Original narratives from six high-achieving African American junior high school students discussing their goal-setting and goal-pursuit processes in light of being Black youth in America are presented. The study purpose was to begin the work of identifying the substance of productive behaviors among the most frequently noted population of contemporary school underachievers in order to develop an accurate hope theory for them, which the author calls African hope theory. Common threads among the participants indicate focus on racial/ethnic identity and values that lead to functional behavior. To the contrary, extant hope literature finds importance in specific goal-setting and cognitive road-mapping (planning) for achievement. The combination of productive action within a self-cultural frame is theorized to be hopefulness within the Black community.