After years of living in the margins of drafts, debates, lived realities and hopes, I am honored to share the release of our report, Our Dreams Won’t Be Deferred: Reclaiming Progress for Black Men and Boys in an Age of Retreat. This report is a culmination of shared research, reflection, heartbreak, and resolve. As one of the authors, I come to this moment with gratitude, humility, and a steadfast belief: the way we view and design policy and practice for Black men and boys must undergo a fundamental shift.
Why this report matters
Fifteen years ago, I, alongside a dedicated team of scholars, practitioners, and community voices, embarked on what we knew would be a transformative journey: to examine the lives, challenges, joys, and trajectories of Black men and boys with integrity. Our goal was to look beyond the reductive narratives that too often define them. We set out to center their strength, aspirations, and dignity.
Over those years, we conducted analyses, traced structural barriers (in education, employment and wealth, fatherhood and families, health, and justice), and listened deeply to the voices of those whom the system often overlooked.
It brought us to this moment, when Our Dreams Won’t Be Deferred is now part of the public discourse. This report is not simply another study. It is a call to action. It is a reflection of long-term work that refuses to treat Black men and boys as problems to be solved, but as assets to be nurtured, as leaders in their own right, and as partners in shaping the future.
What we found
While I encourage you to engage fully with the report, I want to highlight three key themes that emerged and that we believe should reframe how policy and practice approach Black men and boys:
- Structural barriers are persistent and interconnected. We documented how systemic factors such as segregated schooling, discriminatory hiring practices, housing instability, and over-policing create overlapping impediments. These do not operate in silos. A barrier in one domain (e.g., employment) reverberates in others (e.g., family stability, health).
- Narrative matters. Over the years, we observed how the deficit-frame (“risk,” “vulnerability,” “absence”) about Black men and boys shapes policy design, direct services, and public perception. By telling different stories such as ones that uplift agency, potential, and leadership we open policy to new possibilities. Research in media and public opinion about Black male achievement is clear: how we talk about this population matters deeply.
- We must shift from intervention to investment. Much of the work to-date focused on fixing what’s broken. Our research shows the promise of reframing: investments in living-wage employment, fatherhood supports, mentorship and leadership development, and stable housing will culminate in building long-term ecosystems. When policy treats Black men and boys as holders of promise, we change the entire structure of opportunity.
Why now?
Why release this report now? Because the moment demands it. The past decade has shown both progress and persistent inequities. The pandemic laid bare racial disparities in health and economics, the criminal justice system continues to cast long shadows, and our public discourse still defaults too often to fear, deficit, and marginalization. Our current political climate has been an assault on Black men and boys. Despite this, we also see movements, momentum, innovation, courageous local work, and leadership rooted in lived experience.
With 15 years of research behind us, this is our moment to offer a document that isn’t simply diagnostic, but directional. To invite policymakers, foundations, nonprofits, community groups, and individuals to alter the lens through which they see Black men and boys, and thus to alter the levers of policy they deploy.
How we hope you will use it
- Policy makers: Use the report as a blueprint for structural change such as revising hiring and procurement policies, redesigning housing strategies, and embedding mentorship and leadership pipelines for Black men and boys as core components.
- Funders: Take learnings from the report to assess if existing investments are supporting transformational change in communities and systems, and to guide strategic planning for future investments. Look critically at the organizations you fund to ensure their work aligns with asset-based framing, cross-sectional strategies, and radical change rather than mere intervention.
- Nonprofits and community practitioners: Let the report inform program design that is long-term, that centers voice and agency, and that doesn’t treat Black men and boys solely as beneficiaries but as decision-makers and co-creators.
- Researchers and academics: We invite you to build on the data, to deepen, to critique, and to extend.
- All of us: We invite a shift in how we talk, how we frame, and how we believe. In schools, in workplaces, in homes, in barbershops. Let our language reflect possibility, dignity, and partnership.
A word of gratitude
To every person who shared their support, time, insights, and the truth of their journey: this report is for you. To the team of researchers and authors, the countless hours of analysis and writing: thank you. And to those of you reading this today: thank you for engaging fully.
What comes next
Releasing this report is not the end. We hope you join us by parsing through the data, implementing the recommendations, and creating meaningful and impactful solutions.
We know that when Black men and boys have the systems, supports, opportunities, and investments to thrive, then our whole society thrives.
Thank you for reading.
In partnership and hope,
Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt, Ed.D.
Founder & CEO, The Moriah Group
