United Black Family Scholarship Foundation

Memoir as a Tool for New Futures, Behind and Beyond Bars Building Writing Communities in a Story Based Strategy for Redemption and Healing and Growth By Erika Duncan, Founder and Director of Herstory Writers Network What might happen if people who were incarcerated...

From a Prison Cell to a Movement: Why Building Community Matters By Ivan Kilgore Shortly after going in, I realized I had to do more than just survive. No, I needed to create something that reach beyond these concrete walls. I founded UBFSF from a maximum-security...

Volunteer Highlight By Taos Washington Since joining the United Black Family Scholarship Foundation (UBFSF) in August 2023, I have progressed through several roles, each enhancing my ability to drive meaningful change within underserved communities. Beginning as the...

Being the Wife of an Incarcerated Man in the United States: My Testimony By Halima Kilgore My name is Halima Kilgore, and I am the wife of Ivan Kilgore, founder of the United Black Family Scholarship Foundation (UBFSF). Through this testimony, I want to share my...

Rethinking Black History Month: Moving Beyond Western Benchmarks and Tokenized “Firsts” By Ivan Kilgore Every February, Black History Month is celebrated across the United States with tributes to African American pioneers who have "broken barriers" in politics,...

As Field Director for the R.E.B.U.I.L.D. Community Reinvestment Program, my focus is on addressing systemic challenges such as criminalization, homelessness, and barriers to affordable housing and homeownership. Through strategic partnerships and grassroots...

We Can Use Dr. King’s Legacy By Erena Daniel The legacy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. left at the height of the Civil Rights Movement had lasting and profound impacts on the consolidation efforts of African American people, both then and today. Despite the magnitude of...

THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN DR. KING'S INCARCERATION & TODAY'S INCARCERATED WRITER  By Ivan Kilgore, January 2025 This year, I was invited to speak at the University of Santa Clara to commemorate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and its connection to...

December 2024 Message From Our Founde This month, we wanted to highlight the organization's biggest accomplishments for 2024. Personally, for me as someone who's been in a cage for over two decades, building infrastructure was at the top of the list. Hands down, any...

Rehabilitation Over Profit By Megan McDrew Growing up in the shadow of San Quentin and Alcatraz, I’ve always been drawn to prisons with a mix of curiosity, disdain, and a healthy dose of fear. San Quentin, once one of the most notoriously dangerous prisons in...

November 2024 Message From Our Founder November marked the 24th year I've been incarcerated. In May, I graduated with two degrees: one in Liberal Arts and another in Political Science. It was a bittersweet moment. On one hand, I looked to the sky and smiled, knowing...

Prisoner of War By Monsour Owolabi this poem is part of the “100 Stories” Archive with Stony Brook University to be published 6 November 2024   I’m in a tomb for the living, locked in a box. My clothes are all white except my gray socks. It’s 95° or so I hear;...

This article was originally published by Inquest Magazine on 10 October, 2024 The People v. the Prison By Ivan Kilgore California is discovering the hard way that you can’t leave decarceral reforms in the hands of prison officials At times it appears as though...

It's said that processionary caterpillars travel in long, undulating lines, one creature after another. Jean-Henri Fabre, the French naturalist who died in 1915, once led a group of these caterpillars onto the rim of a large flowerpot, so that the lead caterpillar...

Catherine Clark Perkins affectionately known as Ms. Cat (Catron Academy Learning Institute)  is a community activist/advocate working to end Mass Incarceration and gang/gun violence. She is the CEO and founder of Catron Academy Learning Institute. A member of the...

My name is Laurie Tang, and I volunteer as the Program and Policy Coordinator for the R.E.B.U.I.L.D. team at UBFSF. So far, I have been engaged in structuring the R.E.B.U.I.L.D. narrative, discussing ideas to reach wider audiences with Ivan, and helping to plan...

Testimonial for Mr. Banks When I first met Ivan, I was immediately struck by his confidence and determination. We walked to chow one morning, and as he talked to me about his business, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Here was a man who, despite the immense...

Words as Resistance: Dismantling Systems of Oppression through Writing By Keziah Poole As a teacher-scholar of resistance literature and Director of The Readers’ Circle, a peer-editing program that connects college students with incarcerated writers, I am often met...

September Message From Our Founder By Ivan Kilgore This month's theme is one that perplexes many and begs of us to ask the following questions: How? How do we dismantle an oppressive system? What are they? Are they régimes led by dictators? Are the tools they use...

Excerpt: What (or Who) Is Broken? To pave the road of his revolution, Ivan Kilgore, [founder of United Black Family Scholarship Foundation,] has enlisted the help of a younger generation. Like the liberation movements he learned about from elders while sitting in the...