In February, 1986, Congressman Augustus F. Hawkins, then Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee of the Congress of the United States, called together a nationally representative group of African American educators and leaders of organizations interested in the welfare of African American children and charged them with the responsibility of developing a plan and procedure for improving the quality of education for African American youth. He insisted that the plan be guided by the correlates found in the Effective Schools research of noted African American educator, the late Dr. Ron Edmonds. The product of that effort was the establishment of an organization, the National Conference (now Council) on Educating Black Children (NCEBC)

A steering committee was formed in March, 1986, co-chaired by Dr. Owen L. Knox, Assistant Superintendent in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and Dr. Faustine Jones-Wilson, Professor of Education at Howard University. Two committees of African American Leaders from the East and West Coasts agreed on a national conference set for September 1986. The conference mission was to produce an articulate set of action mandates for parents, students, teachers, administrators, and policy makers. The mandates were to be practical, precise, succinct and attainable. After several days and late nights in deliberations, the conference produced a document entitled, "Blueprint for Action."

In May, 1987, a second conference was held which provided attendees an opportunity to learn about successful strategies used in urban schools serving African American youth. Groupings of states were established in Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and Western regions to locally distribute the Blueprint and acquaint local communities with its implementation. The regions work autonomously to carry out the mission of NCEBC in urban school districts across the country.