Pulitzer Prize columnist Leonard Pitts, graced the campus of N.C. A&T Thursday evening for the Fall Family Counseling Conference.

The Fall Family Counseling Conference is held every fall on the Thursday before Thanksgiving. This year the Department of Human Health Development and Development Services partnered with the Leadership Series to make the conference a success.

“I have oversight over leadership programs and as a national speaker he [Pitts] fit our category as a leadership speaker that could come in and talk about not only family issues but we asked him also to speak about what this 2012 election means to families,” said Mrs. Sharon Hoard, Program Coordinator from the Office of Student Development.

Dr. Patricia Whitfield, Mental Health Counseling Clinical Program Coordinator and Conference Coordinator, was responsible for inviting Mr. Pitts to this year’s conference.

At the age of 5, Mr. Pitts recalls knowing what he was called to do. “[I] can’t remember not wanting to write,” Pitts said. “I didn’t get into journalism, journalism got into me,” he continued.

Currently, he is a news columnist for the Miami Herald and focuses on issues dealing with race, politics and culture.

Mr. Pitts has written articles on topics such as the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11.

“His concern about families, and gender issues and incarceration and what’s going on with African American men are just all issues that resonate as family issues,” Whitfield said. “He’s really just the epitome of a voice for a lot of things that we treasure and we want to promote.”

Mr. Pitts is also a bestselling author, whose received reviews from publications including Essence magazine and Publisher’s Weekly. “Becoming Dad: Black Men” and “The Journey to Fatherhood,” Pitt’s first published book, served as a reference for his keynote address.

Growing up, Pitts didn’t have his father around to teach him how to be a man, although his father was in the household. He was an alcoholic so essentially he was out of the picture. He mentioned the difficulty of defining the role of a father and that unfortunately “fatherlessness is the new norm.”

Justin Blackmon, junior public relations major from Durham, could relate to Pitt’s take on this. “It’s kind of gets confusing when it comes to how to… I guess you could say, treat a woman when it comes to relationships.”

Pitt’s also suggested that one thing President Obama needs to do in his second term is “dismantle the war on drugs.” Since 1971 drug use has increased by 2800 percent.

“There is an image of drug crime as black crime,” he said. In a survey conducted that described what the average drug dealer looked like, 85 percent of respondents described a black man. But, in some states 90 percent of drug dealers are white.

“He spoke quite candidly not about only the role of the current president, the challenges that the current president has speaking specifically about issues affecting the African American community,” said Hoard. “But he also discussed everything from legalization of drugs and the type of leadership it takes to move a country forward to address these types of issues.”

• DaShawn Fleming, Staff Reporter