Jeffery "Jeff" Beckham Jr. is the kind of man who walks into a room with presence before he ever says a word. A scarf rests just right over his blazer. The calm way he studies a space—not for show, but for understanding—draws people in before he speaks a syllable.
I first saw him at the 2018 Culture Ball. He stood in the center of a circle of Black men—not posturing, not performing—but rather, holding the moment. The kind of presence that makes you ask: Who is that—and what weight does he carry?
While one would never ask, we chose to explore and learn more about one of Chicago’s most distinguished gentlemen.
Beckham carries purpose in his posture. He is CEO of one of the city’s most important college-access nonprofits, co-founder of an education technology company, and an artist whose work speaks as profoundly as his mission. A builder. A witness. A renaissance man who doesn’t need to announce it.
Born to young parents—his mother just 19, his father 22—Beckham came of age at 86th Street and Sangamon Avenue in a one-bedroom apartment on Chicago’s South Side. He shared bunk beds in the living room with his little sister. His mother worked as a nurse at South Shore Hospital. His father, fresh into a job at Xerox, filled their space with the hum of stereos and tangled wires.
“I was inquisitive,” Beckham says. “My dad was into tech—TVs, stereos. I’d just sit and watch him hook everything up.”
A quiet sort of learning, the kind that forms a language long before you find the words.
When I asked him to reflect on who he was at six, he paused. A small well of memory surfaced in his eyes.
“Joyful. Curious. I felt things deeply—especially when something wasn’t right,” he says.
That sense of agency never left him. After a break-in, his family moved to Hazel Crest, but the pull of the city—its streets, its stories—stayed with him. On rides back through the South Side, he remembers staring at boarded-up buildings. One, near Christ Universal Temple, caught his attention again and again. “That should be a youth center,” he remembers thinking. “Then eventually, the thought became—I should be the one to build it.”
Faith was never far behind. As a teenager, Beckham joined New Faith Baptist Church. First out of expectation. Then out of ownership. The church’s youth ministry grew under his involvement, regularly drawing hundreds of young people. “It was student-led, it felt like ours,” he says. “It taught me how to build community—and listen.”
That instinct carried into his work. After graduating from University of Missouri and earning an MBIT from DePaul University, Beckham worked across marketing and education before finding his way to Chicago Scholars, a nonprofit serving high-achieving, first-generation, under-resourced students. He joined the team in 2018. By 2021, he became CEO.
In a country where fewer than 2% of CEOs at major U.S. companies are Black, and where only about 15% of nonprofit CEOs are Black, Beckham’s presence in that seat is more than symbolic— it’s statistically rare. Especially for a Black man leading a major, city-wide education organization.
Under Beckham’s leadership, Chicago Scholars has supported over 6,000 students and helped secure more than $700 million in merit-based aid. For many Black boys in Chicago, the chance of earning a college degree is just 12%. Scholars in the program graduate at a rate close to 78%. And 83% of those graduates leave college with less than $40,000 in student debt. That kind of transformation changes not just individual lives, but entire family legacies.
“College access isn’t charity,” Beckham says. “It’s infrastructure. It’s what makes the rest possible.”
But in March 2022, the ground beneath Beckham shifted. He had just left an event and was waiting for a valet in Chicago’s West Loop when something struck his car window.
“I saw someone point, but didn’t think much,” he recalls. “Then I stepped out. Two young men rushed me.”
One of them hit him across the face with a blunt object. Blood spilled. Beckham couldn’t see from his right eye. He believes it was an attempted carjacking. Two bystanders screamed as the attackers fled. Beckham got back into his car, called his parents and the police, and drove himself to Northwestern Hospital.
“These were kids,” he says quietly. “The very ones I fight for. That kind of harm… it breaks your heart differently.”
Doctors advised an extended medical leave. Beckham returned after just two weeks, wearing modified glasses to cover an eye patch. Physical recovery took five months. Emotionally, he says, he’s still healing.
The attack changed him—in body, mind, and mission.
Creatively, it sparked something new.
“I saw the world differently after that—literally and figuratively,” Beckham says.
For weeks, he painted guided only by his left eye. From that period came the Visions and Dreams series, a body of artwork he describes not as an escape from pain, but a way to transform it.
As a leader, the assault sharpened his focus. He began saying no to anything that didn’t align with his purpose. It reaffirmed, he says, his commitment to systems-level change. Mentoring a single student was no longer enough—he felt called to reshape the environment that failed the young men who attacked him.
During his recovery, Beckham shared a new strategic plan with Chicago Scholars’ board: to increase the number of young men of color in the program and expand its REACH Pathways web application to provide College to Career support for any young person in the city. Both initiatives were codified during his healing, and both are now integral to the organization’s work.
But the experience also left him with what he calls “a complex grief.”
“Being harmed by the very youth I serve created a kind of heartbreak only someone who loves their community deeply can understand,” he says. “It gave me clarity: we can’t out-program systemic poverty. We have to build alternate pathways—not just for success, but for healing.”
The vision in his right eye remains impaired. He sees double when looking up and still notices floaters. But the deeper recovery—the emotional, spiritual kind—is ongoing.
“What’s different now,” he says, “is that I don’t look at life the same way. I see time as a gift. And vision—not just as sight, but as calling.”
In 2023, Beckham co-founded REACH Pathways, a tech platform that helps students access scholarships, mentors, and career tools through an AI-powered app. REACH raised $2 million in seed funding and won the SXSW Global Pitch Competition. It’s now expanding across school systems and cities.
“REACH is the youth center I imagined as a kid,” he says. “Just rebuilt for how kids actually live — online, mobile, right now.”
But place still matters. Beckham lives in Bronzeville, not for optics, but for roots.
“It’s a place that remembers itself,” he says. “The thinkers, the artists, the history — I wanted to live where that kind of energy still moves.”
Ask him who inspires him, and the list is reverent.His mother — “Resilience, front and center.”His father — “My first and forever hero.”His great-grandmother — “Her prayers still cover me.”His pastor, Trunell Felder.Barack Obama — “Grace under pressure.”Artists like Kerry James Marshall, Wak, and Dwight White.Mentors like Shayne Evans, Phillip Beckham, and Tim Schwertfeger.And his team: “They keep me grounded. They keep me honest.”
When it’s time to recalibrate, he turns to music: Leon Thomas’s “Vibes Don’t Lie,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” and Jay-Z’s “Allure.”
“The production on that last one,” he says, “timeless.”
He’s been honored more than once — Obama Foundation USA Leader, Crain’s Notable Black Leader, Black Creativity Innovator, Man of the Year, Man of Excellence. But Beckham doesn’t carry his résumé like armor.
“I struggle to celebrate,” he admits. “There’s more work. More calls. More kids. More promises.”
What he’s building isn’t just scale — it’s legacy. A Black college graduate doubles their lifetime earnings, builds generational wealth, and sets a new standard in their family. These aren’t just numbers. These are ripple effects. And Beckham knows it.
“In ten years,” he says, “I’m still leading, just from a higher place. I’ve built a national coalition focused on equity, mobility, wellness. REACH is global. My art lives in the Smithsonian. But more than anything, I’ll be a father. A husband. A teacher.”
Still telling stories. Through paint. Through platforms. Through presence.
“Stories that remind us we were always worthy. Even when the world tried to make us forget.”
Beckham lets that breathe. Then stills again.
“And I’m living proof that purpose is stronger than pain,” he says.