The Black Think Tank was founded on
January 21, 1979, by individuals who had
been at the center of the late 1960s birth
and battle for black studies. The Black Think
Tank pioneered a Black Male/Female
Relationships movement, including "black
love" (Kupenda groups, Kupenda being
Swahili for 'to love') designed to help our
people learn to love again, to feel loved, to
love ourselves and, th
erefore, one another,
inasmuch as we already know how to hate
one another. The Black Think Tank then
issued The Call and was the catalyst for the
contemporary Rites of Passage movement
for African-American boys in the popular
manual, Bringing the Black Boys to
Manhood: The Passage, which promulgated
lectures and workshops nationally and
internationally, including in promulgated
lectures and workshops promulgated
lectures and workshops nationally and
internationally, including in London and the
Caribbean islands. Related books of
importance and influence followed quickly:
The Endangered Black Family and The
Miseducation of the Black Child. We, as a people, can see
clearly now that the old ideas have not
worked, and some that might have worked
have yet to be tried. Our leaders have
argued back and forth for decades lost
forever over the many good thoughts and
corollaries of Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois, but have
never really implemented either one of
them. We must continue to be receptive to the
insights and strategies of the anointed and
renowned among us, past and present, but
now is the time to pe*****te and jump-
start the wisdom of the people, the
unsung, unseen and unheard, those
Langston Hughes once dubbed the
"misbred, misread, and misled." Thus,
Langston anticipated the words of his
fellow alumnus of Pennsylvania's Lincoln
University, Kwame Nkrumah: "Go back to
the people; live with them, learn from them,
love them. “Start with what they know,
build on what they have, for the people
may be the best thing that you will ever
have.”
This is where the Black Think Tank comes in,
dedicated to forging a facility to tap into
and foment the undying enthusiasm of our
race to think and grow free.
