Understanding more about teachers' personal, societal, and professional relationships along their teaching career trajectories is paramount to giving a voice to educators--and specifically to African-American male educators. This research study points to specific relationships and describes the ways we recruit more young African-American males to become teachers and how African-American male teachers are supported along their teaching continua. This study collected the lived experiences of exemplary African-American male teachers and teacher leaders who are National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs). By collecting lived experiences, the study found that many cultural and social connections emerge, in addition to professional learning networks of African-American male teachers and teacher leaders. The study collected data from two sources. First, I completed an analysis of archival data collected by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards from African-American male applicants for National Board Certification, whose characteristics were reviewed for the participant pool. Next, I collected data from in-depth, face-to-face, semistructured interviews of 12 randomly selected participants from the pool of African-American male NBCTs from 1994 to 2008 (n=174). The interview protocol was designed for participants to tell of their lived experiences as learners, teachers, and professional leaders. The participants' responses were analyzed for emerging themes that influenced and complemented their experiences and career trajectories. The sets of data were collected for different purposes. The archival data was used to describe the participant pool as a subset of the total African-American male population of NBCTs. The interviews served as a means of collecting their lived experiences. The interviews and the data analysis were combined to create themes about social networks and professional growth. This investigation found themes connected to the personal, social, and professional development of the participants along their career trajectories. The themes are (1) a strong sense of identity with and belonging to a particular community; (2) clear support networks, including mentorships and early-adult intervention; (3) willingness or desire to give back to the community or strong sense of redemption through career attainment and success; (4) alienation from professional learning communities or cultures of learning; and (5) connection to those who value education and a learning continuum. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]