Brother To Brother

Dr. McCants declares his sonship to China Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Turin, GA, where he was baptized, and to Watts Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC, where he was licensed and ordained through the Wake Missionary Baptist Association. He also declares his adopted sonship to Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, CA.

Dr. McCants honors his call to ministry through the Black Church, formerly serving as the Minister of Prophetic Justice at the historic Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, CA, leading the work of preserving and proclaiming the faith of the people in areas of social justice and civic engagement. He now serves as the Senior Pastor at Imani Community Church in Oakland, CA.

On the professional side, he serves as a Campaign Coordinator for EBASE (East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy), leading EBASE’s commitment to racial equity through Black Worker Organizing and building Black Worker Power.

Lastly, Dr. McCants defines himself as a Southern Gentleman, dedicated to the liberation of all God’s creation through the life, love and light of God as manifested through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is married to Lady Aniyah Cleveland-McCants, and he is a bonus dad to Nehemiah.

He holds positions including Associate Chair of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Department of Urology, the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center (HDFCCC) Prostate Cancer Program Community Outreach and Engagement Liaison, and Minority Enrollment and Recruitment into Trials Champion for the GU Oncology Clinical Trials Workgroup. He serves on the NCCN Guidelines for Prostate Cancer Early Detection Panel and several national committees focused on improving health equity, including the Association of Community Cancer Centers Bladder Cancer Advisory Committee and Oncology Clinical Pathways Development Teams for Bladder, Kidney, and Prostate Cancers for the Veterans Health Administration. Through these positions, his efforts focus on understanding the population-level and healthcare system-related factors that interact with race and ethnicity, geography, and social environment to perpetuate disparities in urologic care.

His collaborative work includes co-investigator and co-principal investigator roles on disparities-related projects funded by the Department of Defense and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, leading to peer-reviewed publications in journals including European Urology and JAMA Oncology, and invited presentations at regional, national, and international conferences.

God blessed Rev. Keith with the gift of glorifying God through music — a gift cultivated and groomed by the late Bishop John Allen McBride. He has served the Lord in Music Ministry for more than 25 years, serving as Minister of Music for Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church, Oakland; New Hope Baptist Church, Oakland; Moriah Christian Fellowship, Oakland; and Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, San Francisco.

Rev. Keith acknowledged his call to the Gospel Ministry and preached his first sermon at the New Hope Baptist Church, where he was licensed to preach and ordained for ministry. He has received two Associate of Science degrees from Heald College, Hayward, CA, in Computer Technology and Computer Networking, and a Certificate of Ministry from Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA.

He has served as Minister of Evangelism for New Hope Baptist Church, leading the church in street witnessing through evangelistic outreach campaigns; as Marriage and Family Minister of Moriah Christian Fellowship, where as a certified Marriage Educator he and his wife Renea educated married couples and singles exploring marriage; and as Director of Ministry Operations for Harvest Fellowship Church, Oakland, CA. Rev. Keith currently serves as the pastor of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in El Sobrante, CA.

Rev. Keith’s favorite scripture is Matthew 6:33: “But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Dr. Turner has extensive experience in community consultation and was recognized as one of the 50 most influential individuals in the Oakland–San Francisco Bay Area for his support of community development initiatives. He serves as an expert witness in matters involving bonding and attachment assessments for foster and adoptive families, chemical dependency and addiction, and multicultural competence issues in public and private organizations at both local and national levels.

Dr. Turner earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed his internship at the Westside Community Mental Health Center in San Francisco and pursued postdoctoral training at Pacific Psychotherapy Associates under the clinical supervision of Dr. William H. Grier, co-author of Black Rage. During this period, Dr. Turner specialized in addressing the emotional and psychological challenges faced by Black men, Black male adolescents, and Black families.

For more than 24 years, Dr. Turner served as Chief Psychologist and Director of Training in the Department of Psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente Oakland, consulting with emergency room staff and hospital wards and serving on the team that developed the Chemical Dependency Recovery Program. He provided individual, group, and family psychotherapy for adults, adolescents, and children, with a particular focus on Black and culturally diverse populations.

Honors include the Distinguished Faculty of the Year Award, John F. Kennedy University Psy.D. Department (2003–2004 and 2007); Honored Faculty of the Year, University of California Extension (2012–2013 and 2019–2020); and Senior Staff Consultant, VISIONS, Inc. (2002–Present), overseeing consultation contracts and grants throughout the western United States.

Mitchell is a fierce promoter of South Africa’s creative arts as a source of economic value, transformation and jobs. As a Film Commissioner, he has overseen many Oscar-nominated and Emmy productions as part of the development of the film industry. Mr. Mitchell has been working with young Black people over the last three decades to ensure the transfer of skills, innovation and technology, and to empower them to become successful entrepreneurs.

He is a graduate of Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), and served on the university council of the University of Stellenbosch. He is an ordained Elder and serves in the poorer communities of Cape Town, always focused on the spiritual development of the youth — and particularly on elevating young women in the Church.

He provided pastoral and executive leadership in the United Methodist Church from 1996–2018. At the heart of his ministry has been over 25 years of boldly bridging sanctuaries with streets and suites toward organizing people to realize more just and fair communities and countries. He has provided pastoral leadership with Holman UMC in Los Angeles, Downs UMC in Oakland, Jones UMC in San Francisco, and two United Methodist national agencies in Nashville and New York. Rev. Sauls has served on numerous boards of community and philanthropic organizations throughout California, and while in Los Angeles served as a Mayoral appointee to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) Commission for ten years.

Rev. Sauls is the Co-Founder of local, regional, national and international faith-rooted people-power-building organizations: the Brother-To-Brother Bible Study (Oakland); Priority Africa Network (San Francisco Bay Area); Black Alliance for Just Immigration (national); and the Beloved Community Coalition, BECOCO (South Africa).

A Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Institute in the area of trans-national racial equity, and a columnist for the Los Angeles Sentinel and LA Progressive, he also serves as a board member and strategic advisor to grassroots organizations including the International Society of Black Latinos, the Black Women for Wellness Action Project, and Sanctuary of Hope.

Grounded in a spirituality of mutuality and inclusivity, equitable belonging, and ubuntu, Rev. Sauls currently serves as one of the statewide Community Organizers in California with the faith-rooted racial justice movement-building organization LIVE FREE USA. As a multi-faith leader in a multi-racial society, realizing God’s Beloved World House is central to the vision, direction and destination of his community engagements.

Teaching: He has taught in the Department of History at Morgan State University (Baltimore, MD) and at San Francisco State University in the Department of Ethnic Studies. Ampim has studied at Oxford University in England and collaborated on a NASA-sponsored research project examining ancient climate and migration patterns in Africa. Currently, Prof. Ampim is a tenured professor of History and Africana Studies at Contra Costa College (San Pablo, CA), and director of Advancing the Research (Oakland, CA), where he created a 7-Step Primary Research Methodology home study course.

Field research: Professor Ampim has led educational tours to North Africa and Central America. From 1989–1991 he conducted an extensive pioneering 13-country research tour of the major museums, institutes and libraries throughout America, Europe and Canada that house ancient Kushite, Nubian, and Egyptian artifacts. Since the 1990s, he has completed field research projects in Egypt, Nubia, Sudan, and Ethiopia, studying ancient African social organization and spiritual culture, pyramid construction science, documenting modern forgeries, and recording the vanishing evidence of classical African civilizations in the Nile Valley. In 2012, he co-founded the Save Nubia Project, focused on preserving the archaeological sites of ancient Kush and Nubia in the Sudan. His Winter 2022 field research in four East African countries continued his pioneering work among living indigenous cultures to uncover the historical origins of ancient Kush — a field of study he has coined “Kushology.” In 2024–2026, Ampim has continued his primary research in Kushology and is sponsoring a pioneering film documentary in Gambella, Ethiopia.

Publications: Prof. Ampim’s most extensive set of articles is the six-part essay “The Vanishing Evidence of Classical African Civilizations.” He has written a pioneering book on Black community development and the influence of the current Africentric movement, essays in Egypt: Child of Africa (1994, ed. Ivan Van Sertima), and a new introduction to the classic Stolen Legacy (1954) by George G.M. James. He exposed the great Willie Lynch hoax in his 2013 book Death of the Willie Lynch Speech, which contains the confession letter of the alleged forger. His recent book is A History of African Civilizations (2nd ed., 2023), and his forthcoming Modern Fraud documents the Rahotep and Nofret statues as among the greatest forgeries in the history of ancient African archaeology.

Presentations & trainings: For 36 years in the U.S. and several other countries, Prof. Ampim has given presentations and trainings in academic institutions from elementary schools to universities, libraries, professional organizations, community-based groups, non-profit institutions, faith-based organizations, correctional facilities, and large corporations.

Professional experience: Retired command-level law enforcement executive with over 30 years of service to the Cities of Berkeley and Novato, California; Executive Director of Piedmont Gardens and Grand Lake Gardens senior residential communities; former Senior Field Representative to California State Assemblymember Sandré Swanson (16th District); former Senior Advisor for Public Safety to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan; U.S. Department of Justice Instructor in Hate Crimes Investigation; and Consent Decree Monitor, Providence, Rhode Island — Supervisor Examination (1991).

Education: Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, San Francisco State University; Master of Community and Leadership, Berkeley School of Theology (formerly American Baptist Seminary of the West), where he received the Old Testament Bible Scholar Award and the Dr. J. Alfred Smith Sr. Community Leadership Award.

Boards and community service: Board of Directors, Sojourner Truth Housing and Allen Temple Leadership Institute; former Board Member, American Baptist Homes of the West; former Chairman, Allen Temple Economic and Development Board. He led the development and construction of Allen Temple Arms Senior Housing Phases 3 and 4 and oversaw the management of Phases 1 and 2. He is a member of the Brothers to Brothers Men’s Bible Study and Fellowship and of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.

Church affiliation and ministry: Member and Deacon of Allen Temple Baptist Church for more than 40 years — one of the largest African American churches in the San Francisco Bay Area — including 7 years as Chair and 12 years as Vice Chair of the Deacon Board; missionary to Sierra Leone, West Africa, with Dr. J. Alfred Smith Sr.; Adult Sunday School Teacher (Class 9) for 24 years; and Instructor of Old Testament I & II at the Allen Temple Leadership Institute for 20 years. He was born October 20, 1949, and has been married to Dolores Lyles for 35 years.