African American Organizations Research Articles

Black/African American participation in cancer clinical trials: A qualitative study of community members, patients with cancer, and survivors (Detroit, MI) using CBPR.

e13743 Background: Black/African Americans (B/AA) have a disproportionate cancer burden and the highest mortality rates of any racial/ethnic group for most cancers. Racial/ethnic variation in cancer burden reflects health inequities, differences in risk factors, heredity and genomic diversity, and lack of access to and participation in cancer prevention, screening, treatment, and clinical trials. Twelve percent of the United States population are B/AA; however, only about 5% B/AA participate in clinical trials. As a result, data regarding tumors from B/AA are not equally represented in new drug discovery efforts. Methods: Participatory Action for Access to Clinical Trials (PAACT) used a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach to support a partnership between Henry Ford Health (HFH) and eight African American, Caribbean, and continental African community-based organizations (CBOs). Focus group data were collected in-person and virtually with representatives from the CBOs and HFH cancer survivors. CBOs participated in Steering Committee meetings throughout the project and two community forums to obtain feedback on recommendations identified through the qualitative data. Results: Factors contributing to participation in cancer clinical trials included systemic issues related to racism, health disparities and trust in government, health systems, and clinical research. Other factors included personal experiences with healthcare systems, healthcare provider-patient communication, socio-economic barriers (e.g., time away from work, family), and perceptions of future benefits from trials for B/AA communities. Recommendations included: 1) on-going health system outreach to B/AA communities regarding cancer prevention and treatment, as well as clinical trials. 2) B/AA community liaisons and cancer survivors as providers of information related to clinical trials; 3) two-way provider-patient communication to address questions and concerns about treatment options and trial information; 4) monetary compensation for indirect trial costs; 5) information on the importance of diversity within trials; and 6) ensuring information is provided to patients’ support networks. Conclusions: CBPR is effective in the identification of factors that influence participation in clinical trials. Building trust between patients and the healthcare system begins before patients walk into a clinic and every interaction contributes to institutional worthiness of community and patient trust. It is possible and imperative for health systems to work with B/AA communities and jointly identify and implement recommendations to ensure informed decision-making regarding trial participation. We are currently designing intervention strategies based on the recommendations for implementation at HFH.

How Can Jewish and Non-Jewish People Collaborate to Improve Healthcare in the US? Considering Community, Autonomy, and Solidarity.

The coronavirus 2019 (COVID) pandemic has highlighted the ways in which municipal, state, and Federal agencies in the USA have failed to address the inequities of present-day health systems. As alternative organizing centers outside these agencies, local communities are potentially situated to redress the inequities of present-day health systems in a collaborative manner that demonstrates solidarity by supplementing a purely scientific model of medicine and healthcare. In the mid-twentieth century, the Black Panthers, a revolutionary African American nationalist organization that focused on socialism and self-defense, introduced highly influential free clinics, which sought to bring expertise to the Black community on their own terms. This required bringing the benefits of biomedicine to those who customarily had not seen them. By extension, their approach raises questions regarding community- and expertise-centered approaches for the Jewish community: how is it engaged in healthcare for itself (in its diverse subcategories) and for others? Moreover, understanding how the Jewish community has been ill-served by present-day health-care systems might spur Jewish institutions to reimagine how healthcare should work.

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North

The evolution of the ideology of the African-American organization Nation of Islam

The article is devoted to the study of the evolution of the ideology of the religious organization Nation of Islam (NOI), which is one of the most famous representatives of the black nationalism movement in the USA. The study examines the ideological origins of the NOI, the main tenets of its ideology, crystallized under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad, as well as attempts to give the organization a political character in the 1950-1960s. Finally, the article pays special attention to the ideological split that followed the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975, as a result of which the majority of supporters of the NOI converted to traditional Sunni Islam, while the radical part of the followers remained faithful to the previous ideology.

French Fears of African-Americanization in a Historical Context

In France of the postwar era, African-American organizations and individuals fighting for integration in the United States aligned with French “post-colonial” politics. However, African Americans individuals and organizations who opposed integration and promoted the development of self-sustaining African-American communities represented an active threat to the French government. The Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, and the Black Power movement embodied such threat. But if these people and movements threatened the French system, they often inspired the black populations of France.

Abstract PO-090: The impacts of depression and socioeconomic factors on cognitive function among low-income Asian and African American elderly aged 65 and above

Abstract Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) have been a public health problem in the United States for a long time, and its adverse impact on the health of minority elderly population has been increasing since 2000. Nearly 40% of ADRD patients suffer from depression. However, the burden of ADRD and depression comorbidity among Asian and African Americans elderly was understudied. Methods: Participants aged 65 and older were recruited from Chinese, Vietnamese, and African American community-based organizations in the Greater Philadelphia Region and New York City. We conducted a cross sectional survey to assess their ADRD-related knowledge, depression symptoms, sociodemographic and health related factors. Cognitive function was assessed with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), depression severity was tested with Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and stressful life events (SLE) impact score was measured with a 6-item scale with excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.94). A p value that is smaller than 0.05 is considered statistically significant, while a p value that is smaller than 0.1 indicates marginally significant level. Results: Overall, the participants (n=306, 12.21% African Americans, 54.79% Chinese Americans, and 33% Vietnamese Americans) had an average age of 73.57; 89.56% of them had < $20k annual household income, and 62.13% did not have a college degree. The average MoCA score was 21.24, which was significantly lower than the normal criteria 26, indicating mild cognitive impairment. Bivariate analysis showed that depression (r=-0.51, p<0.001) and SLE impact (r=-0.33, p<0.001) were significantly negatively correlated to MoCA scores. After controlling for demographics, depression severity (Coef. =-0.42, p<0.001) remained a significant predictor of cognitive function. Multivariate analysis also found that age (Coef. =-0.15, p=0.016) and education levels (Coef. =2.11, p<0.001) were significant predictors of MoCA score. Compared with those who did not speak English at all, participants who speak some English (Coef. =3.10, p<0.001) and good at English speaking (Coef. =4.54, p=0.034) were more likely to have higher cognitive scores. Moreover, being retired (Coef. =-3.23, p=0.054) and having >$40k annual household income (Coef. =-3.73, p=0.091) showed marginally negative associations with cognitive function level. Conclusion: The preliminary findings demonstrate an association between depression and mild cognitive impairment among Asian and African American elderly. With the remaining experimental work, targeted interventions will be identified in improving ADRD knowledge, cognitive performance, and mental health among understudied older Asian and African Americans. Citation Format: Wenyue Lu, Lin Zhu, Michael Coronado, Guercie E. Guerrier, Yin Tan, Grace X. Ma. The impacts of depression and socioeconomic factors on cognitive function among low-income Asian and African American elderly aged 65 and above [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Conference: 14th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2021 Oct 6-8. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-090.

The Ethics of Unmeaning: Noise and the Non-inscribable Slave Voice

The Ethics of Unmeaning: Noise and the Non-inscribable Slave Voice Edward Piñuelas In the nexus of literature from within chattel slavery, music has provided scholars of various slave traditions a potent material for reading the influences of enslavement on everyday life in bondage, as well as the remnants of that life in contemporary culture. It was slave music that caused W. E. B. Du Bois to “set a phrase, a haunting echo of these weird old songs in which the soul of the black slave spoke to men” (536), and provided Frederick Douglass “[his] first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery” (51). In short, the music of the enslaved and their immediate descendants has provided a window into aspects of the experiences of enslaved people not easily communicated through written testimony, as well as a medium for expressing Black subjectivities in ways denied by the mechanisms of racial slavery. This is especially true in the United States, where the work song and the spiritual have come to form their own genre of literature, offering expressive traditions that exceeded and often resisted those of the master class. These traditions have served as the fundamental building blocks of culture and civil society throughout the United States and have been essential to freedom struggles and political organization since slavery’s abolition. Shana L. Redmond’s recent work on Black music in social and political movements within the Diaspora provides a poignant example of how the spiritual provided postbellum movements with the rhythmic and thematic material to mobilize African American laborers and community organizations (Anthem 146–47). This turn to Black music as a political object began in the antebellum period, when abolitionists pointed to the music and songs of enslaved communities, particularly western religious hymns and spirituals, as evidence of slaveholders’ failing attempts to dehumanize their captives. [End Page 161] Ironically, the very music used by abolitionists to condemn the peculiar institution provided the slaveholding class evidence of its uplifting, indeed humanizing, effects. Many supporters of slavery heard in work songs signs of contentment and in religious songs signs of salvation. As Roger D. Abrahams explains in his historical account of slave music in the antebellum South, “[s]inging and dancing were regarded as signs of happiness, in spite of the fact that many whites could understand that the songs were often about the agonies of separation and alienation” (xix). These interpretations were more than mere misreadings of the often veiled expressions of sadness and resentment among enslaved singers, more than mere selective understandings that sought to confirm biases and assumptions already in place. They resulted from a mode of listening that sought to make meaning of a foreign, though familiar, phenomenon by relating it to assumptions common among members of the master class. In seeking to abstract from the material elements of slave music—the ephemeral, physical, and spatial phenomena of sounding and hearing—slavery’s advocates resorted to discursive practices contingent upon a disembodied, interchangeable, exchangeable enslaved body, a body that does not mark its domain with sound, but communicates only as sign. This reliance on exchangeability and reified value echoes what Saidiya V. Hartman notably identifies as the “fungibility” of the enslaved, the “joy made possible by virtue of the replaceability and interchangeability endemic to the commodity” (21). Faced with a material form of which they were neither the catalyst nor the prescribers, slaveowners and slavery’s supporters often described the music of the enslaved according to narrative frameworks based on this fungibility, not unlike those used for interpreting slave value, productivity, and soundness. These frameworks fundamentally disembodied enslaved voices so as to provide members of the master class a grammar of slave sound. In the process of figuring African American voices through the mechanics of fungibility, these proslavery depictions of Black voices likewise figured an antebellum southern soundscape loaded with numerous cultural and social values meant to buttress the moral argument in favor of the peculiar institution. While opponents of slavery sought to correct the misreadings produced by this body of proslavery literature, I argue here that even in seeking to assign enslaved voices alternative meanings, meanings that [End Page 162] were themselves salvos...

Research on the charter system in Georgia, USA

Education is invaluable for equipping young people with important knowledge and life skills. Many countries have publicly-funded education systems but politics related to funding can lead to inequalities in access to education for different communities. Professor Toshihiro Sumioka, Faculty of Education, Oita University, Japan, believes that recent educational reforms that strengthen privatisation, deregulation and accountability have increased segregation and division between ethnic groups and promoted academic disparity among these communities. He specialises in educational administration history in pedagogy and conducts historical analyses on school segregation in the US. A key focus for Sumioka is on the role that public education has played in the US in contributing to racial discrimination, economic disparity and academic disparity and he is particularly interested in the experience of the African American community with public education. In recent work, he is looking at development from the state of Georgia that pertains to charter schools and increasing the power of local districts such as charter system and the lessons learned from such research can be applied to other countries, including Japan where the effect of the privatization of public education on minorities has become an issue. In his work, Sumioka will speak with African American students, newspapers and organizations like the NAACP to understand the impacts of the move to privatisation-based reform and deregulation.

Obesity Treatment in African American Churches: Current Treatment Targets and Preferences among Parishioners.

Obesity is prevalent among African Americans, and church-based weight management programs may help address this public health issue. To develop more effective interventions, a survey was administered to members of a large, African American faith-based organization that assessed weight management intervention targets and preferences. Respondents (N = 1,439) represented the Midwestern and Southern United States. Mean body mass index was 30.8 ± 9.2 kg/m2, and 82.5% of respondents were overweight/obese. The majority (65.0%) wanted a weight management intervention conducted with the church and preferred an in-person (69.0%), group-based (68.0%) program that meets weekly for one hour or less (72%) and addresses identified barriers including access to healthy foods, childcare, and physical activity support. Church support was linked to better dietary quality and higher physical activity among parishioners (p's ≤ 0.02), suggesting church support may be important for healthy eating and exercise. This study provides a clear path forward for developing and delivering weight loss interventions within African American churches.

Waiting for Wakanda: Activists challenge Black exclusion from the construction industry

ABSTRACT The national economic position of Black Americans has for decades included unemployment rates that are double those of Whites and a racial wealth gap of 13 to 1. Barriers to employment in the construction industry are among the many contributing factors. In 2010, I participated in the creation of an alliance to challenge the exclusion of African American organizations from discussions on the Oakland Army Base redevelopment project. This paper introduces the broad range of urban activist scholarship and then describes this particular activist campaign and its success in raising the percentage of hours worked by African Americans in construction jobs on this project. It uses a critical race theory framework to explore the necessity of a race-conscious approach to campaigns on such issues as local hire. It also describes the methodology of a long-term resident participating in the daily life of a city as a scholar-activist analyzing the urban issues that emerge. The paper concludes with recommendations to activists, policymakers, and scholars.

Identities, interest group coalitions, and intergroup relations

ABSTRACT Interest groups are well known for lobbying and providing information to citizens. However, no extant scholarship explores how the actions of interest groups affect intergroup relations, even though these organizations represent a variety of social identities. I argue that the decisions of interest group leaders to work together or reject collaboration send signals to everyday members of the identity groups they represent about their relations to other groups. In a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample of African-Americans, I vary whether respondents receive information about a successful coalition or a rejected coalition between African-American interest groups and organizations representing another identity. I find that when African-American interest groups successfully form a coalition with a high-solidarity outgroup (e.g., Hispanics), individuals develop greater feelings of closeness with the outgroup and express greater support for policies that benefit that group. However, when leaders of the outgroup organizations reject the coalition, it creates a backlash effect of lower closeness and weaker policy support. This backlash effect does not occur for low-solidarity outgroups (e.g., atheists). These findings suggest that interest groups are an understudied source of elite influence on identity-based perceptions, which can either promote or obstruct harmonious intergroup relationships.

Community-Led Action to Reduce Menthol Cigarette Use in the African American Community.

Background. African Americans suffer a disproportionate burden of tobacco harm and researchers have posited that menthol cigarettes are a key contributor to this disparity. In 2015, a county health department and African American community-based organization (CBO) in Minnesota partnered to educate and engage the African American community on menthol and its role in tobacco-related health disparities. The following case study describes successes, challenges, and recommendations from this work. We focus on the role of a public health and community partnership in menthol policy adoption so others can more effectively implement a community-driven approach in their own communities. Methods. Interviews were conducted with local and state public health staff, leadership from the CBO, youth coordinators, and change agents-that is, leaders in the African American community recruited to educate and engage the community on menthol. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed in Atlas.ti using thematic analysis. Results. Participants identified several successes: (1) assessment data from community members helped inform policy decision making, (2) collaboration between local public health and CBO was powerful and a key to success, and (3) change agents were trusted communicators and effectively engaged and provided education to the community. Participants faced challenges related to stylistic and cultural differences in communication. Participants recommended engaging youth and incorporating cessation into the broader context of issues systemically affecting African American communities (e.g., economic inequity, police violence, incarceration). Implications. Menthol tobacco restrictions have the potential to reduce tobacco-related health inequities for African Americans. Findings highlight the role that public health and community partnerships can play in supporting this critical work to effect policy change.

The Debate on Reparations before the Debate on Reparations at the National Black Economic Development Conference in Detroit, 1969

The Michigan Historical Review 46:2 (Fall 2020): 175-186©2020 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved The Debate on Reparations before the Debate on Reparations at the National Black Economic Development Conference in Detroit, 1969 By Keith Dye Recent studies on the African American demand for reparations continue to call attention to the significance of the Black Manifesto, the fire-brand statement produced in Detroit in the spring of 1969.1 Public understanding of this $500 million (later $3 billion) political-economic treatise from the National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC) was of a fluid document that challenged the American social conscience. However, preceding the disruptive presentation of the manifesto at church services throughout metropolitan Detroit and elsewhere, the economics of reparations was a point of disagreement among its supporters prior to, and during, conference sessions. Arguments revolved around the application of reparations to establish either a “Black Capitalist” economic system, a revolutionary socialist construction or, alternatively, a hybrid system somewhere in between. This internal conflict had to be reconciled before any call for reparations could emerge as a “tax” on white America. Revisiting this contentiousness affords a core understanding of its evolution overlooked by scholars. Eschewing discussion about the validity of reparations, this article argues that the debate over economic preferences by many of the 500 conference attendees was an historical milestone in the reparation movement, whose contemporary significance rests upon this divide between moderate and radical African Americans seeking to forge a consensus economic agenda. A steering committee for the NBEDC had by early 1969 secured a range of African American organizations and individuals committed to public discussion of the issue at the affair, scheduled for April 25-27. 1 Ana Lucia Araujo, Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transitional and Comparative History (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018), 144-51; Herb Boyd, Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self-Determination (New York: Harper Collins, 2017), 220-22; Brenda Gayle Plummer, In Search of Power: African Americans in the Era of Decolonization, 19561974 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 247-48. 176 The Michigan Historical Review Leading the way was the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), but the diverse gathering would also include the post-riot New Detroit Inc., Urban Design and Development Group, League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW), Republic of New Africa (RNA), Shrine of the Black Madonna, and other groups. Among noted individuals in attendance were Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, civil rights activist Julian Bond, former football star Jim Brown, economist Robert S. Browne, RNA leaders and brothers Gaidi and Imari Obadele (formerly Milton and Richard Henry), local bookstore owner Edward Vaughn, and many others. Persons spearheading the effort were longtime activists James Forman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Reverend Lucius Walker of IFCO, Mike Hamlin and John Watson—both of the LRBW based in the city, Kenneth Cockrell Sr., Dan Aldridge, John Williams, Chuck Wooten, Renny Freeman, Luke Tripp, and other handson activists.2 The chance to direct initial start-up funds provided by IFCO and the National Council of Churches for African American economic development attracted individuals eager to include their personal organizations among those possibly to receive funding. A somewhat complicated cross-partnering of conflicting and comparable ideas distinguished the process from the start. This began when some individuals sought control over the conference debate to determine what should be the economic destiny of African Americans. To this effect a takeover was planned by persons associated with Forman, the key architect of the manifesto, including Walker, Hamlin, and Watson. This Forman/Walker faction intended to steer conference proceedings toward adoption of a socialist agenda that emphasized collectivism and equitable distribution of resources.3 In contrast to the Forman/Walker faction were persons preferring Black capitalism, the notion that the system of free markets, private enterprise and private property ownership could be adjusted to facilitate African American economic growth.4 This dichotomy represented a divide between contending ideologies, with Forman leading the way on behalf of the LRBW. SNCC members brought in from the South—along with Walker, who by then sympathized with Forman’s ideological orientation—were...

The historic emergence of intersectional leadership: Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of St. Luke

Maggie Lena Walker arose from humble beginnings as the daughter of an ex-slave to become a prominent banker, entrepreneur, and community leader in the American state of Virginia in the early 1900s. She was the first African American woman in the United States to establish and lead a bank. In addition, Walker played a principal leadership role in a major African American mutual aid social service organization: the Independent Order of St. Luke. In this article, we investigate the historic emergence of intersectional leadership by exploring Walker’s leader identity development as Grand Secretary-Treasurer of the Independent Order of St. Luke. The method that we apply to the Walker case is intersectional microhistory, which is the study of unique social actors and the intersections of their gender, race, and other social categories as they change over time. We use our intersectional microhistory approach to unpack phenomenon of emerging intersectional leadership, offering deeper insights about the oppressive and multi-layered barriers that Maggie Walker surmounted as a black woman in order to effectively function as an acknowledged leader of the Independent Order of St. Luke.

Psychiatric Jim Crow: Desegregation at the Crownsville State Hospital, 1948-1970.

The Crownsville State Hospital, located in Maryland just outside of Annapolis, provides a thought-provoking example of the impact of desegregation in the space of the mental hospital. Using institutional reports, patient records, and oral histories, this article reconstructs the three phases of desegregation at Crownsville. First, as a result of its poor conditions, lack of qualified staff, and its egregious mistreatment of patients, African American community leaders and organizations such as the NAACP called for the desegregation of the care staff of Crownsville in the late 1940s. Second, the introduction of a skilled African American staff created unprecedented and morally complex issues about access to psychiatric therapeutics. Last, in 1963, Health Commissioner Dr. Isadore Tuerk officially desegregated patients in all Maryland state hospitals. Though desegregation brought much needed improvements to Crownsville, these gains were ultimately swamped by deinstitutionalization and the shift towards outpatient psychiatric care. By the 1970s, Crownsville had returned to the poor conditions that existed during segregation.

Boycott Gulf! Angolan Oil and the Black Power Roots of American Anti-Apartheid Organizing

In the early 1970s, the African American divestment and boycott campaign against Gulf Oil's operations in colonial Angola bridged the gap between Black Power and anti-apartheid, two movements generally viewed separately. The success of the Boston-based activist couple Randall and Brenda Robinson in educating and mobilizing African Americans against investment in colonialism—first with the Southern Africa Relief Fund (SARF) and later with the Pan-African Liberation Committee (PALC)—reveals how a leftist anti-imperial ideology linked the domestic concerns of black Americans with African revolutions. At the same time, the Gulf campaign's participatory tactics, moral appeals, and critique of the global economic system proved attractive beyond radical Black Power advocates, allowing the PALC to cultivate relationships with African American politicians and build alliances across racial divides. Randall Robinson later replicated this organizing model as the founding director of TransAfrica, which became the most prominent African American organization opposing apartheid in the 1980s.

Successful Undergraduate African American Men's Navigation and Negotiation of Academic and Social Counter-Spaces as Adaptation to Racism at Historically White Institutions

Extant research has extensively illuminated African American men's experiences with racism at historically White institutions. Their efforts to persist and graduate meant many of them learned to navigate and respond to racism on and off campus. Such learned behavior has necessitated adopting coping mechanisms to acculturate to the social, cultural, and academic environments within and surrounding institutions of higher education. Drawn from a larger study, this qualitative case study explored the experiences and the strategies used by two participants as they self-navigated the institution's support programs, affinity groups, and campus organizations to achieve personal and academic success. Academically persistent and successful African American men formed unique personal networks; sought out support; and received help from African American organizations, family members, faculty members, and staff members. This research advances a growing body of literature focusing on the success strategies of undergraduate African American men pursuing their educational goals at historically White institutions.

Remembering Alton Parker Hornsby, Jr., 1940–2017

Remembering Alton Parker Hornsby, Jr., 1940–2017

Culture Wars, Race, and Sexuality: A Nascent Pan-African LGBT-Affirming Christian Movement and the Future of Christianity

Abstract In order to challenge and decenter monolithic narratives about Christian-inspired homophobia in Africa, this article draws attention to Christian countermobilizations that seek to affirm the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Africa. It focuses on the work of an African American organization, The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries (TFAM), to build a Pan-African LGBT-affirming Christian movement. TFAM presents its work as a response to the involvement of American white conservative evangelicals in the spread of homophobia in Africa. Where the latter has been framed as the export of American culture wars, this article discusses TFAM's work as an attempt to counterbalance the culture wars and to define the future of African Christianity in progressive ways. The article proceeds by discussing one of the fruits of TFAM's activities, an LGBT church in Nairobi, Kenya, and concludes by examining the overall significance and potential impact of TFAM's work.

Seat Belt Messaging for Diverse Populations

In the United States, Hispanics and African Americans are disproportionately killed and injured in motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) compared with non-Hispanic Whites. In 2013, more African Americans died from MVC-related injuries than any other unintentional injury, and 64.5% of fatally injured Hispanic youth (ages 15-20) were unrestrained or otherwise incorrectly belted at the time of the crash. As the minority population in the US continues to increase, it is imperative to develop effective and culturally sensitive countermeasures to reach those most at risk of death and injury from MVCs. The Hispanic Toolkit and the African American toolkit were developed using cultural competency strategies to encourage an increase in seat belt use. The Hispanic Toolkit includes bilingual brochures, posters, and radio/video public safety announcements that address common attitudes and practices among recently emigrated Latinos regarding traffic safety culture. The African American toolkit includes E-blasts, fact sheets, and an educational power point to engage local African American organizations in educating their communities and encourage traffic safety behaviors. Both toolkits are user friendly and can be downloaded online.