Photo © One Hundred Black Men
One Hundred Black Men of New York is Celebrating 60 Years of Service to the Community
Working in the community for almost 60 years, One Hundred Black Men of New York (OHBM) is leveraging its members’ collective talent, ability, and energy towards achieving meaningful gains for the Black community.
OHBM’s initiatives focus on education through mentoring, wealth-building strategies, fostering economic development, and raising awareness of health issues affecting Black communities.
OHBM was founded to close equality gaps and help people overcome challenging situations to find success in life. Leading up to its 60th anniversary in 2023, the nonprofit is focusing on ramping up its community support.
“This year, we are fostering excellence by awarding 45 scholarships and 10 paid summer internships, mentoring over 600 students, twice as many as last year,” executive director Courtney A. Bennett explained. “We are preparing to feed 10,000 people throughout NYC for the holidays, and expanding our staff to help 800 court-involved young people through our new citywide restorative justice and business development initiative.”
Alongside their initiatives for the milestone year, OHBM also started a music performance program and awarded more than $2.6 million to struggling Black small businesses across the country in partnership with Hennessy.
OHBM has been a well-received program in New York for decades, in partial thanks to notable founders and board members, including late MLB player Jackie Robinson, former NYC mayor David N. Dinkins, and an abundance of political leaders and businessmen such as Charlie Rangel, Basil Paterson, Percy Sutton, and J. Bruce Llewellyn.
Since 1963, OHBM has put education at the forefront of its mission. They are actively engaged in the arts and culture scene of the Black community not only in New York City but worldwide. Utilizing their presence in arts and culture communities, they work towards encouraging their scholarship recipients and mentees to learn more about the power of the arts.
Known for their positive impact in the community, OHBM hosts annual events to raise money for their scholarships and other programs. Funds are used to uplift communities in need. The events include The Annual Dr. Roscoe C. Brown Golf Classic, in which OHBM just hosted their 15th annual event; the first annual OHBM/PGA Junior One Hundred Golf Challenge, introducing over 60 NYC youth to the game of golf and the career opportunities of this $84 billion industry—the event was sponsored by the PGA of America and raised over $400,000—and, in 2004, OHBM founded the first Eagle Academy for Young Men, today there are six eagle academies serving more than 4,000 students each year.
Looking towards the future, OHBM is setting their sights on making New York City safe not only for the Black community, but all New Yorkers alike, OHBM is hosting a gun buyback program. Working in partnership with district attorneys, the police, and community partners, OHBM has been able to deploy these programs in every borough across the city.
Support One Hundred Black Men in their mission at ohbm.org
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The mission of One Hundred Black Men of New York is to play a proactive role in leveraging our collective talent, ability and energy toward achieving meaningful gains for the Black community. One Hundred Black Men initiatives focus on education through mentoring, wealth building strategies, fostering economic development and raising awareness of health issues affecting our communities.
