Rite of Birth: a birth chart should be made for each infant or young person in each family.  This is necessary in order to determine their personality, talents, and gifts.  If this chart is done before the new baby is given a name, then the name will always remind the person of what their mission is in life whenever his/her name is called.  When a person’s name reflects their life’s purpose then this is a powerful tool to help keep the person focused on their life’s work.

Rite of Adulthood: the adulthood rites have to be seen in a larger context.  Most programs are well meaning but the problem is often that the mentors of the numerous adulthood “rites of passage” programs have not been initiated themselves.  It is obvious that one cannot teach what one has not been taught.  The African proverb is that “one who learns, teaches.” The solution to this contradiction is for there to be more focus on programs or organizations for men and women to deal with their own issues of a lack of self-development and lack of a purposeful life, so that they could be better examples for the youth.  In other words, the principles that are taught must be applied to the lives of the mentors and adults, otherwise the programs have no credibility or long term effectiveness.

Rite of Marriage: the solution to the epidemic of serial marriages – where many individual marry and divorce multiples times during the course of their life – is to change the approach from off-balanced individuals “falling in love” to the more balanced and stable approach of culturally-centered families forming a mutual bond.  The problem for many Black people is that they often adopt anti-social Western ideas and thus see in-laws as their opponents.  If more marriages were formed between individuals that have both been through the birth and adulthood rites, then more unions would work because both individuals would have a clear focus in life and would also know how to best support the other partner’s mission.  They would be marrying the person and their mission. 

Rite of Eldership: every Black community should establish a council of elders to help guide that particular community.  There are a number of examples of African societies govern by elders (gerontocracy) because of their collective and accumulative wisdom.  This is an important philosophy that should be adopted because a council of elders could be consulted in a variety of  matters, ranging from family or marriage disputes, community-wide issues, naming of buildings and community centers, and directing resources to supporting important projects.  The guidelines of choosing the council members should be clearly established and members chosen by vote.  Without a council of elders most Black communities will remain disorganized and lacking direction and effective leadership.

Rite of Ancestorship: every Black community that establishes a governing council of elders should also chose a group of local and national ancestors whose life represented a purpose focused on helping (in some way) to build and develop the community.  This local group of honorable ancestors should be chosen to be remembered because of their great example and contributions, and thus their life should be honored.  Too often when ancestors are remembered during community ceremonies a distinction is not made between respected ancestors and dead relatives, or another problem is that many times famous ancestors are remembered but local ancestors are overlooked during these ceremonies.  Every healthy community must have local (s)heroes