UW Major: Communication Arts
Founder and CEO, Running Rebels
As a middle-school student in Milwaukee, Victor Barnett was confused about why so many of his friends would suddenly disappear at random times during the school year. When he eventually realized those absences were because his young friends were being incarcerated for various reasons, he knew he wanted to do something to change it.
He suspected that a large part of the problem was a lack of positive male mentors — the kind he’d known during his early childhood in rural Mississippi. “I always had older guys that influenced me, helped me steer away from trouble,” he says. “If I was hungry, they would make sure I got something to eat. So I grew up with that understanding of caring about younger people to help them through rough times.”
As a teenager, Barnett became one of those older-guy mentors to a neighborhood boy struggling with the challenges of growing up in the inner city. Barnett started to play basketball with him regularly, and word spread to other boys who wanted to play, too. Even after Barnett moved to Madison to begin his freshman year at UW–Madison, he traveled back to Milwaukee most weekends to keep playing with what had grown to a group of 50 boys — and swelled to 100 the following year.
The group became a source of strength and meaning for Barnett after his father died unexpectedly, and he decided to form the organization Running Rebels to keep it going indefinitely. More than 40 years later, the nonprofit has become a staple resource for inner-city youth, with athletic and academic programs that serve more than 2,500 students in seven public schools, a staff of 130, and partnerships with the city court system that help keep at-risk teenagers out of juvenile detention.
Barnett has won numerous accolades for his work with several youth-oriented organizations and initiatives in Milwaukee. But his greatest achievements, he says, are the life stories of the young men who find positive, productive paths after participating in Running Rebels programs. Their alumni include NBA champion Kevon Looney, Grambling State University basketball coach Donte Jackson, and several prominent community leaders — yet Barnett says he is equally proud of the young men who have become healthy, dedicated parents or avoided incarceration by working with him.
It all comes down to offering a sense of hope. When Running Rebels started, gang recruitment and negative street life were the major challenges that ensnared young men in his community. “Now, it’s just general hopelessness — that feeling that ‘I’m not going to make it,’ ” he says. “It’s probably three times worse now than it was in the ’80s. You have to bring that light at the end of the tunnel closer to them.” Barnett believes that starts with fostering a positive environment where young people can spend time, feel like their basic needs are met, and talk to empathetic mentors who can help them envision a promising future for themselves. “I tell young people, it’s not often that a person can say they’re living their dream,” he says. “I’m that person. This was my dream and I’m living it every day. I’m grateful, and I feel blessed to be able to sit here and say that.”
