Jenice Armstrong: NAACP sponsors 'Black Love Experience,' a conference on dating and relationships at Temple University

THE NAACP's J. Whyatt Mondesire gets called a lot of things - hell-raiser, civil-rights activist, social agitator or even pain in the neck.

Well, here's a new term to add to the list: Love coach.

On Saturday, Mondesire will host a free conference on relationships at Temple University that's being billed as the "Black Love Experience." Sponsored jointly by the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun, which Mondesire publishes, its purpose is to get twentysomethings talking about dating and relationships.

"Basically, if we don't fix black families, we're going to keep on burying young children," Mondesire said, referring to gun violence. "I can't march this problem away . . . there has to be a way to talk to people sensibly and calmly about how their relationships lead to children and what we can do with them, for them and by them once they are here."

The NAACP was founded 103 years ago to stop the lynching of blacks by whites, he reminds us.

"Now the killing is being done by us, against us. So it makes me say, what is going on with our relationships that so many children . . . are being born in circumstances where violence becomes a regular form of expression?"

Good points. But I have a hard time picturing Mondesire walking around in his trademark cowboy hat, passing out free condoms and overseeing a speed-dating event, as the "Black Love Experience" advertises.

Dr. Phil he is not.

"I'm involved with all of my children and always have been," said Mondesire, 63, who is twice divorced and is in a five-year relationship. "I'm learning like everybody else. I may not have had successful marriages, but I've had successful children. I have a son who is a doctor, a daughter who is a lawyer and a son who is about to become an accountant."

Concern about how his children's generation hook up and have no-strings sex as opposed to aiming for a steady relationship before introducing sexual activity is partly what got Mondesire focused on romantic relationships.

I applaud him, because unwed parenting is epidemic. An alarming 72 percent of African-American children are born to single mothers, increasing their chance of growing up impoverished and suffering from academic and social disadvantages. The New York Times recently called out-of-wedlock parenting "the new normal."

So, what do we do about it?

As Mondesire pointed out, "I can't march this problem away."