Blog | United Black Family Scholarship Foundation
If Only I had the Power and Possessed the Key
By C.G. If only I had the power to rise from the graves, all the buried slaves, who were raped, maimed and murdered. If I could only give them life, locked inside metal enslavements, with their key in my possession as they stood before me, I would set them all free –...
Information On How To Effectively Recruit Skilled Volunteers For Your Non-Profit Organization
If you’re building a nonprofit organization and you want or need consulting or development of such a program, please contact us.
How Can Someone In Prison Inspire Me to be Free & Live Life to the Fullest?
I began to realize that my footprints were going to be washed away in the tide of life because I had not gave due consideration to how I was living it. In fact, I was not living at all. I existed and was struggling to survive. What prison did was gave me time to take inventory, a hard look, at the fact that I had become a statistic, a number with little value amongst my community and peers. It was then that I became determined to change not only my plight but those of others.
Prisoner Lives Matter
Megan McDrew Prisoner Lives Matter, or at least they should. Yet, I’ve come to wonder if society actually sees the incarcerated as valuable or worthy of protection, especially in recent light of the pandemic? It pains me deeply to think of their plight but it hurts,...
Hidden Voices: 100 Prisoner Book Publishing Project!
As the founder of the United Black Family Scholarship Foundation, it is with great humility that I announce we are now accepting manuscript submissions from incarcerated authors for publication. Our objective is to select 100 prisoner written books to publish. There...
Redefining “Rehabilitation” By Isabella Cain
Redefining "Rehabilitation" By Isabella Cain, UBFSF Media & Marketing Director The word “rehabilitation” implies restoration. It suggests healing, renewal, and reintegration, however, in the context of incarceration, rehabilitation has often meant something very...
Care & Cooperation: Leadership Rooted in Humanity by Ivan Kilgore
Care & Cooperation: Leadership Rooted in Humanity By Ivan Kilgore, UBFSF Founder When I first began reflecting on this month’s theme—care and cooperation—the answer came to me almost immediately. What surfaced was not a theory, framework, or abstract leadership...
A Question on The Common Misconceptions Of Prison.
Why is it people think that prison is a place where you learn to make good choices, pick good friends, be polite and respectful all the time? Reply: Prison isn't where you learn to make 'good decisions.' It is a place you wind up warehoused as you await the day you...
Expanding Leadership Education for America’s Incarcerated By Ian Wilson
Expanding Leadership Education for America’s Incarcerated By Ian Wilson, UBFSF Project Manager My name is Ian Wilson and I serve as the Project Manager for Nonprofit Coaching and Leadership Training for America’s Incarcerated (NPCLT), working under Ivan Kilgore and...
On Sustaining Collaborative Partnerships By Dr. Zebulon Miletsky
On Sustaining Collaborative Partnerships By Zebulon Miletsky, PhD Considering this year’s theme of “Care and Cooperation: Partnerships that Work” leads me to meditate on my own methods to sustains collaboration—and our larger effort to create such a thing at the...
Wrongfully Convicted Murderer Develops & Implements Successful Student Volunteer Program
Controlling the narrative as to who the incarcerated are and their potential is a critical to defining how society perceives and interacts with the incarcerated and how they themselves see themselves. They are not the worse decision of their lives.
PRISON SLAVE MOVEMENT–A N!##AS NIGHTMARE
In the face of adversity Not Worker, But N!##A Chattel! The F$%#?? By Ivan Kilgore Whereas the positionality of the worker (whether a factory worker demanding a monetary wage, an immigrant, or a white woman demanding a social wage) gestures toward the reconfiguration...
OUR 2023 SCHOLARSHIP LAUREATE
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Successful Inside-Out Restorative Justice Programs Are Possible By Isabella Cain
Successful Inside-Out Restorative Justice Programs Are Possible By Isabella Cain For decades restorative justice programs within the United States have focused on outside-in tactics. How can people or groups outside of the system help those individuals inside, where...
Making Charitable Donations to Non Profits By Desiree Cain, CPA
Making Charitable Donations to Non Profits By Desiree Cain, CP Making charitable donations is a wonderful way to support causes you care about. What many people don’t realize is that the IRS offers tax benefits that can make your gift even more impactful....
Partnerships vs. Charity — Empowering Incarcerated Leaders By Ivan Kilgore
Partnerships vs. Charity — Empowering Incarcerated Leaders: A First-Person Reflection for the Launch of The New Wave By Ivan Kilgore, Founder, United Black Family Scholarship Foundation (UBFSF) For years, I’ve sat inside these concrete walls watching how...
Give Me Free! A Critique on Contemporary Prison Movements.
By Ivan Kilgore, June 2019 I'd say the Free Alabama Movement had a lot to do with many of the reforms in the state of Alabama that we are seeing in the news recently. Namely, the resending of the Habitual Offender Act, which lead to a sentence of LWOP. For those of...
We Are Not Yet Free — And That’s Why We’re Launching The New Wave By Ivan Kilgore
We Are Not Yet Free — And That’s Why We’re Launching The New Wave By Ivan Kilgore This past week, I had a powerful conversation with my comrade Max Parthas. We were talking about freedom, a word so often used, especially around national holidays like Juneteenth, but...
The Importance of Radical Activism in 2025 By Isabella Cain
The Importance of Radical Activism in 2025 By Isabella Cain In 1964, Malcolm X stood before the Organization of Afro-American Unity and declared: “You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or who says...
The People with the Worst Backgrounds Build the Best Futures: What Malcolm X Taught Me About Redemption, Resilience, and Revolution By Ivan Kilgore
The People with the Worst Backgrounds Build the Best Futures: What Malcolm X Taught Me About Redemption, Resilience, and Revolution By Ivan Kilgore When Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz said, "The people with the worst backgrounds build the best futures," I felt those words in my...