The interview microphones barely catch the city.
Cars pass. Voices drift. Newark moves the way it always does—present, layered, alive—but most of it fades into the background. What comes through clearly is Mark’s voice and presence, seated outside NJPAC on one of the first warm spring day’s of 2026, steady in a question he’s spent years turning over:
What does it actually take to support Black boys in a city like this?
“I’m a son of this city,” he said. “My family’s been here four generations, if you count my children. I know this city. I love this city.” Comesañas is the Executive Director of My Brother’s Keeper Newark, but he doesn’t talk about the work in programmatic terms. He talks about responsibility—personal, civic, structural. My Brother’s Keeper began in 2014, after President Barack Obama responded to the killing of Trayvon Martin by challenging cities to rethink how they support boys and men of color. Newark accepted.
Out of that came a framework built around six milestones: school readiness, third-grade literacy, high school graduation, postsecondary pathways, employment, and safety. But Comesañas is clear about what MBK Newark is—and isn’t. “Some people think we run mentoring programs. That’s not the work,” he said. “This is systems-building. How do we align the infrastructure that surrounds young people?”
That word—systems—comes up often. So does ecosystem. No single program can carry a young person’s life. The question is whether the systems around them are aligned—or fragmented. In 2023, Newark was recognized as a model MBK community for public safety. Homicides had dropped 55 percent. Today, Comesañas says that number has reached 72 percent.
“That needs to be screamed from the mountaintop!” he said. Then he widens the lens. “When I say ‘we,’ I’m not talking about MBK alone. We are a sliver. I’m talking about a network of organizations, leaders, and partners.” What that reduction represents is human.
“There’s some statisticians who’ve done some of the math,” he said. “They’re saying that equates to about 500 people over the last 12 years who are still here—who wouldn’t be otherwise. That is astronomical.” Still, he resists calling it a finished success. Recognition, he said, was a celebration—but also a challenge: can the city apply that same alignment across the full arc of a young person’s life?
“That’s the work.”
He’s been close to it from the beginning—first as an educator, then as part of the advisory committee when Newark accepted the MBK challenge. Later, as a father raising two sons, the work became even more personal. “What keeps me inspired is our young men,” he said. “The data can’t capture their stories.”
He points to moments.
An eighth grader commanding a room full of leaders.
A high school student earning an associate’s degree while asking sharper questions than the adults.
Young men graduating from the EMS Corps, stepping into service.
“That gives me hope,” he said. “Even when the data isn’t moving as fast as we want.” When I asked him to describe what a typical day feels like for a young Black or brown boy in Newark, Comesañas doesn’t start with environment. He starts with perception. “My brain goes to W.E.B. Du Bois,” he said. “The idea of being seen as a problem.” That feeling, he suggests, may begin earlier than most people admit. “Maybe as early as 2, 3, 4, 5 years old.”
So the question isn’t just access to resources. It’s messaging.
“Where are they getting the message that they’re a problem to be solved?” he asked. “And how do we create counter-narratives that affirm their genius, their value?” Within the Newark Opportunity Youth Network, that philosophy is clear: “We are the greatest resource available to the survival of our community. It’s about making sure young people see that in themselves,” he said.
He sees it already—in youth organizing, in re-engagement programs, in rites-of-passage work. “These organizations plant seeds,” he said. “Some people don’t even know where the roots began.” Under his leadership, MBK Newark has worked across public safety, education, and early childhood. One urgent area: pre-K enrollment.
“We’re down 703 three- and four-year-olds from 2019,” he said. “And over 1,200 away from where we should be.” It matters because the data is clear: early education shapes long-term outcomes.
But when asked what he would do with more resources, Comesañas doesn’t say expansion. He says alignment. “The mayor said Newark is resource-rich but coordination-poor,” he said. He pauses. “We have a coordination problem. More money helps—but we have to use what we already have better.” Without that, even progress risks stalling. “The public safety ecosystem will hit a glass ceiling,” he said. “And that ceiling is coordination.” Near the end, he speaks about the people doing this work—those who have committed years, even decades.
“This isn’t just a career move,” he said. “This is a calling.” And underneath it all is a simple, urgent question: can a city align itself—structurally, culturally, morally—around the belief that its young people are not problems to be solved, but “the greatest resource available to the survival of our community.”
