The Year of the African American Male
Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson announces the launch of the Year of the African American Male initiative.
Since the beginning of the slave trade to the Civil Right Movement to 2015 African American males in this country have faced a number of institutional and historic challenges. Historic health disparities, unemployment, and mass incarceration to name a few.
Nationally, African American men make up a fraction of the population but have the lowest life expectancy and the highest high school drop-out rates, numbers of police stop and frisk searches with no arrests, and the highest numbers in homelessness, emotional and mental health challenges, and disrupted families.
Throughout 2015 Supervisor Carson and a diverse group of African American leaders and community members will focus on creating opportunities for information sharing and the planning of solution-oriented activities, as well as publishing a free resource guide specifically geared toward assisting Black men in key areas.
"I am joining with a number of individuals and organizations in declaring 2015 as "The Year of The African American Male,'" says Supervisor Carson. Mr. Carson noted the origins of most of these dire statistics dates back to the beginning of the African Slave Trade. "Between 1492 and 1870 over 12 million Africans were forced into servitude, providing free slave labor in this country. Throughout the history of the Unites States, Black males have lived in conditions that have fostered the destruction of the Black family. Limited federal intervention and unjust state policies have contributed to losses in education, unemployment, lack of permanent housing, improper access to health care and isolation from a consistent family structure for hundreds of years."
2015 will focus on collective efforts to assemble all existing resources to maximize positive outcomes in the lives of all Black men in Alameda County.
Download the Resource Guide: http://www.acgov.org/board/district5/pdf/YearoftheBlackMan_ResourceGuide.pdf