100 Brothers Strong

Two days ago two teenage boys got into a good old fashioned fistfight. One kid, Clarence Johnson apparently lost and went home. His mama gave him a gun sent him back outside and told him to “kill them all”. Here is the story if you want to read it. The young man that was murdered, Robert Dawson was taking care of his mom who has some health problems. He had been home for only four hours after riding 10 hours from Dallas with his mama. The picture of Clarence Johnson above was on the front page of the newspaper. His mama, Vanessa Johnson had this up on her mantle at home the same way you would have your child’s graduation photo. This story has affected my entire day but I am not going to dwell on it. As a black man this is a depressing thing and we tend to dwell on depressing issues. What we need to do is combat this ignorance with something uplifting. It just so happens that after I read this, brother Lionel Milton came on the radio. He is now a world renowned artist and a graduate of Thomas Edison Elementary school (a year before me). I couldn’t be prouder of that brother. That’s when I decided to write this blog at my desk this morning.
I am not writing another blog until I get the names of at least 100 black men that are positive, strong, and working hard to do the right thing. I hope to get way more than that but since this is a blog I will stick with a low number. I want anyone reading this that knows one, and we all do, to send me a comment or an email and give me their names. Once I get them all I will post them here. It doesn’t have to be a doctor, or a professor. It can be the plumber that lived across the street when you were growing up. It can be your husband, brother, dad, friend, co-worker, or anybody. Age doesn’t matter. We just need to counteract the negative. So send me your names and send this to your friends who may want to contribute.

I’ll start off with these:

Mr. Clifton J. Harris Sr.
Mr. Cedric R. Williams
Mr. Alton Celestine
Mr. Curtis Woods
Mr. Trevor Brister
Mr. Shawn Hubert
Mr. Marlon Adkins