According to a new report released by the National Campaign for Black Male Achievement, the city of Detroit is leading the nation in providing new avenues to guarantee Black male progress.
The organization was founded in 2008 by the Open Society Foundations. Currently, the CBMA has 4,703 leaders representing nearly 2,555 organizations and programs across the country.
In the report, 50 U.S. cities were rated on how well they could address the achievement gap. On a scale from 0 to 100, Detroit came out on top with a score of 95, along with Oakland, Calif., and Washington, D.C. The median score was 48.5.
“It’s a declaration of where there is growing promise in cities,” the group’s CEO, Shawn Dove, said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday. “There is a great deal of work that needs to be done.”
Every two years, the CBMA has updated their Black Male Achievement City Index by examining how well and how committed a city is to fixing inherent racial biases that prevent Black males from succeeding. The CBMA looks a the number of CBMA members a city has. The organization also looks at the different programs that specifically address Black male achievement, and the amount of philanthropic money brought in to help those programs.
The report reveals some interesting things about Black male achievement. For example, cities that have overwhelming Black populations are doing more for Black males than cities that don’t. Other notable findings from the report include:
- Atlanta and Chicago scored 67 and 64 respectively.
- Cities above the Mason-Dixon line have significantly higher scores than cities below it.
- Cities in the midwest and on the west coast do worse than east coast cities.
