do and what they are empowered to do–they really could have been in a better position to deal with this issue before it got to this point. We really believe that education is the key. Educating kids and parents about their rights is really the key and best solution for dealing with racism and hate crimes. If we can apply that type of approach, then we’re really in the best possible to position to change policy.
5. The organization was started in 1975 to fill the void in positive male black role models. Do you think that void still exists to the extent it did in 1975?
It still exists. We all know about the significant number of African-American youth who are either incarcerated or did not complete high school. We know that our work is not done. In fact, we have a great deal more to do. We would like to think that we have made an impact because the organization has grown. We started in Philadelphia with about five police officers. Now we have 31 chapters across the country. But even since the organization has grown, the issues still persist. Even though we’re in the 21st century, too many of our young men are in jail; too many of them are dropping out of high school; too many of them are engaged in truancy. That tells us that we are still in a state of emergency and there’s still much work to be done. Yes, to that extent the void stills exists. We’ve still got work to do and as long as there’s work to be done the organization will be here to try to meet that need.
6. Do you think another organized civil rights movement is necessary? Do you think it needs to be a massive effort?
It needs to only be a massive effort in the sense the each person has the responsibility to do their part. Back in the day, in the 1960’s because the country was galvanized because of so many issues that great leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King carried on their shoulders. Today, we have made gains as a race. More of us, more so than ever before in history, are empowered to do things individually whereby collectively we can make a difference. We all have an individual responsibility to take on the role of leadership. The one obstacle we have within our race is that we’re still looking for that one person, when really it should be each individual doing their part.
It’s important, given our stature economically, intellectually, that we can do it. By doing that, you almost engage in another civil rights effort.
7. Nooses have been reappearing all over the country, something that was common during the civil rights movement and before then. How do you as a concerned black man explain the reappearance of nooses in 2007 to your children and the kids you mentor?
When I speak to my own children, I have to remind them that we as human beings, even though we have great qualities, we also have idiosyncrasies. They’re still a lot of people who don’t understand, or perhaps don’t want to understand, the difference we have as individuals as opposed to embracing diversity. Because we’ll always have those types of individuals who have a problem with embracing diversity and celebrating differences, you have to be prepared to deal with that.