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THEY'RE young--30 and under--gifted and Black, and they hit the ground running in the new century. Some are the youngest persons ever elected to their city councils or legislative assemblies; others have vaulted past the pack at an early age and are running their own businesses or heading major organizations; still others are raising the bar in the professions.

And they are not alone. For as members of our 2000-2001 list of the 30 young leaders of tomorrow, they represent tens of thousands of young Black men and women who are preparing the Black future today.

ALICIA REECE, 29, member of the Cincinnati City Council; youngest female elected to the City Council in city's history; chairs the City Council's Health, Social & Children Services, Small Business Development, and Employment and Training committees; proposed $30 million African-American neighborhood business revitalization program; drafted legislation to allocate an additional $2.2 million to keep neighborhood health clinics open; vice chair of the UNCF Campaign; president of the Greater Cincinnati Urban League Young Professionals Network.

EDWARD L. TAYLOR, 30, Princeton, N.J., founding pastor, New Horizon Baptist Church, which has "provocative street ministries" and a weekly radio program; author, an essay on the life of Dr. Gardner C. Taylor and six volumes of sermons and writings titled, The Words of Gardner Taylor; editor of a collection of sermons by outstanding American preachers; inducted into Morehouse College's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers (2000).

DEBORAH N. ARCHER, 29, litigation associate with Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett law firm, New York City; former assistant counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; mentor to ninth-grade student through iMentor program; participant, United Way Linkages Program; member, Civil Rights Committee, New York State Bar Association; member, Committee on Education and the Law of the Association, Bar of the City of New York.

DARIN ATWATER, 30, gospel and classical music composer, conductor and pianist, Dallas; director of creative arts at Bishop TD. Jakes' Potter's House; at 12, directed his own ensemble, Voices of Praise; studied composition at Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and at the Juilliard School; made orchestral debut as composer and pianist with the National Symphony Orchestra (1995); accompanist for Kathleen Battle with National Symphony (1998); has performed with Morgan State University Choir at the White House; founder and artistic director, the Soulful Symphony; former minister of music and sacred arts at Long Reach Church of God Columbia, Md.

CYNTHIA E. WINSTON, 29, Ph.D., Washington, D.C., program director, National Science Foundation/Minority Graduate Education Program at Howard University; former director of Educational, Fellowship and Internship Program at the Congressional Black Foundation; former psychology instructor at the University of Michigan; vice president, Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa honor society; does volunteer work with a juvenile detention center, the youth ministry of her church and numerous organizations.

TED BYER, 29, real estate affiliate for Coldwell Banker Inc., Colorado Springs, Colo.; did $10 million in volume sales in 1999; has sold an average of 100 houses annually for the past five years; mentor and motivational speaker to high school students in his area.

PAUL ALLEN, 24, special assistant to New York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, New York City; alumni member of the board, Dartmouth College; mini-reunion chair for class of 1998; alumni member of board of directors for Dartmouth's International Youth Leadership Institute; alumni interviewer, Dartmouth Admissions; recipient, Edward Mitchell Award for Outstanding Leadership and Community Service; presents motivational speeches to elementary and junior high school students.

TOKUNBO ADELEKAN, 30, Philadelphia, assistant professor of theology and ethics, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary; associate minister, Christian education instructor and minister to Drama Ministry, Saint Paul Community Baptist Church, Brooklyn, N.Y.; doctoral student, Princeton Theological Seminary; president and CEO, the Tosabo Group, an international cultural and education consulting firm; 2nd vice president, Youth Leadership Development Program; advisor to board, Nigerian United Soccer Club, Brooklyn; has traveled extensively in Africa and Europe.

KENYA AYERS, Ed.D., 30, Washington, D.C., dean of students at Trinity College; visionary behind Trinity's "21st Century Paradigm for the Provision of Holistic Student Services"; previously held positions at the University of Houston, Florida Atlantic University (where she received Outstanding Mentor Award and the Outstanding Student Advocate Award) and Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan; co-author of Hitching a Ride to Success: A Roadmap for Collegiate Travelers, a study-skills text; founder, she Education Assessment Connection, a consulting firm.

KEVIN L. BOYCE 28, Columbus, Ohio, she first African-American and she youngest person to serve as chief of staff to the Minority Caucus (70 members) of the Ohio House of Representatives; former executive director, Ohio Legislative, Black Caucus; member, executive board, Sankofa Youth Academy, Center Stage Theater, Columbus Progressive Leadership Caucus, Thunderbird Acres community organization member, Executive Committee., NAACP Columbus Chapter.

RICHARD R. BUERY JR., 29, Brooklyn, N.Y. executive director and co-founder, iMentor, a not-for-profit organization that provides mentors, career counseling and basic technological literacy to youth in underserved communities; member, Committee for Legal and Social Progress/Brooklyn Counts Census Project; member, Civil Rights Committee, Association of the Bar of the City of New York; member, Arts Advisory Committee, Center for Arts and Culture of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation; member, Legal Advisory Board, The Long Walk to Freedom 1900-1999, a public arts project of community work; taught orphanage students in Zimbabwe for a year with support from the Michael Clark Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship.

MELINDA E. EMERSON, 27, Philadelphia, president of Quintessence Entertainment Inc., which has done production work for the National Urban League, the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Urban League of Philadelphia, John F. Street for Mayor '99 Committee, and the Republican National Convention; member, National Urban League Board of Directors; membership chair, National Urban League Young Professionals; board member, Virginia Tech College of Arts and Sciences and the People's Emergency Center.

RONALD S. DEMON, 23, Miami, Fla., founder, president and CEO, VetraSense Technologies, which manufactures and markets computerized shoes around the world; during his senior year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was granted a patent for his NAACP ACT-SO project called "Variable Capacitance Pressure Zone System" shoes, for which he had won an ACT-SO gold medal; at MIT, he earned a Certificate of Academic Excellence by serving as corporate liaison for the MIT Chapter of the institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and other projects; selected by Lemelson-MIT Program as "Inventor of the Week" for three of his inventions.

JONATHAN FARLEY, 30, Nashville, Tenn., assistant professor, Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University; postdoctoral fellow, Mathematical Research Institute in Berkeley, Calif.; in 1999, solved an MIT mathematics problem that had remained unsolved for 24 years and received a Ph.D. in mathematics at age 25; awarded Marshall Scholarship to study for his doctorate at the University of Oxford, where he won the highest mathematics awards; graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University with all A's; regularly speaks to students and participates in events at Fisk University's Race Relations institute and Tennessee Slate's African Studies Department.

TONYA R. FLOYD, 30, Lowell, Ark., corporate attorney, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.; motivational speaker who has made numerous presentations to schools, churches, colleges, businesses and public service organizations; member, board of volunteers, Havenwood Transitional Housing for Women; volunteer, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Northwest Arkansas; former member, Salvation Army Advisory Board of Pulaski County.

ANDREA FOGGY-PAXTON, 29, Los Angeles, executive director, the Tavis Smiley Foundation, where she developed and implemented the cornerstone program Youth to Leaders; national field director for the award-winning "Rock the Vote" program (sponsored by MTV); developed and implemented the first Hip-Hop Coalition voter registration campaign; has served on numerous boards, including Coro Southern California, Operation Hope's Banking on the Future Program, SPEAR Foundation and Black Youth Vote.