During her annual "State of Black Pittsburgh" address yesterday, the president of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh called for local black communities to rise above the weight of fatherless homes.

"Unfortunately, too many of today's black fathers have forgotten, or maybe never learned, the lessons of the men who went before them," said Esther Bush, arguing that black communities should be talking about fatherhood, not "baby daddies."

Speaking to a crowd of several hundred people at the Carnegie Mellon University Center, Ms. Bush was met with a chorus of affirmations and a standing ovation.

She cited programs that promote youth employment as a first step toward preventing violence, and initiatives like the Greater Pittsburgh Healthy Marriage Coalition as one of many critical resources for black families.

"Although the social culture has manufactured the image of the young black man to be a hip-hop gangster, we know better," she said. "There are good black men in our homes."

Her address was followed by a speech by Roland Martin, a Chicago-based journalist and commentator, who called on audience members to step into the lives of those they saw struggling.

"President Barack Obama ain't the daddy of black America," he said. "It starts with us."

At the end of his speech, Mr. Martin asked those sitting in the audience to take out a sheet of paper and write down a personal commitment to their community over the next year.

"If you turn the lives of three people around, do you know how major that is?" Mr. Martin asked.

Ronald Bennett, of North Versailles, wrote that he would mentor the young men in his Duquesne church and continue to help black families through his work for Support to Parents of Employed Students, an Urban League initiative.

Ericka Kenney, a mother of five from Northview Heights, wrote that she would start by being a better mother to her own children, then to the children in her community.

But Majestic Lane, of Wilkinsburg, wrote nothing, because he already dedicates himself to young black men daily through his truancy prevention work for the Community Empowerment Association, he said.

Mr. Lane said he appreciated Mr. Martin's ideas, but he urged people to remember that there are many steps to change.

"It has to move past inspiration," he said.

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