Getting Involved : ‘Men Have Got to Get Back to Helping’

About three years ago, I was at a meeting between five white L.A. police officers and some members of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church after a young black man was shot and killed in front of a nearby liquor store. It was a crucial time for me. My life had become very empty. Everything had crashed down after my two grown sons had moved away and my wife got sick with a very serious heart condition. I prayed hard for her and after she got better I began going to church for the first time in 30 years. But I wasn’t a church member when I went to the meeting.

As I listened, I started to get angry. Some of the older people asking the police questions were not as educated as some of the younger ones and didn’t speak with perfect diction, yet their questions were good ones. But I could see the police almost laughing at them and the way they expressed themselves. Well, something just came over me. I felt anger and hurt too--the way I would if my grandmother was not being respected. I thought of all the things our country went through in the 1960s, like the civil rights movement. I felt I had been sent there to stand up for my people. I got up and said that we didn’t really need the police in this matter. We just needed people in our community to decide what was going on and to use our own resources.

That was the start of a boycott and a series of nonviolent demonstrations at the liquor store by the church, the Brotherhood Crusade and other organizations. Those lasted for 131 days, until the store finally closed. Our church bought the building, and we’re turning it into an educational center.

After that meeting I got very involved. My life has become meaningful again. Right now I’m the president of the Men of Bethel AME Church. In the past few years, more and more organizations like it have sprung up in black communities to help men band together to take responsibility and show leadership. We do all kinds of projects. After the civil unrest (following the April, 1992, acquittals of the four police officers accused of beating Rodney King), we spent days giving out food and helping the riot victims. Another project was helping the African American Towing Assn., which is the black tow truck drivers, get organized. They say they were receiving a lot of harassment from the LAPD for minor infractions such as having mud-flaps too wide.

Young people of all races are in crisis right now. We have children running rampant because males aren’t taking time with them. Women have always stayed with their kids; it’s the men, men of all races, who have failed within their communities. Yes, it’s hard bringing up kids. But the fact is these kids need us. They need fathers and older males to guide them.

I was the oldest of eight children. My father was very, very strict. He never let me give an excuse or get out of any responsibility.

When I was 16 I had a fight with him and left home. I got a job working in a hospital laundry and kept on going to high school until I graduated. That’s why I don’t give young people any crutches, because they can make it. I always knew my father was there for me until the day he died.

I work at Cal State Dominguez Hills and with Bethel AME. Under Pastor Cheviene Jones, we have begun a joint tutoring program and a joint mentoring program for teen-agers from the ninth through the 12th grades.

I haven’t always done the right thing in my life, and I’ve had hard times as well as good times. But I’ve always been fortunate in having older men advise and help me. Men have got to get back to helping one another and standing up together for our families and our community.

I’m just a person who cares about where our country is going; I don’t want it to go downhill as many say it is. I don’t want to die and have people say: “Here’s a man who didn’t do anything.” I want them to say: “Here’s a man who did everything he could.” That’s all I want.