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Cincinnati, Ohio — Travel through America’s Heartland quickly reveals how far legacy media has drifted from core American principles. On a recent trip to Cincinnati to attend a family wedding, your columnist picked up The Cincinnati Enquirer and read an opinion piece by Dennis Doyle, a member of its Board of Contributors and resident of suburban Anderson Township. The article, titled “Gangs offer belonging; city must compete for young men,” offered a revealing window into modern progressive thinking on urban violence.
Doyle correctly notes that young black men in Cincinnati are disproportionately both perpetrators and victims of shootings and homicides. However, rather than turning to the two institutions traditionally responsible for forming young men—church and family—he calls on city government to solve the crisis. In doing so, he places his faith in Caesar rather than in the Creator-ordained pillars of civil society.
A Misguided Prescription
Doyle argues that the city is “failing a generation of young [black] men” and that local government must compete with street gangs for their loyalty. Gangs succeed, he says, because they provide what young men crave: identity, belonging, brotherhood, and an adult presence that affirms their worth.
He proposes a large-scale city-funded “mentorship corps” composed primarily of “young white professionals, tradesmen, contractors, and business owners.” These mentors would personally approach young black men with offers of jobs, skills training, and a visible example of a better future—standing in front of them, not appearing in a brochure.
For models, Doyle cites Chicago’s “Becoming a Man” program, Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, and Big Brothers Big Sisters. He claims these programs succeed for the same reasons gangs do: they offer identity, accountability, and belonging.
Yet he never explains why, despite decades of such programs and billions spent on well-funded social service organizations, the problems persist in Cincinnati and other cities. Nor does he address the obvious failure of similar efforts in Chicago, a city plagued by unrelenting violence despite these very interventions.
The Real Problem
Doyle diagnoses the symptoms competently but misses the root cause. Since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs began in the mid-1960s, the black family has been systematically undermined. In 1965, roughly 80% of black children grew up with their fathers. Today, that figure has flipped: nearly 80% do not, with rates approaching 90% in many inner cities.
The welfare state effectively replaced fathers with government checks, food stamps, public housing, Medicaid and public schools. Single mothers became heads of households, often under immense strain. The human cost has been devastating: extraordinarily high abortion rates in the black community (approaching 40% nationally and over 50% in some urban areas) and, too often, surviving children who hear the wounding message that they were unwanted.
Nowhere in Doyle’s piece does he mention the words father, family, or church. His solution remains purely secular and governmental.
The Proven Path: Church and Family
Our Creator anticipated these challenges and established two private welfare institutions—the church and the family—to cultivate human potential with minimal reliance on taxpayer funds or state bureaucracy. These institutions build character, transmit moral grounding, and invest in human capital across generations.
Secular attempts to replace them with government programs have consistently failed, leading only to repeated calls for more funding and more intervention. The proposed “cross-community mentorship corps” is simply the latest version of this failed approach.
A far more promising model is already operating in Chicago’s South Side. Pastor Corey Brooks of New Beginnings Church has combined bold Gospel preaching, strong advocacy for intact families, and practical community development. Through Project HOOD (Helping Others Obtain Destiny), his congregation has built the McCormick Learning Center directly across from the church. There, residents receive vocational training, mentorship, and fellowship rooted in faith and personal responsibility.
Pastor Brooks’s approach relies on private philanthropy, strong families (including uncles and grandfathers as role models), and spiritual formation—not city hall or expanded social service budgets. American history strongly suggests this is the path that actually works.
The evidence is clear: government cannot legislate identity, instill purpose, or give a young man a vision of virtuous manhood. Only fathers, families, and churches can do that. Until we rediscover these foundational institutions, well-meaning but misguided calls for more government “mentorship corps” will continue to fail the very young men they claim to help.
