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Omachi Baba Reggie Singleton
Founder & Executive Director of The Males Place
For over 30 years, The Males Place Inc. has been transforming the lives of young Black boys in Charlotte and surrounding communities, providing mentorship, education, and empowerment. Founded in 1993 by Omachi Baba Reggie Singleton, the organization began as a Mecklenburg County Health Department initiative aimed at reducing teen pregnancy within the Black community. However, Reggie quickly realized that the challenges young Black men faced extended far beyond reproductive health. Issues such as Black-on-Black crime, father absenteeism, and negative media influences called for a more comprehensive approach.
Today, The Males Place has mentored over 3,000 young men, fostering self-sufficiency, leadership, and responsibility. Through its programs, participants learn essential life skills, including agricultural education, which Reggie sees as a powerful tool for problem-solving, teamwork, and self-reliance. A certified master gardener, he has studied the agricultural traditions of communities and cultures worldwide. Over the past decade, he has taken boys to Belize, Ghana, Cuba, as well as Alabama and Washington, D.C., where they have learned about regenerative agriculture and studied with experts at land-grant universities. “The agriculture piece is not only about ensuring access to clean, healthy food,” he explains, “but also about deeper concepts like being self-sufficient and working side by side with young people in natural areas.”
A Public Health Strategist with the North Carolina Department of Public Health, Reggie has dedicated his life to mentoring, fatherhood advocacy, and youth development. His passion for guiding young men stems from his own upbringing in the Sea Islands of Charleston, S.C., where he learned the value of hard work from an early age. By the time he was five, he was already helping his family plant and harvest crops—a foundation that shaped his perspective on resilience and community.
After earning a degree in Public Health from the University of South Carolina, Reggie began his career working in corrections at a South Carolina prison. This experience opened his eyes to the systemic failures that left young Black men without guidance or positive role models. He soon transitioned to public health roles in Columbia and Rock Hill, working on the frontlines of the crack epidemic and HIV crisis of the 1980s. These experiences reinforced his belief in the urgent need for mentorship and intervention at an early age.
“I grew up in a time when the family, community, school, and church worked together to instill values, supervise, and support us,” Reggie recalls. “Those institutions sustained me and my siblings. But today, those structures are almost non-existent, and they certainly do not cooperate.”
Omachi Baba Reggie, who has lived in Matthews, NC, since 1992, has been married for 30 plus years and is the proud father of three children. He continues to lead The Males Place with the belief that empowering the next generation is the key to lasting change.
As Frederick Douglass once said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” The Males Place embodies this philosophy, ensuring that young Black men receive the mentorship, education, and opportunities they need to succeed.