The SANKOFA Youth Violence Prevention Program is a strengths-based, culturally tailored preventive intervention for African American adolescents ages 13-19. The goal of the school-based intervention is to equip youth with the knowledge, attitudes, skills, confidence, and motivation to minimize their risk for involvement in violence, victimization owing to violence, and other negative behaviors, such as alcohol and other drug use. The intervention promotes resilience and survival in difficult and even life-threatening situations. SANKOFA, a word of African origin, means “looking back in order to move forward,” and traditional African values of consciousness, caring, connectedness, character, competency, commitment, and courage are basic tenets of the intervention, which is guided by an ecological framework and the theory of planned behavior.