I had no idea what I would write about this week, however the lead story on radio and television was about a Black man, Ray Rice, who was terminated from the NFL because he physically assaulted his wife. A couple of weeks ago my column had focused on the tremendous coverage of negative actions by Black males. It is my conviction that these Black males represent a small percentage of Black men.
We could relate to an untold number of positive actions taken by Black men in our lives, fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and brothers and in many instances neighbors.
This week’s column will focus on three Black men whose positive actions have been duplicated by hundreds of thousands of Black men. I was asked a couple of times about my writing about these three Black men over the years. My answer was I couldn’t recall any other Black men who could epitomize positive actions better than these three.
Malik Bankston, director of Kingsley Association, took his vacation time to conduct the annual Black college tour over a period of 28 years. He was directly responsible for thousands of our children receiving exposure to Black colleges including my granddaughter. Yes Malik spent his vacation time providing OUR CHILDREN, not his children with an exposure that could help shape their lives.
Chris Moore, TV and radio personality, over the last 29 years with the approval of his loving and supportive wife has spent his vacation conducting a school for our children to prepare them potentially to work in the profession of radio, newspapers or television. Once again take note OUR CHILDREN not Chris Moore’s.
Herman Reid, Ph.D is the father of seven children and all went to college, but an additional story of success was his years as director of NEED where he was responsible for 15,000 youths being helped financially to attend college. Once again duplicating the common denominator among the three Black men is a sense of dedication to OUR CHILDREN.
Remember to send a financial donation to Kingsley Association.
(Louis “Hop” Kendrick is a weekly contributor to the Forum Page.)
