Saving Our Sons

A project by journalism students in the convergence newsroom at Roosevelt University. This spring, Roosevelt University student journalists chronicled efforts across the city aimed at educating, helping and saving young black males who face dire statistics. Across the city, people are on the front lines, seeking to make a difference through communi... ty organizations, churches, schools and also other programs. Among them is Breakthrough Urban Ministries. Roosevelt University journalism students in the convergence newsroom sought to document how some people across the city are fighting to save our sons, seeking answers from programs like the South Shore Drill Team. Despite the dire statistics, the sounds of life, progress and hope sprout from the hallowed halls of schools like Providence-St. Mel and Christ the King. For many young men who face serving in a juvenile detention facility, the Cook County Sheriff's program known as S.W.A.P., is putting them to work and seeking to help deter them from other trouble. There is a crisis in America. It is a crisis of epic proportions, one that threatens the very existence of a people and that centers around the premature deaths of one group of Americans for whom the statistical data paints a grim portrait: Young black men. Among the alarming numbers is a bourgeoning number of homicides, which remains the leading cause of death among young black men ages 15 to 34, something the Centers for Disease Control have designated a national epidemic. Coupled with figures that show the rate of new HIV cases among black men growing at an alarming and disproportionate rate to men of other races, and a grim picture of other demographics, black males have for decades now maintained the distinction of being dubbed an endangered species. Indeed young black men today have killed more young black men historically than the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama recorded 3,446 lynchings of blacks from 1882 to 1968the toll of 86 years. But the toll of blacks murdered in ...Read More