Scholars and Activists Debate the ‘Crisis of Young Black Males’
By Jamal Watson

NEW YORK
A panel of high-profile academicians, activists and political leaders gathered in New York in mid-July to tackle what they called the most pressing issue facing African-Americans in the post-civil rights era: the plight of the Black male.

Charles J. Ogletree, who teaches and directs the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, convened the forum, “Winning Strategies for Young Black Men,” to propose ways to close the achievement gap between African-American boys and their White counterparts.

“I’m on a move to save African-American boys,” said Ogletree. “If we don’t save them, the ideas of families, personal responsibility, jobs, education, just won’t happen.”

Co-sponsored by the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell and the international financial firm Goldman Sachs, much of the conversation at the forum focused on the intertwined crises of high incarceration, high unemployment and low educational attainment among Black men. In all three cases, the statistics are alarming.

In Chicago, for example, 45 percent of Black men between the ages of 20 and 24 are unemployed. Only 18 percent of Black men in that city have earned a college degree. The numbers are similar in other major urban areas throughout the country.

“A lot of young Black boys look around and they assume at an early age that they are not going to make it,” said Dr. Harry J. Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University.

Holzer said Black men are slowly disappearing from the U.S. labor market. One-third of all young Black men will spend some time in prison and will have difficulty finding meaningful employment.

“There needs to be a natural effort to reengage these young men,” said Dr. John McWhorter of the University of California, Berkeley. “We need to do less talking about the causes and focus on practical solutions. We need to help people who need the help.”