ALL DAY LONG!!! We can debate the benefits of affordable health care, racial inequality, immigration, ethics in government, and at the end of the day, our leaders will have talked through, around and over the single most important issue of our time.  

NATIONAL SECURITY and how it relates to America's most vulnerable citizens is a conversation we must have, and now is the best time to have that conversation.  We'll need to start looking at our youth through a NATIONAL SECURITY lens if we expect to reverse some 400 plus years of INSECURITY where we live, learn, work and/or worship.

On behalf of the YouthUSA Corporate Village of beneficiaries, stakeholders and officers, we are, in this season, collectively mourning the loss of a pillar in our community and this nation.  Ms. Evelyn Walker Armstrong served as a founding director for the national 501c3 public charity, Youth Achievers USA Institute (EIN 20-4945833).  She contributed faithfully through executive consultation and philanthropic investment until her death on January 10, 2015.

In September 2006, Evelyn co-founded The J.D. and Laurena Walker Fund, as the development program of Youth Achievers USA Institute.  She has since served as chair of that program task force. In this capacity, she constantly challenged her fellow officers to accomplish great works with modest means. 

Up to the final hours of her “dash,” that symbolic measure of her temporal economy on earth from April 18, 1927 to January 10, 2015, Evelyn was at work, tasking care givers from Visiting Nurses Association with feeding her one last meal of grits, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and black coffee; and spiritually, through reading scriptures from Romans 8 and Proverbs.  Sadly, she expressed her perceived failure in life was the inability to motivate her beloved Walker family members to work “on the positive side of the ledger” to improve their own lifestyles with goals and promote The J.D. and Laurena Walker Fund.

Youth Achievers USA Institute is ready, willing and able to assist trustees and attorneys in developing program supports in the area of positive youth development.  We pray that our combined efforts to engage Evelyn’s friends, colleagues and beneficiaries will enhance your capacity for transforming Evelyn’s vision of young people as community assets on the positive side of the ledger.

In our nation’s birthplace, the City of Brotherly Love, your American Mentors encountered a STATE OF THE UNION type question, Why does life have to be so difficult? YouthUSA National Director, Evelyn Walker Armstrong, at age 87, posed the question during a knowledge transfer session with fellow board members.  Then, from her own experiences and insights she answered her own question, “It doesn’t. We make it difficult.

Welcome to 2015.  A gulf of mistrust describes our STATE OF THE UNION unless WE THE PEOPLE overcome and form a more perfect union.  Fifty years after demonstrators crossed Selma, Alabama’s Pettus Bridge, protesting for equal rights under the law of the land--fifty years after blacks laid beaten and abused by law enforcement. For the second time in American history, a Black Male gets to share his minority vision for America’s future before the historic 114th session of the United States Congress. In the house, a majority sits waiting to govern from a Grand Ol Party point of view. 

You can tweet us @YouthUSA, Like us on Facebook.com/YouthAchieversUSA or call in during our live show 657-383-1405 Saturday, 12 noon eastern, 11 am central, 9 am on the West Coast.

Commentators on the color of Barack Obama’s Presidency suggest the era has been all about race.  So, 2.1 billion believers on the planet will need to help some folks PAY ATTENTION.  Your vision for America’s future has never been about race, but a walk in the light.  The shared vision that somehow escapes airtime and print as well as justice for all is simply this, WE THE PEOPLE in order to form a more perfect union...

While optimists have been banking on a new age of racial harmony,  pessimists seem to be more fearful of a surge in racial strife.  There is, however,  place for common vision to take shape.  The questions before us are at what cost and whether or not we are ready to pursue, for ourselves and our posterity, that vision of a more perfect union.

You can tweet us @YouthUSA, Like us on Facebook.com/YouthAchieversUSA or call in during our live show 657-383-1405 Saturday, 12 noon eastern, 11 am central, 9 am on the West Coast.

In our last episode, we took one more look -- hopefully our last -- at a Gulf of Mistrust between some law enforcers and citizens of color we had hoped justice would serve equally.  We learned of a community of believers to include 2.1 billion Christians who could touch and agree that #BlackLivesMatter. We witnessed evidence of endless possibilities for peace on Earth as the U. S. President found faith and favor enough to make business as usual a practice of the past.

HASHTAG #MY BROTHER’S KEEPER is the shortest distance between a divisive past and an inclusive vision of America’s Future.  The question is how much do we want peace, justice and liberty, and how much are we willing to pay to secure it

Tweet us @YouthUSA, Like us on Facebook.com/YouthAchieversUSA or call in during our live show 657-383-1405 Saturday, 12 noon eastern, 11 am central, 9 am on the West Coast.

Last week we called on friends to include 2.1 billion Christians to touch and agree that Black Lives Matter. From our 2014 Christmas narrative we learned that lynching was a widely acknowledged practice in the United States until the middle of the 20th century.  The U.S. Senate resolved to apologize for its own failure to enact anti-lynching legislation.  As Ebenezer Scrooge might observe, that should be behind us as our ghost of Christmas past. 

For demonstrators taking to the streets protesting, proclaiming and declaring equal justice, it’s a new season!  The injustice is called by another name, but the results are still the same.  The numbers add up to an increase in dead folk and an ever-widening Gulf of Mistrust.

The President’s assessment of events on the streets and in the courtroom accurately portrait the problem America faces this week of Christmas present.  You can ask any of 2.1 billion Christians on earth about the jacked up arrest, trials and lynching of Jesus the Christ 2000 years ago, to get your sense of what needs to be done.

In Christmas present, WE THE PEOPLE will need to realize WE ARE THE WORLD.  Our friends are watching, hoping for a brighter day.  So, let’s start living like Christmas future is a goal worth sharing by coming together to bridge what the president has termed, a Gulf of Mistrust.

What will you do to make a change?  What will you do to save our own lives? You can tweet us @YouthUSA, like us on Facebook.com/YouthAchieversUSA or call in during our live show 657-383-1405 Saturday, 12 noon ET, 11 am CT, 9 am PT.

By Christmas Day 2014, every living president and every public official will need to recommit to a common American value.   A simple statement, #BlackLivesMatter promotes a new season of healing not unlike that of 2000 years ago.  The national motto, IN GOD WE TRUST is the best evidence that trust exists as an American value.  But, we’ll need to weave that trust into a cloak of protection around our most vulnerable citizens.

2.1 billion Christian jurists can build a faith-based case for why Black Lives Matter from the original Christmas story.  In the second chapter of Matthew around the 15th verse, we see the fulfillment of prophesy, a vision of the future coming into being.   -- I have called my Son from Egypt -- the old testament prophet foretold.

Bishop John R. Bryant, SENIOR BISHOP of the AME CHURCH is one of 2.1 billion Christians on earth today.  He believes that BLACK LIVES MATTER.  Bryant has called on friends and kin of the CHRISTIAN FAITH to designate the 2ND SUNDAY OF DECEMBER as "BLACK LIFE MATTERS" SUNDAY.Bishop John R. Bryant, SENIOR BISHOP of the AME CHURCH is one of 2.1 billion Christians on earth today.  He believes that BLACK LIVES MATTER.  Bryant has called on friends and kin of the CHRISTIAN FAITH to designate the 2ND SUNDAY OF DECEMBER as "BLACK LIFE MATTERS" SUNDAY.

You can tweet us @YouthUSA, Like us on Facebook.com/YouthAchieversUSA or call in during our live show 657-383-1405 Saturday, 12 noon ET, 11 am CT, 9 am PT.

Last week we took an advance look at your inheritance.  It seems that far too many Americans have accepted the status of being minority--less than equal.  It’s a dangerous position to put yourself in and, for your children, it’s proven to be life-threatening.

We dropped by historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta for some insights on American Civil Rights after Ferguson, Missouri, after Sanford, Florida, Cleveland, Oakland, Chicago and countless American communities where people of color have been valued as less than equal.

There’s a conversation underway, and it goes way beyond the sound-bites you rely on for your daily feeding.  We’ll want to prepare for the conversation, and we’ll want that conversation to result in substantive change where you live, learn, work and worship.  So this week, your American Mentors are calling on current and future economic beneficiaries to step up as economic leaders in America’s Transformation.

Tweet us @YouthUSA.  Like us at Facebook.com/YouthAchieversUSA or call in during our live show Saturday 12 noon eastern, 11 am central 9 am on the west coast. 657-383-1405.

The Proverbs teach, when a good man dies, he leaves an inheritance to his grandchildren; but when a sinner dies, his wealth is stored up for the godly.  Exactly how might that proverb apply to a generation of historically disadvantaged Americans in line to inherit something of value.  This week your American Mentors are responding to events in Ferguson, Missouri that call for equal treatment under the laws of the land.  Justice, for far too many historically disadvantaged Americans, represents an unattainable goal. But what about economic security within a context of national security?  Might we address the issue of systemic failure in the Micheal Brown, the Jordan Davis, the Trayvon Martinin in a common quest for national security?  We'll be talking about the process for becoming a YouthUSA economic beneficiary, the responsibilities that come with inheriting wealth, and an inclusive vision for the future through partnership with Operation Hope.

JOIN US!  Saturday, 12 noon Eastern, 11 am Central, 9 am Pacific as your American Mentors engage stakeholders and beneficiaries in managing The Inheritance.

Last week we started some asset mapping of brick and mortar in America’s birthplace.  We’ve been looking for ways to sustain community building efforts and reverse what the president termed, a gulf of mistrust.  W shared a timeline to economic inclusion and talked about ideas to empower, invest in and engage economically disadvantaged Americans as bankers.  Getting ready means learning some basics about protecting your money and financial information. It will be helpful to know the types of accounts available and we’ll need to look at 21st Century tools and techniques for protecting critical information about you.  Join us for an introduction to banking and this episode on How Your Bank Must Work.

JOIN US!  Saturday, 12 noon Eastern, 11 am Central, 9 am Pacific as your American Mentors chart a course toward economic inclusion.