Who We Are
The Center for Men and Boys in Social Policy is directed by Jack Kammer, MSW, MBA, a licensed social worker who began his career in male gender issues in 1983 when he created a public radio show called “In a Man’s Shoes.” In 1985 he interviewed Richard Rowe, then of the Baltimore Urban League, about the upcoming conference “Black Men: An Endangered Species.” It became increasingly clear to Jack that critical social issues are directly affected, and often worsened, by the way our society thinks about and deals with men and boys. Since then Jack has worked to bring attention and new insights to the often misunderstood situations of marginalized males, especially African-American males in urban settings. Jack has volunteered as a computer instructor at Christopher Place (a residential program for formerly addicted and homeless men), as a teen counselor for Roberta’s House (a grief and bereavement program for Baltimore families dealing with the death of a loved one), and as a facilitator for the Alternatives to Violence Project (a communications and conflict-resolution program) at Maryland men’s prisons in Jessup and Hagerstown.
Jack is the author of Good Will Toward Men (1994) and Heroes of the Blue Sky Rebellion: How You and Other Young Men Can Claim All the Happiness in the World (2009). Jack also authored a brief, wry and pithy book called If Men Have All the Power How Come Women Make the Rules (1997). He is very gratified that the most common reader response to that volume was from men who voiced some variation of “Thank God I found your book. I thought I was the only person who felt this way. I thought I was going crazy. I thought I had a ‘personal’ problem.” Another of Jack’s notable writing projects was an article about the myths surrounding young men who owe child support, published in The Crisis, the national membership magazine of the NAACP, in 1993.
For the full C.V. of Jack’s work on male gender issues and their connection to social problems, click here.
