Maurice Marbury (Founder of Collective Minds, LLC.) is a native of Cleveland, Ohio and the youngest of six children being raised in a divided home with humble beginnings in Garden Valley housing projects. As a youth, Maurice was a source of advice and guidance to peers his age as well as peers older than him. As Maurice counselled and heard the concerns of peers as they vented to him, it brought about the realization that his dysfunctional home was not isolated. Maurice was always a reader and his mother tried to divert him from becoming a victim of his environment; he was sent to various family member’s home in different states searching for a strong male influence and to show him other ways of life and lifestyles. Nonetheless, Maurice still became a victim of his environment and peer pressure that had him facing 165 years to life prison sentence; only serving a total of 18 years in prison.

Through the process of reading & traveling Maurice found that the divided behaviors observed while growing up in Garden Valley projects existed with Black people globally. His reading broadened his sense of reasoning and furthered his education. Maurice saw how many black men were incarcerated leaving single mothers at home and children to grow up without fathers like he did which assisted in creating the monster he became. With this knowledge, came the desire for Maurice to reverse some of the chaos he created. Instead of Maurice allowing his time ‘to do him’, he did his time and wisely.
     
Maurice maximized his time by furthering his education and double majored in psychology and theology to find out why we, as a black people, have been targeted and brainwashed to have a black inferior complex that we have collectively been groomed to accept and live by. Maurice began to change his life from a gangster being feared in the streets and prison, and his own brainwashing to becoming humble in a world where humbleness is conceived to be a sign of weakness. Living by examples he never had was now the focus.

 Maurice began to assist with putting on plays for ‘scared straight’ in prison, learned and taught “Anger Management” and “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” along with receiving certification from the Chemical Dependency board as a Chemical Dependency Counselor Assistant (CDCA), became a certified mental health specialist and several other programs to assist in changing the mindset that we have been groomed to have which causes us to act as we do. Maurice studied business management and copyrighted several businesses from 1997-2000, including COLLECTIVE MINDS, LLC. Collective Minds, LLC. was born from the passion Marbury has overall for black people. Maurice came home from prison October 12, 2004 with a mind that was changed and ready for society. Maurice realized that he could change his learned thought process to one that allows him to make better decisions in life and knowing it can do the same for others. Maurice formulated the plan for Collective Minds LLC., while in prison but began to apply it as a business in 2015 based on the attributable foundations: “Cultural Awareness, Education, Economic Development, and Empowerment” of US that we as a black people need to acknowledge and digest in order to stop being divided, and to become a united people, COLLECTIVELY.