The African American Roundtable Summit featured the nation’s three largest black fraternities — Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi and Omega Psi Phi — who formed a partnership with BBBS in June to dramatically raise the number of black men mentoring troubled and at-risk black boys. There are 8,500 young black boys waiting for mentors, which represents 40 percent of the boys overall who are looking for matches. Yet only 15 percent of the mentors involved in the BBBS mentoring program are black men.
Dale Long, an official with the city of Dallas, helped form the historic coalition after starting his service with the BBBS as a Texas Southern undergrad 30 years ago.
“There was a need out there not only [for] kids in Houston where I started but in Dallas where I live,” said Long, the national partnership coordinator for Alpha Phi Alpha’s partnership with BBBS. He helped form the partnership after getting the Alphas involve with BBBS two decades ago. “There are young boys throughout the country in major cities who need some sort of guidance and direction just for someone to care about them. And so it just made sense that the least I could do is give four hours a month to make a difference in the life of a young man.”
Karen Mathis, the national president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, said her agenda will included increased attention and resources devoted to getting mentors for the 67 percent of at-risk youth in the BBBS who are African American, Hispanic and Native Americans.
“It is critical to have more African American men involved, because as one of our speakers said earlier, to be one you have to see one. There are long waiting lists at many of our agencies of young African Americans who are waiting for a positive influence, a male influence in their lives. And we don’t have enough African American ‘bigs’ to serve as mentors,” Mathis said. –terry shropshire
