THE MISSION

Our mission is to strengthen the African American community and legacy through a three step innovative process: Awareness | Advocacy | Action:

THE VISION

Our vision is to improve the African American narrative, empower the black community, and strengthen the black legacy, by creating a culture that ensures that society acknowledges and embraces the truth about black people free of all stereotypes and stigmas.

THE APPROACH

The mission of The Life Cypher Project is to strengthen the African American community and legacy through a three step innovative process: Awareness | Action | Advocacy. Our approach to achieving our mission emerges from the thought that black Americans continue to suffer from the legacy of tyrannical systems of oppression (e.g. slavery, slave codes, Jim Crow) and its transgenerational effects. Life Cypher identified vital gaps in local, state and federal systems via our areas of concern and develop programs to close those gaps indefinitely. This approach is spelled out in our 3 point theory of change:

AWARENESS

Our awareness campaigns and initiatives highlights the major cause(s) of urban strife and how they have been [and are being] used as keystones in a perpetual cycle of strife and struggle in our communities. It invites us to become more aware of the real world plight of black America, the root causes of urban strife and its sources; it mean coming to terms with what true racial harmony and a just society for black folks actually mean.

ADVOCACY

Our advocacy campaigns synchronizes our narrative, our agenda and our fight. The narrative that plagues black folks has been preached, promoted, and reinforced through virtually every social institution and communications channel. For Life Cypher, advocacy means producing and promoting initiatives and programs to help close essential gaps in education, the economy, the housing market, and the banking industry, which directly benefits the black family and family structure

ACTION

True action, means moving past the mere expressing of our disapproval of or objection to political figures for their lack of attention to the woes of the African American community; it means accepting that our voices will not be heard, our rights and bodies will not be protected, and that our transgenerational pains and ills will not be atoned for unless we do it ourselves. Action invites us to reject all attitudes, systems and policies that support and reinforce the stigma and stereotyping of Black America while advancing new narratives and practices that benefit us as a people and community.

“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost… He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American…”

W.E.B. Du Bois • Souls of Black Folk