Dr. Brian Chad Starks
Criminologist, scholar, author, speaker, and trainer. Founder and CEO of BCS & Associates, creator of the Be The Messenger Framework, and founder of the Courageous Hearts Collective. More than 30 years of combined lived, professional, and scholarly experience: he has taught in universities, consulted in court systems, advised corporations, and walked alongside the communities most affected by inequality.
From survival to The Messenger
I was born in the South, the last of five children, three brothers and a sister. My father was a high school dropout. My mother picked cotton as a child.
Formal education was not the priority in my family. Survival was.
I grew up in a world where instability was the norm. I didn't know the foundation of a traditional two-parent home. Instead, I knew neglect, abandonment, and the feeling of not being wanted. By the time I turned 17, I had moved seven different times. Every move reminded me that stability wasn't for people like me.
In 4th grade, I was bussed into a talented and gifted program. That bus ride changed my life. For the first time, I saw possibility, a world outside the one society and circumstance had tried to box me into.
But at home, reality hit harder. At 14, I told my mother I wanted to go to college. She looked at me and said:
"You keep talking about going to college. We ain't got no money for that. Real men work with their hands. Anybody can read a book."
Those words cut deep. They weren't just a statement. They were a wound. And like all wounds, if left unhealed, they shape how you see yourself and how you move through the world.
That's why healing matters.
Because unhealed pain doesn't disappear. It shows up in classrooms, in friendships, in workplaces, in families. It becomes generational. It convinces people to play small, to abandon dreams, to mistake survival for destiny.
Sports and education became my lifeline. I poured myself into discipline, intentionality, and resilience. I knew if I wanted out, it was all on me. I earned a scholarship. When I stepped onto the campus of Wofford College, it wasn't just about earning a degree. It was the first stable home I had ever known.
From there, I kept pushing. A Master's degree. Then a PhD in Criminology. I became a critical criminologist, not just to study injustice, but to expose it, challenge it, and dismantle it.
But the real transformation didn't happen in the classroom. It happened in the mirror.
Through self-reflection, I faced my wounds. Through self-awareness, I understood how those wounds shaped me. Through self-consciousness, I gained the power to live differently.
That process is not just what saved me. It is now my method, the way I help others break cycles that were meant to break them.
I am The Messenger. And my life is proof: survival is not the end of the story. Healing is where justice begins.
Dr. Brian Chad Starks
The work
Dr. Starks created the Be The Messenger Framework, a model built on Identity, Culture, Diversity, and Respect, to help individuals, leaders, and organizations turn personal growth into change in the systems around them. It has been applied in schools, universities, a police department, city government, healthcare, companies, and community organizations, and published in peer-reviewed journals.
He delivers the Framework as keynotes, trainings, and facilitated conversations for schools, campuses, agencies, courts, healthcare organizations, companies, and community groups. He also consults on institutional implementation, advises senior leaders, and certifies facilitators who carry the training into their own districts through Be The Messenger and the Center for Teacher Effectiveness. The industries he serves.
He is the author of Courageous Hearts: A 52-Week Devotional Guide to Social Justice through Self-Development, hosts the Be The Messenger podcast, and writes The Messenger Dispatch.
Background
- PhD in Criminology, University of Delaware (2012). MA in Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina. BA in Sociology, Wofford College, on scholarship.
- Doctoral dissertation: "A Bail of Two Cities: Atlanta vs. Philadelphia, The First Criminal Court Phase," an examination of racialized pretrial practices, courtroom culture, and policy outcomes. His research centers on law, inequality, and the connections between law, race and ethnicity, crime, and justice.
- Founder and CEO of BCS & Associates, Inc. (2016), a consulting firm in racial and social justice and criminal justice reform, providing expert witness services, legal consulting, and training to law firms, court systems, and justice organizations. A certified Minority Business Enterprise.
- Former CEO of a multistate bail bonds company, where he saw firsthand the human impact of pretrial decisions. Earlier, Juvenile Drug Court Coordinator in the Richland County Solicitor's Office.
- Faculty at Benedict College, Clemson University, Lynchburg College, and Delaware State University. Research Assistant Professor in Clemson's Social Justice Research and Advocacy Hub, 2021 to 2022.
- Associate Director, Delaware Space Grant, University of Delaware, 2013 to 2020, building programs to increase the representation of racial and ethnic minorities in Space Grant.
- Founder of the Minority Mentor Lecture Series at the University of Delaware, begun as a PhD student and still hosted by the university, now as the Critical Perspectives Lecture Mentor Series.
- Founder of the I Know I Can Institute in Lynchburg, Virginia, a partnership with the city that gave high school students educational opportunities, life skills, college preparation, job readiness, cultural experiences, and summer jobs.
- Co-author of the 2023 Oceanography article on the NSF-funded ALL-ABOARD initiative and of "STEM Recruitment and Beyond: The Messenger is the Medium" in the Journal of STEM Education (2018). Read both.
- Certified Time To Teach trainer (2016) and Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program instructor (2009).
Honors
- Civil Rights Achievement Award, NAACP, Lynchburg, Virginia Chapter, March 2016
- Social Justice Research and Advocacy Hub Fellow, Clemson University, July 2021
- The Louis L. Redding Diversity Award, University of Delaware, May 2014. Given to individuals or units whose efforts have promoted, enhanced, and implemented diversity programs or activities that resulted in a significant change in the campus climate and composition.
- Student of the Year, Division of People of Color on Crime, American Society of Criminology, November 2009
- University Graduate Scholar, University of Delaware, May 2009
- Outstanding Community Service Award, South Carolina Chapter, National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, December 2004, associated with Benedict College
Curriculum vitae
Healing First. Justice Always. Reform 4Ever.
Every program Dr. Starks delivers is rooted in one belief: healing is not optional, leadership is not neutral, and change is not impossible. Through the trainings, the book, and the facilitators he certifies, the work reaches rooms he will never stand in.