10 Years of My Brother’s Keeper

In July of 2013, I was sitting in my office with tears in my eyes, watching America’s first Black President on TV, trying to explain the anger and angst Black families felt as they learned Trayvon Martin’s killer was acquitted. At the time, I was leading the Social Innovation Fund, a White House initiative designed to scale evidence-based nonprofits in partnership with AmeriCorps.??

As the son of teen parents who grew up in a poor Black neighborhood, who saw racism up close in the schools where I was bussed, and saw way too many friends and family members fall victim to the school-to-prison-pipeline or an early grave, the president’s heartfelt articulation – “Trayvon could have been my son” and “our neighbors’ children are all of our children” – made me feel seen. It made me believe that this time, we could actually move from grief to action.

The next day I received a call from senior White House staff asking if I’d join a small cross-agency team that would develop a plan for how the federal government would take unprecedented action to make sure young men of color knew their country cared about them and was willing to invest in them.??

Just a few months after the President’s remarks, the My Brother’s Keeper initiative and federal task force was launched. In a house built by slaves, in a government that too often reinforced the legacy of slavery, President Obama gathered the nation to boldly declare the lives of our Black and Brown boys mattered, and the entire nation needed to stand behind making those words a reality.??

AmeriCorps, the community and national service agency, was one of the first federal agencies to step up with significant investments, as part of the MBK taskforce.??

This year AmeriCorps is celebrating our 30th anniversary. For 30 years every time America called, AmeriCorps has answered. In the decade after hurricane Katrina, 40,000 AmeriCorps members helped rebuild Mississippi and Louisiana. During the pandemic, AmeriCorps members supported 12.5 million Americans in schools, food banks and testing and vaccination lines. And when America faced a racial reckoning after a teen boy getting a snack from a corner store was shot and killed by a racist vigilante, AmeriCorps responded.??

The agency invested nearly $40 million to improve academic and social outcomes of young Black men, to support an increase in evidence-based mentoring programs and create pathways for opportunity for youths, and to provide staffing for MBK Community initiatives in cities across the nation. Since the launch of MBK in 2014, we’ve seen new federal policy initiatives and grant programs, hundreds of MBK Communities, more than $1 billion in private sector investments, a record increase in mentor sign-ups, major convenings and calls to action, and so much more. And while much has changed – presidents, the economy, and another racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd – My Brother’s Keeper remains a driving force, and so does AmeriCorps’ support of this critical work.??

That’s the transformative, lasting power of national service and AmeriCorps. Much like our work after disasters, we’re in communities long after the cameras are gone. We move from response to recovery to resilience. We stick it out for the long haul, tapping into the unmatched, limitless power of those who dedicate their lives to service – to love, lift up, tutor, coach, mentor, plan, execute – who strengthen communities and transform lives.??

Today, AmeriCorps continues to prioritize reducing barriers and expanding opportunity for boys and young men of color and their families. We fund MBK Communities like MBK Orlando and MBK Ohio State. We recently launched a partnership with OJJDP to support juvenile-justice involved youth reentering their communities. And recently in Sacramento, I joined a gathering of hundreds of enthusiastic, energetic, teen boys who participate in mentoring programs through MBK Sacramento and Improve Your Tomorrow (IYT), an AmeriCorps grantee. IYT’s AmeriCorps Mentor Fellowship is a year-long opportunity for diverse college students to develop strong, innovative, and empathetic leadership skills while supporting young men of color on their journey to and through college. And in the process, 99% of the young men that participate in the program graduated from high school and 70% went on to college.??

As President Obama said during the launch of My Brother’s Keeper, “None of this is going to be easy. It’s going to take time. We’re dealing with complicated issues that run deep in our history, run deep in our society, and are entrenched in our minds.” While work remains to bend that moral arc towards justice, we can, and should take time to celebrate our progress. And we continue to be thankful for the AmeriCorps members, volunteers, and community leaders who can always be counted on to lean into difficult challenges, take action in the face of overwhelming odds, and tackle complex issues when our nation is in need.??

Michael D. Smith is the CEO of AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteering, and former Executive Director of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance.??