24/03/2026
Urban Concerned Clergy Founding Statement
A Continuity Body for Atlanta’s Children, Culture, and Community
Atlanta does not need another performance of concern.
Atlanta needs covering.
Atlanta needs courage.
Atlanta needs continuity.
Atlanta needs a faith-based body that is still willing to go where the pain is, speak the language of the people, stand with our children, and build real solutions in the trenches.
That is why Urban Concerned Clergy is formally stepping forward.
We are not emerging out of bitterness.
We are emerging out of responsibility.
We are not a reactionary body created overnight.
We are the formal emergence of a continuity body that has already been carrying this work for decades.
We Stand in a Real Lineage
Urban Concerned Clergy stands in a trench-centered lineage of spiritual fathering that helped shape both Atlanta and the broader Black church tradition.
That stream reaches through the Heritage Sanctuary and ministerial life of Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Daddy King commissioned Albert Brinson to build the Ebenezer Youth Organization. From March 9 through March 15, 1960, that same stream helped produce the Appeal for Human Rights and what became known as the Atlanta Student Movement.
That history matters.
It reminds us that in Atlanta, spiritual leadership was never meant to be limited to pulpits, personalities, politicians, press conferences, or public relations. Real faith leadership in this city once meant helping to guide students, organize moral courage, build disciplined youth leadership, and stand in the gap for the people.
That same spirit also runs through Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, who moved toward the inner city when others were moving away from it. When many fled the pressure, the poverty, the pain, and the youth of the urban community, he ran toward them. He modeled a faith that was practical, courageous, economic, and rooted in the real conditions of Black people.
That spirit runs through Rev. William H. Gray III, who carried the conviction of survival ministry as a Baptist preacher from the hood, a man who believed God gets glory not just in polished spaces but in the trenches, in the struggle, and in the story of a people trying to survive, rebuild, and rise.
That spirit also runs through Rev. Dr. Joseph L. Roberts, whose shepherding ingrained in us that ministry is not image management. Ministry is responsibility. Ministry is fathering. Ministry is covering. Ministry is being present for the people, especially the young, the vulnerable, and the overlooked.
This is the lineage that formed us.
This is the spirit that anchored us.
This is the stream we are carrying forward.
Urban Success University Did Not Start Yesterday
What is now being introduced publicly as Urban Concerned Clergy did not begin this year.
For decades, this work has already been alive through youth ministry, creative arts ministry, entrepreneurial development, school partnerships, community engagement, prison ministry, mentoring, and faith-based organizing.
When Yolanda Denise King birthed Urban Success University in 2002, as the final class of College for Teens was closing out, a new phase of the work began. What started as independent youth development, creative arts, and practical empowerment continued to grow because the needs of our children kept growing.
Urban Success University became more than a youth ministry.
More than a creative arts ministry.
More than an entrepreneurial ministry.
It became a continuity space.
A place where youth could be seen, formed, challenged, and developed when other structures were declining, disconnecting, retiring, aging out, or losing their language for the next generation.
The reality is simple: many of our original pastor partners have either passed away, retired, or stepped away. And too much of the newer leadership landscape has become disconnected from the streets, disconnected from the culture, disconnected from the youth, and disconnected from the language of the people.
As a result, what used to be fathering has too often become performance.
What used to be covering has too often become ceremony.
What used to be guidance has too often become politics.
What used to be ministry has too often become optics.
And our children are paying the price.
The Crisis in Front of Us
Today, Atlanta faces a serious youth and community crisis.
Our students are dealing with instability, fear, violence, school shutdowns, economic pressure, cultural confusion, and spiritual neglect. Families are frustrated. Parents are burdened. Teachers are stretched thin. Business owners want to help. Communities feel the tension. And too many of our young people are trying to navigate dangerous conditions without the consistent guidance, discipline, language, and love that once helped anchor previous generations.
We are watching a city where too many youth can access guns easier than access guidance.
We are watching a city where safe spaces are promised and then withdrawn.
We are watching a city where concern is often performed in public, but not carried consistently in the trenches.
We are watching a city where political access is often celebrated more than real fathering.
And we are saying clearly: that is not enough.
We cannot keep fundraising off our children without truly raising our children.
We cannot keep calling meetings while our neighborhoods remain unstable.
We cannot keep using the pain of our communities for visibility while failing to build lasting infrastructure for the people.
The city does not just need concern.
The city needs covering.
Why Urban Concerned Clergy Must Stand Up Now
Urban Concerned Clergy is stepping forward because responsibility has transferred.
When the old structures stop reaching the people, responsibility does not disappear. It moves to those still willing to carry it.
That is where we are now.
Urban Concerned Clergy is the faith-based continuity body for Atlanta’s:
streets
youth
hip hop community
spiritual remnant
parents
teachers
business owners
community organizers
returning citizens
neighborhood builders
and ministries still serious about touching the real conditions of the people
We are not a public relations clergy body.
We are a presence-based clergy body.
We are not clergy for optics.
We are clergy for assignment.
We are not here merely to make statements.
We are here to mentor, organize, build, protect, and mobilize.
This is the body for people who still believe God belongs in the trenches.
What We Represent
Urban Concerned Clergy represents a new and necessary model of faith-based leadership in Atlanta:
A leadership model that connects the streets, the youth, the hip hop community, the spiritual ones, and the builders.
A leadership model that knows how to speak to a teenager without sounding fake.
A leadership model that understands that spiritual development, economic opportunity, mentorship, and community safety are all connected.
A leadership model that does not separate the sanctuary from the street, the church from the child, the business from the block, or the spiritual from the practical.
We believe faith must be present:
in the schools
in the neighborhoods
in the parks
in the community spaces
in the lives of our boys
in the development of our girls
in the support of our families
and in the economic rebuilding of our people
That is why our work includes not only preaching, but building.
What We Are Building
We are building real infrastructure, not just rhetoric.
That work includes:
Urban Success University — the continuity body for independent youth development, leadership, and formation.
www.UrbanSuccessUniversity.com
Summer Success School — making the original curriculum available free of charge so camps, churches, schools, and youth organizations can use it to teach young people principles, purpose, and practical development.
www.SummerSuccessSchool.com
The Kingdom Marketplace — registering, reconnecting, and repositioning our business community through the world’s first AI-powered GEO entrepreneurial ecosystem.
www.TheKingdomMarketplace.com
Select Patronage — identifying and supporting the businesses, builders, and community institutions that are willing to reinvest in our people.
www.SelectPatronage.com
Black Women Run the World — uplifting, equipping, and honoring the women and daughters who are central to rebuilding our communities.
www.BlackWomenRunTheWorld.com
Brains Over B***s — creating pathways, support, and opportunity for our girls and young women.
www.BrainsOverB***s.com
Kingdom Auto Solutions — building practical economic and mentorship pathways for our boys so they are not left to street survival, corner hustling, or unsafe alternatives.
We are asking the community to patronize, partner, sponsor, mentor, invest, and build with us.
Because our boys need more than speeches.
Our girls need more than symbolism.
Our families need more than promises.
Our communities need more than photo opportunities.
This Is a City Issue
This is not just a church issue.
This is a city issue.
When youth are under-led, communities become unstable.
When safe spaces fail, streets fill the vacuum.
When spiritual leadership becomes performative, trust collapses.
When trust collapses, children suffer.
That is why Urban Concerned Clergy is not just speaking to pastors. We are speaking to the whole city.
We are calling on:
parents
teachers
business owners
elders
youth workers
ministry leaders
artists
organizers
fathers
mothers
mentors
serious community stakeholders
Anybody serious about our children, our neighborhoods, and our future is invited to build.
The Urgency Is Now
There are only a few weeks left before summer.
That means only a few weeks to organize:
safe spaces
mentorship
entrepreneurial pathways
spiritual development
summer programming
economic opportunities
visible community presence
and real support systems for our youth
We do not have time for another season of delay.
If we have failed our children, then we need the humility to say so, the honesty to admit it, and the courage to start over.
Urban Concerned Clergy is our declaration that we are ready to start over the right way.
Not with more performance.
Not with more politics.
Not with more image management.
But with presence.
With structure.
With fathering.
With love.
With accountability.
With building.
Our Call to Atlanta
We honor those who came before us.
But this hour requires more.
More presence.
More partnership.
More practical work.
More protection.
More fathering.
More faith in action.
We are not asking the city to believe in a new idea.
We are asking the city to join a build that is already underway.
Urban Concerned Clergy is not built out of bitterness.
It is built out of inheritance.
This is not a new spirit.
It is an old spirit being organized again for a new generation.
We have been there.
We are still there.
And now we are organizing what we have carried for decades into a body built for this hour.
For the children.
For the city.
For the culture.
For the future.
Urban Concerned Clergy
Faith in the Trenches. Presence in the Community. Building for the Next Generation.
