Kelvin Washington Jr.: Liberation Is Not Optional, Why Mentoring Is a M.U.S.T.
TBMC Staff
There are leaders who respond to need and then there are leaders who refuse to negotiate with it. Kelvin Washington Jr. belongs firmly in the latter. As the CEO of M.U.S.T. (Mentoring Urban Students & Teens), Kelvin doesn’t simply run a nonprofit; he advances a moral imperative. His life’s work is anchored in one uncompromising belief: liberating Black males through mentoring is not optional it must be done.
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, his journey into service did not begin with a strategic plan or a funding deck; it began with observation, empathy, and urgency. While a student at Howard University, Kelvin noticed a troubling pattern each February an uptick in juvenile incarceration among young men around campus. Instead of looking away, he acted. He founded his first nonprofit, Make a Change 4 Youth, placing collection boxes across dorms and mobilizing students to pour back into their communities. That moment planted the seed for what would become a lifelong mission.
“My mission is serving to save,” Kelvin says. “It means pouring into young people’s lives no matter what it looks like to help them avoid situations they don’t have to be in based on their decisions.”
Becoming, Not Just Attending
Kelvin’s path through college was anything but linear. Howard was the only school that accepted him. He took six years to graduate. As a first-generation college student, navigating syllabi, snowstorms, and self-doubt, Kelvin experienced what many young men feel but rarely articulate: being present without being prepared.
“I didn’t understand my worth,” he reflects. “I would hear, ‘You can do this,’ but I didn’t believe it in myself.”
That realization became formative. Kelvin recognized that the struggles facing young Black men confusion, misdirection, and identity erosion were not personal failures but systemic ones. Research predicting a child’s future based on third-grade performance isn’t theory to him; it’s tragedy.
“How can a stranger assess another stranger whose brain isn’t fully developed and decide where they’ll end up? That stirred me up.”
M.U.S.T.: Liberation as a Model
Now based in Seattle, Kelvin leads M.U.S.T. with a clear and disruptive philosophy: liberation. The organization does not prescribe a single pathway to success. It does not declare college, tech, or careers as the only answers. Instead, it opens space.
“We want to give young men enough faith in their possibilities,” Kelvin explains. “They already are great men we’re just creating spaces where they can be better.”
M.U.S.T. intentionally serves the young men most systems overlook those with GPAs below 2.0, chronic absenteeism, or involvement with the justice system. Where others see risk, Kelvin sees responsibility.
“That last chapter of your life is the only one we accept and we help you write the next.”
The results are undeniable. Against all odds, M.U.S.T. has achieved a 100% graduation rate among its most challenged participants. Alumni now attend Howard, Dillard, Xavier, FAMU, Stanford, and Columbia proof that when belief meets structure, trajectories change.
But M.U.S.T. doesn’t stop with the mentees. Every mentor is also mentored.
“When you tell me you’re carrying trauma, we’ve got someone to support you too.”
This layered model recognizes a simple truth: healing and leadership are collective acts.
Kelvin’s leadership is deeply shaped by his life at home. Openly reflective, he shares that his first marriage, though painful, was a necessary trial. Today, he is grounded by love, partnership, and purpose alongside his wife, Chloe a woman he credits with saving his life.
“She refined who I am and pushed me to give my whole self. If I didn’t learn to think different, I wouldn’t be here.”
Together, they are raising their nine-year-old daughter and their son. Fatherhood has sharpened his vision.
“I see myself in my son already. Creating an environment of love, communication, and support it changes everything.”
That same commitment extends into his role as the Seattle Lead for Daddy Stroller Social Club, where he builds community among fathers, normalizes conversations around paternal mental health, and models presence.
“Fathers matter. Postpartum affects us too. We have to pivot, show up, and be there rain or shine.”
Fatherhood in Motion: Leading Daddy Stroller Social Club Seattle
Kelvin Washington Jr.’s commitment to liberation does not stop at classrooms or courtrooms it moves at stroller pace through the streets of Seattle. As the Seattle Lead for Daddy Stroller Social Club (DSSC), Kelvin is redefining what visible, intentional Black fatherhood looks like in a city where weather, culture, and isolation can easily pull men inward.
Daddy Stroller Social Club is a global movement centered on one radical idea: fathers showing up together. For Kelvin, bringing DSSC to Seattle was not about replicating an East Coast or Southern aesthetic; it was about honoring the region while expanding the image of Black fatherhood within it.
“Seattle is different,” Kelvin shares. “It’s a melting pot. The weather isn’t forgiving. So we had to ask how do we show up consistently, even when it’s hard?”
And show up they did.
From their very first stroll, Kelvin made it clear that this would be more than a walk in the park. The Buffalo Soldiers joined the inaugural event, horses in tow, grounding the experience in history, pride, and protection. Fire trucks rolled through. Fathers arrived with strollers, carriers, and open hearts. What emerged was not just a gathering, but a declaration: we belong here.
Under Kelvin’s leadership, DSSC Seattle has become a space where fathers are seen, affirmed, and supported not just as providers, but as whole men. The chapter intentionally creates room for conversations many men are rarely invited into: paternal mental health, postpartum depression among fathers, partnership, and emotional presence.
“Postpartum affects us too,” Kelvin says plainly. “If we don’t talk about it, we carry it alone—and that affects our families.”
When the rain sets in as it often does in Seattle Kelvin pivots. Strolls turn into watch parties. Parks turn into community spaces. The mission remains the same: connection, consistency, and care.
“It’s about making sure fathers know they matter,” he explains. “Their presence changes the trajectory of their children’s lives.”
What makes Kelvin’s leadership especially powerful is how seamlessly it aligns with his work at M.U.S.T. In both spaces, he is modeling what young men need to see: Black men choosing family, choosing presence, choosing accountability, and choosing love out loud and in public.
In Seattle, where Black fathers are often invisible or misrepresented, Kelvin Washington Jr. is quite literally pushing a new narrative forward one stroller at a time.
“This must be done. It’s zero negotiable. We must mentor the next generation.”
For Kelvin, “must” is a trigger a call to action. It signals urgency, responsibility, and refusal to disengage. Individual liberation leads to community liberation. Community liberation leads to generational change.
M.U.S.T. is built in places where the work “should not work.” Seattle, with limited funding and immense challenges, became proof of concept. Even amid tragedy including the loss of a student to gun violence—Kelvin and his team did not retreat.
“We get these kids at 14. Four years later, lives are changed. We pull up to court, to school, to life. We don’t leave them.”
Now, Kelvin is looking outward: New York. Atlanta. Beyond. Not to compete, but to collaborate.
“Is there another program we can lock arms with? We’re trying to go global.”
At the heart of it all is a message to young men standing at a crossroads:
“We’re going to make a decision for you. You must go right. We need you here. We’ll ride with you until the outcome.”
Liberation Has Hands and Feet
At the heart of M.U.S.T.’s success is a truth Kelvin is always quick to name and never takes credit away from: none of this work happens without the mentors, staff, and board who carry it every single day. While vision may set direction and strategy may build the framework, liberation only becomes real through people through mentors on the ground showing up before school, after school, in courtrooms, on front steps, and in moments of crisis. These are men and women who choose consistency over convenience, relationship over recognition, and presence over praise.
This is where Think Different Club aligns seamlessly with the mission of M.U.S.T. by addressing mental health in ways that are honest, relevant, and culturally responsive. Instead of clinical distance or one-size-fits-all language, mentors meet young men where they are, helping them name what they’re carrying, reframe how they see themselves, and imagine futures beyond survival mode. Mental health here is not abstract; it’s lived, discussed, normalized, and supported through trust and relationship.
The board provides stewardship. The staff builds structure. But it is the mentors walking shoulder to shoulder with young men through trauma, setbacks, court dates, identity struggles, and breakthrough moments who give the mission its heartbeat. They listen. They advocate. They hold standards while holding space. And when systems give up, they refuse to.
As Kelvin often emphasizes, the outcomes people celebrate are a direct reflection of the people doing the work. These mentors are not just supporting the vision of M.U.S.T. they are its clearest expression. Liberation, after all, is not theoretical. It has hands. It has feet. And it shows up daily.
Liberation Is the Legacy
Kelvin Washington Jr. is not interested in optics. He is interested in outcomes. His life’s work reminds us that mentoring is not charity it is justice. And when liberation is taken seriously, when it is practiced with consistency, courage, and care, it does more than change individual lives it reshapes families, communities, and generations.
M.U.S.T. is not a suggestion. It is a declaration. A refusal to accept loss as destiny. A commitment to walk with young men until they see what has always been inside them.
And while Kelvin’s leadership is bold, he is the first to acknowledge that it did not rise in isolation. At the foundation of everything he has built stand his parents his lifelong anchor, his first example of love, discipline, and belief. Their guidance, sacrifices, and unwavering support planted the seeds long before M.U.S.T. had a name. This work is, in many ways, a continuation of what they poured into him.
Kelvin Washington Jr. is living proof that when you refuse to negotiate with possibility when you choose presence over excuses and people over systems futures don’t just open. They multiply.
