Passing the Baton: Legacy, Love & Liberation in The Town
Greetings Family,
June is a sacred season. It holds Juneteenth and Pride, freedom remembered and freedom still being fought for. It holds the long, bright Oakland days when our young people step into the fullness of who they are and this June, it holds something I feel in my bones: the truth that liberation is a relay, not a sprint. We run our leg with everything we have, and then we pass the baton.
This month, I want to celebrate the hands that have carried it before us, the hands carrying it now, and the love that holds it all together. Here is some of what we have been building.
Honoring a Living Legend: Tommie Smith Turns 82
This month we celebrated the 82nd birthday of an American icon and a son of struggle, Tommie Smith. On the medal stand in Mexico City in 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved fists toward the sky, heads bowed, a silent thunderclap that told the whole world the truth about the state of Black America. They paid a price for that moment, and our people have been freer for their courage ever since.
To honor him, our own Jordon, Fiyah, Kahlil, and Alonzo co-wrote and performed an original song, "Pass the Baton." It is a tribute to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, those National Track and Field legends, and to every freedom runner who took the baton before us and ran their leg with conviction. Watching our young Kings stand in that lineage, lifting their voices the way those brothers lifted their fists, reminded me exactly why we do this work. The baton is in good hands.
Happy birthday, Brother Tommie. We carry it forward.
KOO Labs: Our Third Summer Is Officially Underway
We kicked off our third Summer of programming at the KOO Labs Design Center and Production House, and the energy in the building is electric.
This summer our youth are getting hands-on, dynamic training across four creative disciplines:
Animation
Music and Beat Production
Video Podcasting
Fashion
This is about more than skills, though the skills are real. It is about equipping our young people with entrepreneurial confidence, creative voice, and the tools to tell their own stories on their own terms. Three summers in, KOO Labs is proof of what becomes possible when we give Black brilliance the space, the equipment, and the love to grow.
Sankofa Kings: Launching Our Inaugural AI Program
I am proud to share that we launched our inaugural AI program, working with Middle School, High School, and Opportunity-aged youth to bridge three powerful streams: Ancestral Intelligence, Youth Participatory Action Research, and Artificial Intelligence.
The mission is simple and revolutionary: move our Kings from being consumers of technology to creators with it. Our young people are identifying the issues that impact themselves, their families, and their communities, and then using generative AI workflows to design and build real solutions, Activation Toolkits, that put power back in community hands.
We are grounding tech in culture, rooting innovation in identity, and reminding our Kings that they are not just users of the future. They are its architects.
A Sanctuary Grows: Our Partnership with Canticle Farm
One of the most beautiful things taking root this season is our new partnership with Canticle Farm in East Oakland. Canticle is an urban garden, educational center, and intentional community in the Fruitvale, rooted in restorative justice, nonviolent communication, and reverence for the land and the Lisjan Ohlone people on whose territory it lives.
Together, we are creating internship opportunities for our Opportunity-aged youth to learn about environmental education, social justice, and restorative practices, all while caring for the land and one another. It is a place to rest, heal, learn, and serve. As we say, "I am because we are," and this partnership lets our elders and our Kings embody that truth side by side.
Celebrating TFI Cohort 2 & the Block Jacket Ceremony
We celebrated Cohort 2 of our TFI (The Fellowship Initiative) with the honoring and distribution of their TFI Block Jackets.
If you know, you know. The Block Jacket is more than a garment. It is a marker of brotherhood, accomplishment, and belonging, a wearable reminder that these young men did the work, showed up for each other, and are part of something larger than themselves. Watching our Cohort 2 Kings receive their jackets, standing tall in what they earned, was a moment of pure pride. Salute to every fellow, mentor, and family member who made it possible
He Was Born Divine. Now There's a Practice to Match.
This Juneteenth, Dr. Nikka Lemons releases COVERED, a 365-day devotional system that places daily prayer, micro-ritual, and seasonal practice into the hands of Black males and the people who love them. It draws on 5,000 years of African wisdom and treats the chakra system as spiritual technology, carried forward through the named traditions our ancestors brought across water: Yoruba, Akan, Kemetic, Dagara, and Gullah Geechee.
COVERED arrives as two companion editions. The Self Edition speaks directly to the Black male, ages 5 to 99, praying over his own life. The Nurturers Edition hands mothers, grandparents, mentors, and everyone who covers a Black male the language to do daily what our grandmothers have always done.
I was honored to write the foreword, and Berwick Mahdi Davenport of the Human Solidarity Project offers the introduction. Together we name what this community already lives: the crowning of our young Kings is sacred work, and it begins long before the world ever weighs in.
COVERED launches Juneteenth 2026 at coveredsuns.com. Place it on the nightstand. Carry it into your programs. Put a full year of practice into thousands of hands.
The crown was never in question. COVERED helps him wear it every day. Asé.
30 Years of Black Love: Thank You, L Boogie
Last but most certainly not least, I want to shine a light on something deeply personal. This month, I celebrated my 30-year wedding anniversary with my Life Partner, co-conspirator, collaborator, and Queen, LaShawn.
If it were not for her love, her light, and her steadfast support, I would not be the leader, or the man, I am today. Thirty years of building, dreaming, struggling, and growing together. Thirty years of choosing each other and choosing this work.
So let me say it loud, right here: Black Love is alive and thriving in The Town. It is joy, it is healing, and it is hope, and ours is living proof.
Thank you, L Boogie. I love you.
As we move through this month of Juneteenth and Pride, of remembrance and resistance and joy, let us keep passing the baton. To our young people, to one another, to the future our Kings deserve
We run our leg with everything we have. And we are not turning back.
In love, truth, and power,
Chris Chatmon aka Baba C
Founder & CEO, Kingmakers of Oakland