We Are the People We Have Been Waiting For
Chris Chatmon, Founder & CEO, Kingmakers of Oakland
Greetings KOO Family and Community,
September reminded me again that this work has never belonged to one person, one organization, or one generation. Across The Town and beyond, I sat in circles with tribal leaders and Black male educators, nonprofit founders and futurists, elders and young people finding their voice. Each space affirmed the same truth: we are the people we have been waiting for.
Kingmakers of Oakland is intentionally multicultural, intergenerational, and cross-sector because our Kings do not live in silos, and neither does their liberation. To every educator, parent, partner, funder, and community member standing in service of our young people: thank you.
Ubuntu. I am because we are.
A Month in the Circle
This month, KOO joined the 6th Annual Native Youth School and Community Wellness Conference: Supporting Native Boys and Young Men of Color. Alongside tribal leaders, families, mental health professionals, and youth, we explored mentorship, healing-centered education, justice-involved fathers, and Native youth voice. I left reminded that Indigenous wisdom and intergenerational healing offer lessons for all of us. Solidarity across communities is not optional. It is medicine. The cure is in our culture.
On September 22, I joined my brother Ashanti Branch and Ever Forward for UnMASKing with Male Educators. Through Ashanti's signature mask-making experience, we talked honestly about masculinity, vulnerability, leadership, and emotional safety. I am grateful for spaces where the men who hold our children can also be held.
At the C4ES Information Exchange, I spent time with fellow nonprofit founders discussing financial stewardship, team building, leadership, and the community relationships that sustain both organizations and the people leading them.
I also joined Hopelab Futures for an intimate Futures Salon focused on the emerging possibilities shaping young people's lives. Our Kings deserve to be at the center of conversations about the future, not invited in after it has already been designed.
And our KOO Labs Academies in Music, Film, Fashion, and Animation are officially underway. We are also recruiting ninth graders for our TFI prep program and welcoming middle school, high school, and opportunity-age youth. If you know a young person with a spark, send them our way.
Where We're Focused
Our work continues to deepen across five interconnected areas.
Through our Jegna Early Literacy Ambassador initiative, we are strengthening early literacy while developing a pipeline of Black male educators and youth literacy leaders. When children experience culturally affirming instruction and see themselves reflected in those teaching them, literacy, identity, belonging, and self-worth grow together.
Through our Crowns Curriculum, we are also working to move beyond deficit-based labels in special education. Neurodiversity is part of human genius. Our responsibility is to create learning environments where every King is recognized for his brilliance, gifts, and potential.
Through culturally grounded wellness efforts, including the SubStop Initiative, we are helping connect young people to immediate, community-based spaces for mental, emotional, and spiritual support. Healing happens in relationship.
And through our Sankofa Kings Fellowship, we are exploring what we call AI²: Ancestral Intelligence over Artificial Intelligence. Computational learning is devoid of spirit, values and love. Our Kings are combining Youth Participatory Action Research, ancestral knowledge, ethics, and emerging technology to design solutions rooted in community.
All of this reflects our larger philosophy: Healing the fish is necessary yet not sufficient if we do not clean the water, the toxic ecosystem. Through KOO Labs and our district partnerships, we are working to transform the environments, policies, systems, structures, relationships, and narratives surrounding our young people.
Oakland Stories. Oakland Innovation.
September also brings two important expressions of Oakland's creative spirit.
The 17th Annual Fist Up Film Festival, led by Kahlil and Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, continues its long tradition of creating space for stories that awaken, heal, and move communities to action. Over the years, our own Kings have had the opportunity to see their films on that screen and experience the power of having their community witness their creativity.
We are also bringing Ancestral Intelligence into Oakland Tech Week. On September 27, I will join fellow East Bay community architects for a gathering celebrating the people building solutions from within our neighborhoods. On September 30, KOO will participate in the Town Alive Mixer supporting Oakland's Responsible AI Activation Zones.
On October 1, I will join the panel “Can AI Heal Us? Bias, Culture, Data & Trust” at OakStop.
And on October 3, our Kings take the lead with Kings in the Making: Architects of the Arcade at MetWest High School. Young people will explore cultural storytelling, AI prompting, game design, coding, audio engineering, and creative pitching—moving from consumers of technology to architects of what comes next.
Shout out to Brotha’s Bosko and Niles, Co-Founders of HiiiWave and all of their partners for the vision and leadership that went into The Oakland Tech week. I am because WE are. Thank you!
Looking Ahead
This month, Dr. Hodari Davis and I also begin recording Babalogy, a new monthly podcast launching in January 2027 focused on Black men raising, educating, loving, and guiding Black children and the people who love and support them.
There is a place for everyone in this village. Mentor. Refer a young person. Support KOO Labs. Partner with us. Invest in this work.
To our staff, families, donors, district partners, and community: thank you for standing in service of our Kings.
Special thanks to Three Queens Enterprise, LLC and Mama Lena Henderson for their tax deductible contributions to Kingmakers of Oakland this past quarter and the many friends, family and community members that made contributions to our organization during this humbling times.
What we are building together is bigger than any one of us.
And perhaps it is exactly what our ancestors prayed for.
Asé.
In service,
Chris Chatmon
Founder & CEO
Kingmakers of Oakland