Brown asserted in his letter that the 45 state eligibility requirement would not only exclude 100 Black Men of America, Inc. but would likely exclude the National Urban League and possibly the NAACP. According to a map on the NAACP website,
the NAACP, which was founded in 1909, has chapters in every state but North Dakota. But the NAACP is not known for focusing on the type of issues that the My Brother’s Keeper initiative seeks to focus on around youth mentoring.
Not even the National Urban League, founded in 1910, has chapters in 45 states. The National Action Network, established in 1991, has at least one chapter in 34 states according their website’s chapter map.
The full requirements can be seen in full here.
Brown’s letter stated that, “since 1963, the 100 Black Men of America, Inc. has embraced challenges impacting black boys… as you could imagine, as a national organization with a presence in thirty-plus states, we were indeed pleased to see that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention had finally extended an opportunity for historically excluded opportunities to fully participate in the national funding opportunities available… Unfortunately our jubilation was short lived, as your office’s revised RFP of April 10, 2014, quickly quelled any hopes we had of enriching and expanding the services we currently provide for the children that we serve.”