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Obama’s Outreach to Young Men of Color

February 19, 2014 | MSNBC
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Images by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Students at Robeson High, in one of Chicago's most dangerous neighborhoods, Englewood. Image by Carlos Javier Ortiz. United States, 2009.

Members of St. Sabina Church gather to pray after a peace march in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood of Chicago. Image by Carlos Javier Ortiz. United States, 2013.

Family photos hang on a wall in the Perteet home in Chicago. Image by Carlos Javier Ortiz. United States, 2012.

Students at Robeson High face many challenges. As they enter school they have to walk through metal detectors, witness fights, and often do not know what they are doing on a day-to-day basis. Image by Carlos Javier Ortiz. United States, 2009.

Community organizers commemorate the one-year anniversary of the death of Damian Turner in August 2011. Turner was 18 when a stray bullet hit him while he was outside his home in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. Image by Carlos Javier Ortiz. United States, 2011.

After five years in office, America’s first black president may finally be getting serious about helping young minority men.

The White House announced earlier this month that President Barack Obama is set to launch a new initiative called “My Brother’s Keeper,” aimed at bolstering the lives of young men of color – a demographic far too often trapped in cycles of poverty, academic failure and incarceration.

“We’re going to pull together private philanthropists, foundations, working with governors and mayors and churches and non-profits and we’re just going to focus on young men of color and find ways in which we can create more pathways to success for them,” Obama said in an interview that aired during the NBA All-Star game on Sunday.

To read more of the article, written by Trymaine Lee, click here.