A White House program aimed at young minority men is growing.
President Obama will announce Monday the launch of My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a new independent nonprofit. Obama will give remarks during the launch at Lehman College in the Bronx, N.Y., and then participate in a roundtable discussion with young men from around the country, the White House said.
The new nonprofit is related to My Brother’s Keeper, a White House initiative launched in January 2014 in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s killing. This new off-shoot is seen as a response to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore and subsequent unrest.
“As a proud son of Baltimore, this week’s announcement comes at a time of unique and special resonance for me,” Cabinet Secretary Broderick Johnson, the chairman of My Brother’s Keeper, wrote in a White House email announcing the initiative.
“The president’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative is about recognizing that our young people are not the problem, but rather the solution,” he added.
The new nonprofit has already $80 million in financial commitments, including BET Networks, American Express, Sprint and PepsiCo.
Its official mission is as follows: “My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (‘MBK Alliance’), a new, independent nonprofit, aims to eliminate the gaps in opportunity and achievement for boys and young men of color — making the American dream available to all. This will require strategic evidence-based interventions from community, private, public and social enterprise partners that holistically tackle these gaps from cradle to career.”
