From the desk of Chris Chatmon, Founder and CEO, Kingmakers of Oakland
Beloved Kingmakers family, Brothers, Sisters, Kings, Queens,non-binary Royalty, partners, friends and family.
As the leaves turn and the year begins to exhale, I write to share some personal news. Beginning in November, I will be stepping away for a three-month sabbatical, returning to you in February 2027.
I do not write those words lightly. To be granted this time is a blessing and a privilege, one that too few leaders, and far too few Black men, are ever afforded. I am deeply grateful to our Board of Directors, to our Executive Leadership Team, to our staff and coaches, and to every funder and partner whose trust makes a season like this possible. Most of all, I am grateful to our young Kings, who remind me every day why this work must be built to last longer than any one of us.
Gardeners Must Also Practice Fallow
For eight years, I have thought of our work as gardening. We tend soil that the world too often overlooks. We plant seeds of identity, brilliance, and possibility in our young men. We water, we weed, we protect, and we wait.
But every good gardener knows a truth that our grind-driven culture forgets: the ground cannot give forever without rest. Farmers call it leaving a field fallow. When a garden bed goes fallow, it is left unplanted for a season so the soil can rest, rebuild its nutrients, rebalance the hidden microbial and fungal networks beneath the surface, and naturally break cycles of pests and disease.
Fallow is not abandonment. It is preparation. And wise gardeners rarely leave a field bare. They plant cover crops, like rye and clover, that hold the soil in place, protect it from erosion, and feed it from within, so that when planting season returns, the ground is richer than before.
This is my season of fallow: a time to rest, rebuild, rebalance, and renew.
Rooted in Our Tradition
This is not a Western idea of a vacation. It is a return to something ancient. In many African philosophies, rest is not a reward for productivity; it is a sacred right and a prerequisite for collective strength.
Ubuntu (I am because we are) teaches that restoring oneself is an act of service to the whole. An exhausted, depleted leader cannot fully hold a community. When I rest, I am investing in us.
Sankofa (reach back and retain) calls us to reclaim what our ancestors knew: that true masculinity holds balance, that wellness is wisdom, and that the myth of the perpetual grind was never ours to carry.
Sawubona (we see you) reminds us that men deserve spaces where we can set down our armor and be witnessed whole. It is what we strive to offer our young Kings in every circle, and I must model it too.
Our ancestors understood this. African warriors and leaders followed protocols for purification, rest, and reintegration after battle. Men gathered in circles and age-grade societies to grieve, to transition, and to receive the counsel of elders. Restoration was never a weakness. It was built into the blueprint of leadership.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown. So, I will spend this season tending my own Ashe, my life force: in nature, in silence, in reflection at the ancestral altar, with my family, and in brotherhood. I will be laying down, for a time, the weight of carrying the world, and trusting the lineage of resilience that has always carried us.
The Garden Is in Good Hands
Just as cover crops hold and nourish the soil during fallow, our leadership team will hold and nourish Kingmakers of Oakland while I am away. Here is who to contact for what:
All things finance and development: Bro Brenden Anderson
All things programs and services: Bro Matin Abdel-Qawi
All things facilities: Bro Toks Ajike
All things HR, and anything related to the Founder and CEO: Bro Kevin Tolliver
These brothers embody who we are, and I have complete confidence in them.
I also give thanks to the entire Kingmakers of Oakland team, our staff, facilitators, and every member of our village, for continuing to model and manifest our values and design principles each and every day in service of serving and centering Black boys and young men. This season is a testament to what you have built together: KOO was built to be a movement, not a man.
Planting Shade for Children We Have Not Yet Met
There is an old wisdom that a society grows great when elders plant trees whose shade they will never sit in. That is the heart of Kingmakers. The seeds we plant today in our young men grow into Kings who will become seeds themselves, offering shade, shelter, and nourishment to children we have not met yet, and to generations not yet born.
To keep planting that kind of future, the gardener must remain whole. I step into this season so that I may return to you rested, rooted, and ready to plant with fresh vision.
Thank you for your love, your trust, and your grace. I encourage each of you, especially my brothers, to ask what fallow might look like in your own life. Rest is not a retreat from the work. Rest is part of the work.
I look forward to reconnecting in February. Ase’
Your Brother in Service,
Chris Chatmon
Founder and CEO, Kingmakers of Oakland