In this article, the author looks at the historical traditions of caring, interdependence, and valuing justice within the African American community. She posits that what has been lost to African American youth enmeshed in the violence of American society is an awareness that aggression against others is aggression against the self. She argues further that such aggression is a violation of the care and connectedness implicit in the notion of African American racial identity and community. She concludes that a solution to youth violence may lie in reconnecting African American teens to the communal values and traditions that have allowed African Americans to develop racial identity and racial solidarity in spite of their economic and social oppression in the United States. Violence prevention programs should encourage African American adolescents to develop and act in accord with their developing ethical principles of a justice that struggles against injustice and inequality for African Americans and other disenfranchised groups. These programs should build on adolescents' sense of care to encourage their personal response for prosocial conduct toward other African Americans within the community and to an ever-widening range of recipients outside of the African American community. References