This article describes the development of a self-report measure of Africentrism, defined here as the degree to which a person adheres to the Nguzo Saba (Seven Principles) in African and African American culture. Beginning with a pool of 25 Likert-type items, the authors tested two alternate forms of their Africentrism measure in a series offour studies. The reliability (internal consistency) of the measure wasfoundto be well above a minimum criterionforthe purpose of group comparisons. Indicators of construct validity and known-groups validity were also favorable. The authors recommend a 15-item version of the measure for future testing and conclude with hypotheses regarding the importance of Africentrism in assessing African-centered interventions.

Positive youth development is critical for African American youth as they negotiate a social, political, and historical landscape grounded in systemic inequities and racism. One possible, yet understudied, approach to promote positive youth development is to increase African American youth consciousness and connection to their Africentric values and culture. The primary purpose of this article was to investigate the degree to which cultural and group consciousness factors (i.e., cultural orientation, Africentric values, and racial socialization) predicted positive youth development (i.e., future orientation, prosocial behavior, political/community, and social justice/equality civic mindedness) and how these might differ by gender. This article utilized survey data from 1,930 African American youth participants of the Pen or Pencil™ mentoring program. Results generally indicated that cultural orientation, Africentric values and, to a lesser degree, racial socialization, predicted positive youth development variables, with these effects varying by gender. These findings suggest that enhancing cultural consciousness may support the positive development of African American youth, although male and female youth may respond to these efforts in different ways.

Growing evidence highlights the benefits to youth of involvement in community-based participatory research. Less attention has been paid, however, to the contributions youth can make to helping change health-promoting policy through such work. We describe a multi-method case study of a policy-focused community-based participatory research project in the Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles, California, where a small group of homeless youth worked with adult mentors to develop and conduct a survey of 96 homeless youth and used the findings to help secure health-promoting policy change. We review the partnership's work at each stage of the policy-making process; its successes in changing policy regarding recreation, juvenile justice, and education; and the challenges encountered, especially with policy enforcement. We share lessons learned, including the importance of strong adult mentors and of policy environments conducive to sustainable, health-promoting change for marginalized youth.

Social and environmental determinants of childhood obesity present a public health dilemma, particularly in low-income communities of color. Case studies of two community-based organizations participating in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Communities Creating Healthy Environments (CCHE) childhood obesity initiative demonstrate multilevel, culturally situated community organizing strategies to address the root causes of this public health disparity. Informed by a 3-lens prescription-Social Justice, Culture-Place, and Organizational Capacity-contained in the CCHE Change Model and Evaluation Frame, we present examples of individual, organizational, and community empowerment to redress systemic inequities that manifest in poor health outcomes for people of color. These case studies offer compelling evidence that public health disparities in these communities may effectively be abated through strategies that employ bottom-up, community-level approaches for (a) identifying proximal and distal determinants of public health disparities, and (b) empowering communities to directly redress these inequities. Guided by this ecological framework, application of the CCHE evaluation approach demonstrated the necessity to document the granularity of community organizing for community health, adding to the community psychology literature on empowering processes and outcomes.

The BlackLivesMatter movement has rightly pointed to the dehumanization of people of African ancestry as the driving force behind the wanton killing of Black people by the police and vigilantes. This article identifies and addresses the root cause of the dehumanization of people of African ancestry, the lie of Black inferiority (and its correlate, the lie of White superiority), examines the damaging effects of the psychological, cultural, and historical trauma caused by the lies, and introduces Emotional Emancipation Circles, a promising intervention for helping Black people overcome, heal from, and overturn the lies.