Ben Jealous, former head of the NAACP, comes back home to talk about his new book this Sunday.

Ben Jealous, the Pacific Grove-raised former president and CEO of the NAACP, is returning to Monterey County to launch a book he co-edited with Trabian Shorters, founder and CEO of the nonprofit black men's networking group BMe. The book is called Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading, and Succeeding, and it's a kind of handbook of inspiration for young black males.

Ben's mother also co-edited a book (with Carolyn Haskell). It's called Combined Destinies: White Share Grief About Racism, which traveled up river to the psychology of racial strife. And, like her book, Ben's book seeks to go to the source to address and redress needs in the black community.

"Young men may imitate what they see," Jealous writes by email, "but they never imitate what they don’t see. And with the exception of one Black man in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, many of the images of Black men on the news and on TV are negative."

Some of the accounts come from celebrities like rapper Talib Kweli, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, former basketball star Isaiah Thomas and actor Louis Gossett Jr. (who, beyond his Oscar-winning performance in An Officer and a Gentleman, has led a fulfilling life in acting and activism).

Most of the accounts come from men (most of them from the East Coast) who Shorters or Jealous have encountered from the business, nonprofit and religious world. Like D'Wayne Edwards, the 45-year-old founder of Pensole Footwear Design Academy in L.A., who opens with a Bruce Lee quote: "To hell with circumstances. I create opportunities."

"There are enough stories to fill dozens of future editions," Jealous says of the stories submitted by these men he met through BMe, the NAACP, or during his stint as a journalist with the NNPA (National Newspaper Publishers Association). "The BMe network in particular is full to the brim with men who have incredible stories, who are leaders and who have chosen to give back to the next generation."

Two of the biographical essays are by locals: Mel Mason of Seaside's Village Project, and Ret. Commander Paul Tanks of Monterey High School's NJROTC. They are both scheduled to attend Ben's local book launch this Sunday in Seaside at the dual open houses for The Village Project and Breakthrough Men's Community, both dedicated to helping people in poor communities and in poor mental and physical health. Breakthrough is led by Ben's father, Fred. Again, someone who’s at work on the source of personal and societal illness instead of just the symptoms.

It's not that the symptoms don't deserve attention. But the shooting of Michael Brown turned out to be more of a lightning rod, attracting the attention of activists and, later, investigators with the Department of Justice who compiled a report they titled "Justice Department Finds a Pattern of Civil Rights Violations by the Ferguson Police Department."

They followed the lightning up into the clouds and chronicled the storms brewing, including racial profiling and predatory economic practices. 

Reach is not a direct response to Walter Scott, Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tim Rice, etc. etc. But you can't help but think of them as you read it.

"There is absolutely a need for Black fathers today to talk with their sons about the reality of police violence," Ben Jealous writes. "But fathers should also be telling their sons that more black men are going to college than ever before in our nation’s history, and that Black men make up the largest share of people of color in the U.S. Armed Forces."

The book travels upriver, in search of the headwaters, to offer a fresh start. And it suggests how. 

"All of these men made the choice to treat their stumbling blocks as stepping stones," Shorters writes by email, "and in doing so became Community Builders and sources of inspiration."

Reach book launch is 2-5pm Sunday, April 19, at 1069 Broadway Ave., Seaside. Free.