United Black Family Scholarship Foundation

Every day, inside America’s prisons countless volunteers from a growing number of nonprofit organizations sit down with incarcerated men and women to provide a variety of self-help, advocacy and educational programming. Without question, the services they provide are greatly needed and appreciated. We know without these change-makers, access to transformative experiences and tools much needed to become productive citizens would significantly diminish for our incarcerated citizens. Still and yet, the question remains: do we dare empower them with the idea and wherewithal to become effective community leaders, nonprofit CEOs, and board members themselves? If not, what are we doing?

As such, we believe this to be the imperative of the day–that is, empowering America’s incarcerated with the idea and wherewithal to become nonprofit CEOs, board members, etc.–because we can never have enough boots on the ground working to address the plethora of problems before our communities. Nor can any one person or organization for this much solve these problems. However, what we can do is commit ourselves to empowering and building community leaders.

Credit: Courtesy of Jacques Verduin | NPR – Psychologist Helps San Quentin Prisoners Find Freedom Through Self-Reflection

Therefore, in keeping with our mission we are taking our Nonprofit Coaching & Leadership Training Conference into America’s prisons to begin working with people we believe have the greatest potential to make the biggest difference: Incarcerated Citizens!

Our annual Nonprofit Coaching & Leadership Training Conference is a two-day event designed specifically to work with incarcerated citizens to develop the capacity to build community leaders and effective programs to address the plethora of social and economic issues before undeserved communities.

Willie M. Clay II is an Oakland California native and current resident of the Delaney Street Honors Program. He is currently serving a Life WithOut Parole (LWOP) sentence and has been incarcerated since 2009. Mr. Clay has been working diligently on improving himself, in terms of redemption, remorse, and repentance. Especially through his actions and conduct. He has participated in a variety of rehabilitative programs. Those efforts consist of anger management, denial management, victim awareness, conflict recognition and resolution, to name a few. Mr. Clay also assists with tutoring, mentorship, and facilitates the above mentioned groups, as a means to give back to the community. In hope of getting other men to a place of healing, thus rehabilitation.
Mr. Clay has also been participating in the industry of rehabilitation; in terms of a Rehabilitative Barber Vocational Training Program, in which he created a 501(c3) and submitted it to the Governor’s office for implementation into CDCR institutions. He is currently at the end of publishing a book: “Creating a Family Foundation/Corporation Through Real Estate With Generational Wealth in Mind.”

Barry Monroe is currently serving a 40 years to life sentence for his crimes. He is the “In Building Self Help Institutional Coordinator” at CSP Solano Prison, CA.

Mr. Monroe spends his time making amends for the crime he regrets committing. He helps other incarcerated inmates to see the impact of what they have done to their victims, communities, and their families. He also promotes positive pro social citizenship, challenges belief systems, and promotes MANUP. Making rational decisions, acting with precision on rationality, never giving up on rational decisions, uplifting myself, family and community by positive living. MANUP.
Mr. Monroe is also a practitioner of when you know better, you do better. This is needed to be modeled in order to better our communities.

Phillip White is a Life Coach, Mentor, Philanthropist, Entrepreneur, Author, and Advocate for the at risk youth in the community. He believes in the motto, “each one, reach one, teach one.” Growing up, Phillip fell victim to being a product of his environment. He indulged in a lifestyle that was counterproductive to his true purpose and goals in life. While incarcerated, Phillip found himself! Turning to God and participating in a variety of self help programs, Phillip was able to identify the root of his old dysfunctional beliefs, his poor responses to conflict, and his shortcomings. With new insight, self worth, and a new foundation built on God and good morals, Phillip White gives back to society by writing and publishing books that address the everyday serious issues that once alerted his growth and development. His latest work, “What the Heck is Fentanyl” was just published and is now available on Amazon.

Jamil Ahmad is 53 yrs. old, and goes by ‘The Handsome Camel’. He is a forever student and is committed to the process of self development, in himself and in others.

Fabian Kainzrants is 49 years old and received Life WithOut Parole (LWOP) at the age of 18. He is an entrepreneur, husband, and social advocate.

Brian Thames is the co-creator and producer of the renowned, multiple award-winning podcast, Uncuffed. He recently won an award for one of his Uncuffed stories. SPJ NorCal [Society of Professional Journalist – Northern California] gave the award for Excellence in Community Journalism of a podcast, radio, or audio.

Damara Hatch is a 41 year old San Francisco, California native. As a child, he lived in Texas, Boston, Chicago, and several others before his family resettled in the Bay Area. Of his many talents and interests, he is an accomplished author, poet, and entrepreneur. He is a passionate community organizer, investor and life coach.

Hassan Farris is a 26 year old Los Angeles, California native. He aspires to make the best of his prison experience by learning community organizing skills so that he may return to his community and bridge the divide caused by inner city gang violence.

Tino Pese is an incarcerated activist noted for this work in developing “Prisoners Embracing Anti-hostilities Cultural Evolution” (P.E.A.C.E.), a revolutionary forward-thinking and diverse group of men at Pelican Bay State Prison who organize to change its prison culture from one noted for its extreme violence to now being noted for its commitment to higher learning and social betterment. He has been incarcerated for 22 years and is passionate about change.

Below are our discussion event panelists.

Glenn E. Martin currently sits as UBFSF’s chairman of the Board of Directors. He is also the President and Founder of GEMtrainers.com, a social justice consultancy firm that partners with nonprofits from across the United States to assist with fundraising, organizational development and marketing.

Glenn is a longstanding American criminal justice reform advocate and is the founder and former president of JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA). He also founded the campaign, #CLOSErikers, and co-founded the Education from the Inside Out Coalition, a national campaign working to remove barriers to higher education facing students while they are in prison and once they are released. Martin regularly comments on criminal justice in the media, including CNN, CSPAN, Al Jazeera, and MSNBC.

Dr. Zebulon Vance Miletsky, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies and History. His articles have appeared in the Trotter Review, the Historical Journal of Massachusetts, the Journal of Civil and Human Rights, and the Journal of Urban History. He is an Executive Board member of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History. He is a regular contributor to the award-winning blog Black Perspectives, hosted by the African-American Intellectual Historical Society. He has written op-eds for Diverse Issues in Higher Education and is a columnist for the BK Reader. His new book Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle was published in December 2022 by the University of North Carolina Press.

Dr. Miletsky was the recipient of a 2020 “Game Changer” Award by the Long Island Area NAACP branch. In 2021 he was honored by the Town of Brookhaven Black History Commission “for leadership and service to the community as a role model to the next generation.” He lives in Brooklyn and works with the UBFSF as an editor for the 100 Prisoner Book Publishing Literacy Program.

Dr. Katherine Johnston is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and the Program for Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University where she researches and American literature, critical data studies, and surveillance studies. Her recent book Profiles and Plotlines: Data Surveillance and Contemporary American Literature mobilizes contemporary fiction and poetry to confront the unequal effects of surveillance-based profiling.

While incarcerated, Rahsaan Thomas discovered that his voice was still free and used it to have a positive impact. He published over 50 stories with organizations like the Boston Globe, Business Insider, Slate, and Apogee Journal with the help of Empowerment Avenue, an organization he created to meet the pre-entry needs of incarcerated writers, artist, and now filmmakers, helping them to get their voices in mainstream spaces for prevailing wages. After appearing in United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, and 26.2 to Life, he developed a love for filmmaking, which lead to directing Friendly Signs, a short doc about the fight to make prison more inclusive for deaf people. Also while still in prison, he produced, What These Walls Won’t Hold, directed by Adamu Chan, which won the San Francisco Film Festival. Initiate Justice credits him with sparking the movement that restored voting rights to people on parole in California. Rahsaan is best known as “New York” on the Pulitzer Prize finalist podcast, Ear Hustle. He paroled Feb. 8, 2023 thanks to a commutation.

Lawrence Bartley is the publisher of The Marshall Project Inside, the organization’s publications intended specifically for incarcerated audiences. He is also the host and executive producer of Inside Story, a new video series delivering trustworthy reporting to incarcerated people and the broader public. He has served as founder and director of News Inside, the print publication of The Marshall Project, which is distributed in hundreds of prisons and jails throughout the United States. News Inside received the 2020 Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media. Lawrence was a member of the team behind “The Zo,” winner of the 2021 Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence and Innovation and recipient of an Emmy nod in the area of News & Documentary. He is also an accomplished public speaker and has provided multimedia content for CNN, PBS, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC and more.

Ivan Kilgore is an incarcerated author, activist and founder of the United Black Family Scholarship Foundation. An Oklahoma native, he has been incarcerated in California for 23 years and is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Shortly after entering prison, Ivan discovered an ability to write and speak publicly that eventually lead to him transforming his life and becoming an advocate for empowering America’s underserved communities to take action in the political transformation of their communities.

To learn more about Ivan, visit his bio here.