About PHILLY TRUCE

High school classmates Steven Pickens and Mazzie Casher founded PHILLY TRUCE in 2020 as the homicide rate in Philadelphia crept up to 500. In October of that year, the lifelong friends began brainstorming solutions to a familiar cycle. They recalled the last time Philadelphia saw 500 homicides: 1990, when they were in 10th grade. Their hearts went out to the youth navigating the same streets they had 30 years prior.

As founders, Pickens and Casher understand the pressures our sons face to maintain a strong reputation, given the unwritten code (“no snitching”) discouraging them to seek help beyond the peer level. They recognize the difficulties young men face in sharing their problems, especially as Black men coming of age in Philadelphia.

PHILLY TRUCE was founded with a mission to achieve Sustainable Black Manhood. The essence of Sustainable Black Manhood is crystallized in a vision that transcends conventional expectations, aiming for transformative change on multiple fronts.

This work is essential because the Black community (including other communities of color and impoverished communities) in Philadelphia is not sufficiently preparing its sons for manhood. Many mature physiologically without maturing psychologically, emotionally, or intellectually, leading to poor choices, poor options and premature deaths.

Until the African-American population in Philadelphia has sufficient familial and community leadership from its men, their lot will be a 2nd class status, and Philadelphia will continue to be saddled with crime and poverty for generations to come.