Black scholars reach into their own pasts to help beleaguered young black men
Dawn Turner Trice, Chicago Tribune, December 13, 2010

When Waldo E. Johnson Jr., a University of Chicago social scientist, decided to put together a book on what’s hurting and helping young black men, he decided to collect the thoughts of several black scholars, many relatively young and with experiences not too far removed from their counterparts who are in peril.

“When I started the project about five years ago, (many of the contributors) were post-doctoral candidates or just starting their academic careers,” said Johnson, an associate professor at the university’s School of Social Service Administration. “They were largely unknown but offering some really amazing empirical scholarship on interesting issues.”

Johnson, whose doctorate is in social work, said that as he was conceptualizing “Social Work With African American Males: Health, Mental Health, and Social Policy” ( Oxford University Press), he thought about a book from the early 1980s that examined adult black men in a comprehensive way that hadn’t been done before.(Read the full article)