The greetings came easily as the men filtered into the second-floor room at the Kingsley Association on a recent Tuesday evening.
“What’s up, King?”
“Good to see you, brother.”
“A bunch of kings in here tonight.”
Some embraced. Others shook hands. A few exchanged hearty opinions about the NBA playoffs. They showed the easy familiarity of people who have come to trust one another.
On this night, 13 participants and four facilitators gathered in a circle. They came from different walks of life — education, construction, tech, community work and the arts. Some were fathers. Others were sons, nephews, husbands, grandfathers, uncles or mentors. A few were attending for the first time. One by one, the men shared their names and a highlight from their week.
A daughter’s graduation.
A child’s birthday.
A sobriety anniversary.
A personal accomplishment.
Each update — short but meaningful — was met with applause and encouragement.
After a warm beginning, the men began to share their vulnerabilities. Some are dealing with family courts, divorce, separation from their children and more. In the circle, there is talk about relationships, alcohol, work, isolation and emotional survival. They come seeking a place to lay their burdens down.
Jerrett Morris is 45. He has six children by three different women. His toddler daughter was with him for part of the meeting.
“I’ve felt a lot of experiences,” he said. “I’ve been hurt, abused, and in pain. I’ve had my children kept away from me. I’ve had the door shut, and it hurts so bad.”
One of the mothers told him he’d never see his child again.
Morris said he’s asked a lot of questions about what has gone wrong, but coming into the room is a safe place where he can talk about “seeking a partner for life, seeking a family.” He said he wants “safety, security, happiness and love within a family household.”
After dinner came announcements about Father’s Day celebrations, summer camp activities and upcoming community events. Then the conversation shifted to the evening’s topic: stress, work and alcohol.
The gathering was part of the Fatherhood Initiative, a partnership between the Kingsley Association and Steel Smiling, a Pittsburgh nonprofit focused on Black mental health. The program uses the National Fatherhood Initiative’s evidence-based “24/7 Dad” curriculum, designed to help fathers become more engaged and effective parents. The program is structured around the three components: healing, education and putting knowledge into practice.
Program leaders say the work addresses barriers that often prevent men from fully showing up for their children, families and communities. Nationally, more than 18 million children live in single-parent homes, the majority of which lack fathersaccording to the U.S. Census Bureau. Research has linked father absence to lower educational attainment, increased mental health challenges and higher rates of involvement in the justice system.
But statistics alone do not explain why the men gather twice each month inside Kingsley’s walls.
For that, one must listen to their stories.
Building a space for Black men
Joshua McKinley did not set out to build a men’s group. In many ways, the work found him through his own struggle.
For years, he said, he carried trauma he did not fully understand and emotions he did not know how to name. Mental health challenges existed on both sides of his family, he said, but like many Black men, he learned early that vulnerability was often treated as weakness. “The expectation was endurance,” he said. “Keep moving. Keep providing. Keep silent.”
By the time he arrived at the Kingsley Association nearly five years ago, he had spent much of his adult life working in ministry and homeless outreach, helping others navigate pain while wrestling with his own. He was married, raising two children, and trying to understand what emotional wellness looked like for Black fathers and husbands who rarely had spaces to speak honestly about fear, stress, anger or grief.
Around the same time, Kingsley staff had begun noticing a troubling pattern among some of the men connected to its family programming: Many fathers were physically absent from their children’s lives. Others were present, but emotionally disconnected. Traditional outreach efforts were falling short.
McKinley said the question became simple but urgent: Where do Black men go when they need help?
The answer, increasingly, was nowhere.
That realization led Kingsley into partnership with Steel Smiling. Through a conversation involving community leaders and facilitators already working with men’s groups, the foundation for what would become the Fatherhood Initiative and “King Smile” peer-support circle began to take shape.
Nearly four years later, the group continues to gather twice each month at Kingsley. Sometimes discussions become so personal and emotionally raw that facilitators never make it through the night’s planned lesson.
“We only get through one question,” McKinley said during a recent conversation. “Because it goes so deep so fast.”
For Meleak Potter, the journey into the work followed a different path.
At 32, he’s versed in both mental health advocacy and business development. Before entering community work, he built a career in real estate and finance, eventually owning a title company. But while working in those industries, he repeatedly encountered people struggling beneath the weight of financial instability, housing insecurity and untreated emotional stress.
His own mental health journey pushed him toward psychology. He earned a degree in psych with a business minor and eventually founded a nonprofit focused on financial wellness and real estate education. But community healing, he realized, could not happen through economics alone.
Working first with Artist Talk Mental Health and later with Steel Smiling, Potter found himself increasingly drawn toward peer-support work, particularly among Black men who often carried emotional burdens in silence.
Inside the men’s circle at Kingsley, he said, vulnerability begins with recognition.
“Many participants,” he said, “arrive believing they are alone in their struggles. Then they hear another man describe the same fears — failing relationships, pressure to provide, depression, emotional shutdown, fatherhood mistakes, loneliness.”
And slowly, Potter said, the room changes.
Men begin speaking more openly. They return week after week. Some say the group helped save marriages. Others say it changed how they parent their children. Some simply say it gave them a place where they finally felt heard.
Rakeem ‘Keem’ Collins
Hill District resident Rakeem “Keem” Collins first connected with Steel Smiling in 2019 as a facilitator through its Beams to Bridges mental wellness program. His ability to translate complex psychological concepts into everyday language eventually led him into facilitating men’s groups and later the Fatherhood Initiative.
“I could take ideas like Pavlov’s theory on conditioning and explain it in a way that people from our neighborhoods could immediately understand and relate to,” he said.
He believes society conditions Black men to believe they are lesser than others and destined for incarceration. He said that kind of conditioning damages people and, without support, the men can end up in dark places. Collins, 36, sees this firsthand through his work in violence prevention.
A father to four young children, Collins considered how he was raised by a man who was not his biological father. He was a “hardworking” provider who taught him “consistency and responsibility,” Collins said.
The example stayed with him. Years later, it would influence how he approaches the men who gather at Kingsley seeking the same things he learned at home — guidance, accountability and belonging. For Collins, the meetings enable him to pass along something many Black men rarely experience: emotional safety.
“A lot of times when we’re dealing with what we’re dealing with, we feel like we’re the only people going through it,” he said.
In the sessions at Kingsley, Collins said he often puts the focus on what he calls the five pillars of life: spiritual, mental, emotional, physical and financial wellness. Before men can become better fathers or husbands, he said, they must first learn how to care for themselves.
“Fatherhood is sacred. Creating life comes with enormous responsibility,” he said. “But fathers are often overlooked, unappreciated and disrespected. This room gives fathers a place where they are valued and heard.”
Kevin Rudolph
Kevin Rudolph can trace parts of his story back to the streets of Larimer, where violence and opportunity often existed side by side.
As a boy, he watched neighborhood feuds spill into gunfire. Friends drifted into gangs, prison and trouble. But Rudolph found refuge in places like Scouting Troop No. 274 and the Kingsley Association, which offered safe spaces such as camps and swimming lessons that pulled him away from the dangers around him.
“Kingsley helped me get away from the negativity,” Rudolph said.
His relationship with his father was complicated. Rudolph describes him as a hard-drinking man who moved in and out of his life, creating turmoil at home. Yet those experiences also became lessons. Watching addiction’s impact on his family helped Rudolph recognize his own struggles with alcohol at an early age. By his late teens, drinking had become a daily habit.
Today, Rudolph has more than 34 years of uninterrupted sobriety.
Now 59, he lives in East Liberty and serves as what he calls a “resident champion” in his housing community, helping connect neighbors with resources and supporting senior residents through community programs. It was through that work that he met McKinley, who was starting a men’s group in Rudolph’s housing development. When McKinley later invited him to attend the Fatherhood Initiative at Kingsley, Rudolph accepted.
After just a few months, he says the experience has already reshaped how he thinks about fatherhood.
Rudolph’s role as a father has not always been simple. He has five children ranging in age from 10 to 33.
“I have experienced the pain of seeing one of my children make serious mistakes. My oldest son is currently serving a prison sentence for crimes he committed as a young adult. That has been one of the hardest experiences of my life,” he said.
Rudolph also has a daughter who just graduated college. Another younger teenager is not biologically his, but Rudolph raised him from infancy and continues to consider him his son.
The Fatherhood Initiative challenged him to become more intentional with the children in his life. Instead of allowing his work as an assistant with the residents in his East Liberty housing complex, relationships or other distractions to consume his attention, he now spends dedicated time with his children. They visit his home, share meals, play board games and take trips together.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is being present,” Rudolph said.
After decades of recovery and a lifetime of lessons learned through hardship, Rudolph says fatherhood remains his most important work.
Darronté Buckner
Three years ago, Darronté Buckner encountered the program while working at Kingsley as a custodian and front desk employee. Curious about the gatherings, the 30-year-old asked if he could attend.
He is not a father, but the issues and concerns he heard spoke to him as a Black man and he has been returning ever since.
Buckner, who now works as a courier, grew up in the Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood of Pittsburgh as the youngest of five children. His father was present in his life, and he credits that experience with shaping his understanding of manhood.
“I’m always a firm believer that to be a man, you must see a man,” he said. There’s so much out there to misguide people, he said, “that you need to have some type of male figure that [someone] you could look up to instead of looking up to stuff on social media or television and things like that — which are a masquerade of manhood.”
He said the men’s circle provides something difficult to find elsewhere: a place where men can be honest without fear of judgment.
“We’re able to express our vulnerability,” Buckner said. “And anything that we are dealing with on daily life. In our circle, we don’t judge nobody with whatever they’re going through.”
He values the wisdom shared by older men in the room. The biggest lesson he has taken away is persistence.
“No matter what life brings, just keep going,” he said. “No matter how hard it beats you down, you just don’t, don’t give up.”
Desmond Hargrove
At 27, Desmond Hargrove may be one of the youngest men in the room, but when he arrived at the Fatherhood Initiative in February, he was searching for something many of the older participants were seeking as well: community.
Hargrove first learned about the men’s group through a combination of social media, Kingsley Association programming and conversations with Potter, one of the organizers. For years, he had been looking for a space where men could gather without the pressure to project toughness or perfection.
“I was looking for a safe place where I could be authentically myself and not feel judged,” Hargrove said.
He has found that space in these meetings at Kingsley.
Hargrove spent his early years in Lincoln-Lemington and, at age 11, lost his father to a motorcycle accident. Hargrove was close to his father and learned from him that he could be anything. He watched his father, who worked as a caretaker and teacher’s assistant, fix the bikes of kids in the neighborhood and teach them how to dive. The loss of his father left him feeling disconnected and adrift. His academic performance suffered, and he struggled to find direction.
That changed when he enrolled at The Neighborhood Academy, a preparatory school in Pittsburgh’s East End, where he rediscovered a love for learning, community engagement and service. He went on to Allegheny College, where he majored in communication and minored in community and justice. Today, he works at Steel City Squash, a nonprofit youth development program in Larimer that combines academic support and mentoring with athletic instruction.
Although he is not a father, Hargrove sees his role as mentor, big brother and advocate for young people. Much of his work centers on helping youth recognize possibilities beyond the limitations others may place on them.
The conversations inside the men’s circle have strengthened that mission.
One discussion, in particular, has stayed with him. During a meeting, an older participant shared that growing up, he believed going to prison was simply part of becoming a man. Only later, after serving time, did he realize how destructive that belief had been.
For Hargrove, the story underscored the importance of giving young men different examples of manhood.
When he encounters youth who might find themselves on the wayward path, he draws lessons from the circle to help steer them back on course.
“If you care about somebody, if you love them and claim that you wanna be there for them, you should never wanna put them in a situation where your actions are causing them harm,” he said.
That lesson aligns with what he values most about the Fatherhood Initiative. In a culture that often rewards bravado, he has found a space where men speak openly about their failures, fears and growth. The vulnerability he encounters there has reinforced his belief that strength is not found in pretending to have all the answers, but in being honest enough to keep learning.
“I really try to teach young men that it’s cool to be strong and tough,” he said, “but you don’t always have to be strong and tough.”
Ervin Dyer is a writer who focuses his storytelling on Africana life and culture. He can be reached at ervindyer@gmail.com.
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