Kenneth Barnes Sr. was working towards his doctoral degree at Loyola College in Maryland, the first and only African American male as well as the oldest student in the program at the time, when tragedy struck. His oldest son was murdered. Rather than do nothing, Barnes found out through neighborhood sources who the perpetrator was and turned the information over to the police. The murderer, a 17-year-old youth, was apprehended two days after the murder of Barnes's son. It was later discovered that he had killed at least two other individuals of which the authorities were aware.

Shortly after his son’s death, Barnes helped found the organization Reaching Out to Others Together (ROOT), a nonprofit organization committed to advocacy, awareness, and education to reduce incidents of youth and gun violence.

Kenneth Braswell is director of the New York State Fatherhood Initiative. He works closely with the Center for Child Well-Being, where he leads efforts to involve noncustodial parents in the economic and social well-being of their children. Braswell manages a $9-million fatherhood pilot program across New York State. Through the Strengthening Families through Stronger Fathers Initiative, Braswell also manages the first and only noncustodial earned income tax credit as well as an evaluation conducted by the Urban Institute and Dr. Ron Mincy of Columbia University.

Braswell brings to this subject matter a spirit and passion that he developed as the father of two daughters and his personal experience involving the challenges faced by men seeking to establish or maintain parental relationships when there is a divorce or separation. He is also completing When the Tear Won’t Fall, a personal account of his life and the struggles between manhood and fatherhood.

Joseph T. Jones Jr. is founder of the Center for Urban Families, a Baltimore, Maryland, nonprofit established to empower low-income families by enhancing the ability of women and men to contribute to their families as wage earners and of men to fulfill their roles as fathers.

Jones previously developed and directed the men’s services program for the federally funded Baltimore Healthy Start initiative, and replicated the Baltimore affiliate of the nationally recognized STRIVE employment services program. Jones is now a national leader in workforce development, fatherhood, and family services programming, and influences policy direction nationwide.

David C. Miller is the co-founder and chief visionary officer of the Urban Leadership Institute, which focuses on developing positive youth-development strategies. The institute provides strategic planning, professional development, program development, positive youth development concepts, and crisis management services.

Miller is the architect of Dare to Be King, a community-based intervention that addresses anger, moral reasoning, and decision making among African American males ages 12 to 17. The project features seminars, workshops, and a comprehensive curriculum designed to empower African American males as well as motivate and inspire the professionals who work with them. Dare to Be King uses a Rites of Passage framework to address many of the complex social issues that confront adolescent African American males by providing practical alternatives to community violence, substance abuse, and delinquency.

Miller is a graduate of the University of Baltimore (BS Political Science) and Goucher College (Master's in Education). He is currently working on Stepping Up Our Game: A Parents' Guide to Navigating the Juvenile Justice System (September 2008).

Derek H. Suite MD is a board-certified psychiatrist and ordained minister on a mission to revolutionize mental health treatment for communities of color. In addition to serving on the Institutional Review Board for New York State’s Office of Children and Family Services and on the community advisory board of the New York Health Foundation, Suite is the Northeast & Mid-Atlantic regional director for the Black Psychiatrists of America.

In 1999, he and his wife founded an award-winning mental-health practice, Full Circle Health, which has received national recognition as a state-of-the-art community mental-health resource and has been featured in Black Enterprise magazine. Suite is also the founder of the nonprofit Life Enrichment Center, dedicated to providing culturally relevant psychoeducation and training to the community and its frontline caregivers. Under Suite’s leadership, the Life Enrichment Center has received funding from the Robin Hood Foundation, American Red Cross, Anne E. Casey Foundation, WorldVision, and the City Council of New York.