Dad, you are gone and sorely missed. I have no regrets though, for I have been blessed and I have had the honor and great privilege to watch you age from being a young man to a middle age man to an old man and watch the essence of who you were as a thoughtful, caring, giving, loving, living, breathing, human being transcend age and now death. No person could be more blessed than I to have been a witness to a truly great man and the loving human being you were.
You were a constant source of inspiration in your words, actions and deeds on how to help others and help improve the quality of life for everyone. In the community at large and especially in the African American Community, your achievements in building institutions as a founding member and in many cases the architect of these institutions stand as monuments to your love for others. As my older brother Michael would say: it is that Agape love.
I will miss the ongoing conversation we would have about education, politics, the struggle for freedom of African Americans in this country, the family, my career and the many projects and endeavors you were engaged in that are too numerous to mention. The culmination of these many conversations, which was just one really long conversation, from boyhood to manhood and the witnessing of your stellar accomplishments and achievements throughout your life has made me the human being, man and family member that I am today. By my standards, I know what you accomplished in me has been a job well done. However, I will let family, community and society be the judge of all your accomplishments.
Many times you would share your words of wisdom about achievement and work ethic, but you would always defer to what your grandfather, father or mother said to you, like “make hay while the sun shines,” or “do the job right the first time so you don’t have to do it again, or “boy use your head, don’t let it be just a hat rack.” Many times I would say to you that the time was long overdue for you to write down your sayings and words of wisdom for how to succeed in life. I know towards the end of your life your ailing and aging body would not permit you to do a lot of what you wanted to get done. So at least the task of writing down your life teachings can still be accomplished by your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren.
As one of your children, I witnessed the miracle with Mom’s help, your successful strategy for raising African American boys to men. In these times of crisis in the African American Community, where racism and the dominating white supremacy American culture has made the lives of African American boys and young African American male adults the target of DWB (Driving While Black), mass incarceration, the school to prison pipeline, the war on drugs and the shooting an killings of unarmed African American boys and men by white police officers and vigilantes, in my estimation, the African American Community could benefit from the successful system and method of raising African American boys to men that was one of the greatest accomplishments and crowning achievements of your long fruitful and productive life.
All of the African American boys that you raised, both by birth and de-facto adoption, avoided all of these genocidal scourges of mankind in the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Not only did you raise them to be men, but you raised them and gave them a sense of purpose to be responsible adult, who are dedicated to providing service to their families and their community. All of us know who we are and our families and community know who we are also by the way we carry ourselves about the community with purpose, strength, intelligence, integrity, dignity, courage, confidence and honesty and full of positive direction in working for our community and planning for change in the community’s and nation’s inequitable social order.
As a tribute to you, with the help of all the African American boys that you raised from boyhood to manhood, including but not limited to your sons, grandsons and great grandsons, both by birth and de facto adoption, we shall endeavor to write your history, system and methods for raising African American boys to men.
I have nothing but love for you Pop (as a boy) and Dad (as a man) forever.
Kevin E. Daniels, Esq.
