We Dream a World: The 2025 Vision for Black Men and Boys

The 2025 Campaign for Black Men and Boys' vision is a world where black men are on equal footing with the rest of American society in the areas of education; employment and wealth; health; fatherhood and families; and justice, rights, responsibilities, and opportunities. This report sets forth a strategy to raise awareness, create local impact, and advance better policies to achieve this goal.

• Achieving quality education for black males requires educators that see the potential in black boys, engaging communities to address the developmental needs of the whole child, and increasing access to early childhood and postsecondary options. Tweet
• Black males earn less than their white peers at every education level. Some of the causes for this are hiring and workplace discrimination, unemployment or underemployment at the critical ages of 16-24, and the struggle to find employment faced by black males who are ex-offenders. Tweet
• The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program aims to help low-income parents, but in reality it creates barriers to black fathers' involvement and two-parent family formation. Racial biases in child welfare cases and social services workers create further obstacles to black fathers being the best they can be. Tweet
• The crisis of black men and the criminal justice system is widely known. Actionable policy recommendations include: repeal mandatory sentencing statutes; improve public defense services for low-income black males; expand the use of community-based sanctions; and encourage hiring of black males in legal professions through incentives, training, and recruitment. Tweet