In February of 1960 I was a freshman student/athlete on the campus of Winston-Salem Teacher’s College in Winston-Salem, NC , I was introduced to The Greensboro 4 via the news media after their historic march on downtown Greenesboro, NC. Their target, the F. W. Woolworth lunch counter.

A stature now looms on the North Carolina A&T University campus honoring the four courageous young men who started a modern day revolution to fight racism in America. Their sit-in at the lunch counter was heard around the World.

The monument will guarantee their legacy will be remembered as long as the university stands. The F. W. Woolworth is now a historic landmark museum in downtown Greensboro.

If you are keeping score, The Greensboro 4 two, and Critical Race Theory–Zero!

David Richmond-Franklin McCain-Ezell A. Blair and Joseph McNeil waiting to be served at the F. W. Woolworth lunch counter.

The F. W. WOOLWOR0TH is now a museum visited by people from around the world.

I would meet the great Jim Brown several weeks later on April 16, 1960 at the Winston-Salem YMCA. The ocassion, he was the guest speaker for our athletic banquet. Coach Clarence ‘Bighouse’ Gaines made the banquet off limits to freshman athletes. I didn’t get the message and I shown up at the banquet–Bighouse was not a happy camper.

He would glare at me the entire evening and I would pretend I didn’t notice.

Jim Brown had just signed a contract representing, the Pepsi Colar bottling Company as a marketing and promotion rep. He was criss-crossing the country telling anyone who would listen, Pepsi was the best!

We would become fast friends. In 1966, Brown found the Negro Industrial Economic Union, later known as the Black Economic Union (BEU), to help promote economic opportunities for back owned businesses.

We reconnected when he open an office in Washington, DC in the NE Branch Avenue shopping center. My older brother Bobby was a graduate of a HBCU, Maryland State University. I Introduced him to Jim and he became a card carrying member of the Black Economic Union. He had high hopes of becoming a successful businessman.

He became a manager for the Goodyear Tire Company on Good Hope Road Road in SE DC. He own Bell’s Super Market in NE DC. He later retired after serving 20 years as a U. S. Marshall.

Jim Browm’s accomplishments on the football field are unmatched–he won 8 rushing titles in 9 years. Today’s NFL players need 18 games to rush for 1,000 yards, he needed only 9 games. In 2002 the Sporting News named him The Greatest NFL Player Ever.

THE MUHAMMAD ALI SUMMIT

A SEAT AT THE TABLE: Bill Russell-Ali-Jim Brown and Kareem Adul Jabbar. Pro athletes supporting Muhammad Ali’s refusing to sign on the dotted line for military service.

It was Jim Brown, Kansas City and the business Coalition that built hundreds of affordable housing units for black Americans. These feats are worthy of praise.

Jim Brown’s up close work with the notorius Bloods and Crips gangs in Los Angeles are legendary. His work in American prisons with the Amer-I-Can Program also stands out. He was big on second chances for incarcerated black men. He felt the system was always stacked against us–it was Justice & Just-Us!

He used my Original Inside Sports talk show as one of his media platforms to help promote his good deeds, and raise monies to support them by any President or pro athlete who would write a check.

Jim Brown whispers to President Trump, “When can we talk about the 50 million for Amer-I-Can?”

Jim Brown was flawed like the next man or woman. He traveled in circles not in my zip code, but he shared the stories with me. He was a hard act for me to follow–simply because, I didn’t kiss his jackass.

I remember, we had just left Cardozo High school talking with some kids and he remembered I had said my mother was in the Howard University Hospital.

She was having problems with her heart. He said, “We should go by and see her.” I said, “lets go.”

The hospital was only 5 minutes away. The hospital staff and my mother were stun when he walked into the room. There were smiles everywhere. He always treated Hattie with respect. I could not ask for more.

His alledged abuse of women are well chronicled, and are not condoned here.

His one abuse conviction, I remember well. He was charged with abuse of his wife Monique’s car in 2007. She called the Sheriff. On their arrival he was standing by the car. He explained, the car was in his name, but they arrested him anyway.

Jim, waited for his day in court and the lady judge made him a deal–400 hours of community service, or 40 hours picking up trash on the highway. He said, “I will take jail.” She gave him 5 months.

After Several days of spending 23 hours in a cell and one hour of daylight, he called Monique, and said, “Call Harold Bell and tell him, I need for him to rally his friends in media to help get me an early release.”

One of the first calls was to NFL great, Johhny Sample. He was the host of a popular sports talk radio show in Philadelphia. He called his Philly connections, former NBA analyst Sonny Hill (WIP Radio), Philadelphia Enquirer sports writer, Elmer Smith.

I called Washington Times sports columnist, Dick Heller and my former college roommate, Barney Hood a freelance writer in Chicago. The legendary Howie Evans, sports editor for New York Amsterdam News was my last call. They all got the media ball rolling.

I contacted Jim’s friend, Congressman Lou Stokes and former NFL QB Jack Kemp, they used their contacts to help expedite his early release, that kind of networking is unheard of today. All for One!

Congressman Lou Stokes (D-Ohio) a class act. He was the first politician to cite me in The Congressional Record for my work in the streets of DC with at-risk children and youth gangs, Walter Fauntroy, Bob Dole and Eleanor Holmes Norton all followed his lead.

There was one sports media personality who took a personal aim at Jim to keep him in jail. Jon Saraceno a columnist for USA Today. He wrote a stinging commentary titled, “True Manhood Eludes Brown.”

Even though Jon made some valid points as it related to Jim’s abuse of women, I took his commentary personal. Simply, because no one has abused black women more than a slave owner.

It started when they brought black Africans over on the slave ships and the abuse continued on every plantation in America. They got free labor and free booty for centuries, but we are the lazy ones!

One paragraph in Saraceno’s column described Jim’s wife Monique’s call to a 911 operator to report her husband’s erractic behavior.

First, Saraceno describes Jim as being “Old School, which these days is considered cool. Except that he is old school when it comes to women, and that is not a good thing in any generation. His wife Monique, a former model met Brown when she was 21 and he was 60. She describes her personality as very aggressive, very assertive–I am not one to be pushed around.”

According to the 911 transcript obtained by Saraceno on the night in question, she offers a different view.

Remember, Jim never touched Monique physically, instead he wreak havoc on her car.

Read, closely the 911 operator’s conversation with Monique as she puts words in her mouth.

Operator: Monique, do you need a paramedic?”

Monique: “No. He has not hit me.”

Operator: “He didn’t hit you today?”

Monique: “Not today.”

Operator: “OK, there is a history of domestic violence, right?”

Monique: “Yes.”

Operator: “And he threaten to kill you today?”

Monique: “Yes.”

She later says, she was at fault, saying she got angry and was attempting to“get leverage” by calling the sheriff.

Things got really hot for Saraceno, his name was being called on every radio station I could be heard on and every social platform I could write on.

He finally put in a call to sports talk show host, the legendary Cowboy Reggie. He was my counter-part in Richmond, Virginia. He begged Cowboy Reggie to call me and tell me to call off the media onslaught as it related to Jim Brown.

Jim Brown’s time in jail for alleged domestic abuse is “Karma!” It does not matter what the player-haters and back-stabbers say. He took risk in Hollywood, on the streets of LA and in prisons around the country, that others dared not take. He did some good in the neighborhoods. He died May 18, 2023–Devil or Angel, RIP Jim Brown.

HAROLD RILEY ALL-MEAC RB & NORTH CAROLINA A&T HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

I met Harold Riley in 1967 in his hometown of Orangeburg, South Carolina. He was a freshman student/athlete at South Carolina State College. Orangeburg was the home of my fiancee, Hattie Thomas. I was there to ask her father, Dr. Charles H. Thomas, Jr. for her hand in marriage.

This was December 1967 a few days before Christmas, with exception of college I had never been this far away from home for the Christmas holidays. I woke up on Christmas morning with tears in my eyes–missing my mother and my brothers.

The Thomas home was filled with Christmas joy helping me to adjust to my new surroundings on Christmas day. I met Riley during the holidays at the Thomas home. He and the younger daughter, Ann Marie were a couple.

On February 8, 1968 eigth years and one week after the Greensboro 4 had marched on the F. W. Woolworth, South Carolina State students faced off with heavyly armed South Carolina State Troopers.

They were marching because they were being denied the right to bowl at the all-white bowling alley just off the campus of South Carolina State University. It was truly a David against Goliath match-up.

It has often been said, “Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never harm me.” Someone forgot forgot to tell the state troopers!

When the dust had cleared 27 students had been shot and three more were dead. It was the worst massacre in American College History.

I married Hattie Thomas on November 30, 1968 in Orangeburg, South Carolina. My mother, my brother Bobby, aunts, and several friends traveled from DC for the wedding. The late Ted Hillman was my “Best Man.”

The 1968 Bell family wedding photo

It was during the bachelor party, Harold Riley and I were talking about the riots in Washington, DC. I was telling him about how I was on the streets for three days and three nights with nothing but a DC Police Department badge to get me through the police and military barricades.

I was explaining to him how scary it was for me to be trying to save lives while putting my life on the line. It was then he woke me up with an “AHA” moment. He told me he had been shot three times on the campus of South Carolina State during “The Orangeburg Massacre.” You could have knocked me over with a feather.

I had read and heard about how white unprovoked state troopers open fire on black students using them for target practice. The unarmed students had nothing but sticks, stones and words (racial slurs, etc.) to defend themselves.

Harold explained to me, that he and Sam Middleton were just riding around the campus in his Mustang drinking beer and killing some time before the club open.

He parked the car and Sam walked down the hill to join the students demostrators.

He remembered hearing a whistle and all hell broke loose. Suddenly students were running back to campus when the troopers open fire on them. He was hit twice, and fell to the ground and hid behind a trash can. Somehow a shotgun pellet found its way around or under the trash can. He was hit for a third time. The trash can saved his life.

The next whistle he heard he and Sam crawled toward the infirmary. He said, “I moved on the whistle because in football a blown whistle means “Start or stop!”

Somehow, some way he and fellow student, Sam Hammond crawled their way to the infirmary for help, but no one was there to assist them.

They made their way to the student union and hid there for two days. Riley said, “Sam was in bad shape, he didn’t look good at all. I called my mother to let her know I was okay, leaving out the part I had been shot.

He said, “For two days no one in leadership came on campus to check on us. South Carolina President, Benner C. Turner and, NAACP President, Dr. Charles H. T homas,Jr. and other so-called leaders were nowhere to be found.

Dr. Thomas should have been the President of State, but I think he was a little too black for them.”

This has been the worst kept secret in The Thomas Family Circle, especially since, Dr. Thomas taught on campus and was the President of the local charpter of the Orangeburg NAACP!

This was the worst college mass shooting in American History. I have been a part of these family gatherings for 55 years (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Family Reunions, birthdays, etc.). I have never heard anyone talk about “The Orangeburg Massascre. and Harold Riley. He is an American Hero!“

Riley recalled on the third day of the massacre, he had become weak and a little disoriented. He said, “I knew I had to make a move to get out of the student union. I checked on Sam but he did not respond. He needed help bad. I felt the only way I was going to get help for him was to get to my car and get off campus.

I made my way out of the student union on to the campus. There was a gunpowder smell in the air and an erie feeling on the campus. Seeing my car was where I had parked it, I quietly said, ‘Amen.’

As I drove off campus on to Russell Street, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a state trooper following closely behind. It was the longest 5 minute drive of my life. He followed me all the way home to Belville Road. I turned into my driveway, he flashed his lights and turned on his sirien and sped off.

When I walked into the house it was like a homecoming celebration. My mother hugged, kissed me, and cried!“

Riley discovered Sam did not make it from his teammate, Phil Harris. The following school year, he felt he needed a change. Riley followed one of college football’s greatest coaches, Willie Jefferies to North Carolina A&T. He had several other offers, but chose A&T to be close to his mother for weekend travel.

ALL GONE TOO SOON

Sam Hammond 18 Henry Smith 18 Delano Middleton 17

Riley was an All-MEAC running back and was inducted into the North Carolina A&T Football Hall in 2013. He often thinks about his friend, defensive back, Sam Hammond, his future was bright, potential unlimited as a student/athlete.

Riley, married Ann Thomas in 1970 and out of that union was born Harold Riley, Jr. and Nekia Riley.

Riley’s major was Physical Edcation and a Minor in Biology. He graduated in 1971.

In 1973 two years after graduation, he started his own business, Harold Riley Drywall, Inc.

His wife Ann of 53 years is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University. She taught in the Greensboro Public Schools for 35 years.

Harold Junior joined his father in the business at the age of 9 and together they have built 12 homes in Greenesboro and 6 homes in Orangeburg.

Harold and I reconnected in July of 2023 for a Thomas Circle Family Reunion in Atlanta, Georgia.

On July 26th Hattie and I boarded a train at Union Station in Washington, DC to Greensboro, NC, headed to the home of Harold and Ann Riley, our first leg of the reunion.

Harold and me reminised in front of the television set watching the news and talked about the “Good Old Days”, while Hattie and Ann huddled at the kitchen table.

The next morning August 27th, we headed to Atlanta by SUV with his son Harold and his son, Landon. The 8 year-old grandson was “The Apple”of his grandfather’s eye.

Landon is a straight A student and has thoughts of being the next Stephen Curry in the NBA. While in Atlanta for the family reunion against all odds, I interviewed my friends of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, sprinters, American History icons, John Carlos and Mel Pender.

Harold Jr., made sure Landon met John and Mel. He said, “I want my son to meet these two great American heroes, they are American history.”

Landon meets the GREAT John Carlos in Atlanta, Georgia

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckav7fo46p43k2c/Legendary%20Interview.mov?dl=0

HEROES OF THE 60s: Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ “Silent Gesture” 1968 Mexico City Oympic Games

On our return to Greensboro we watched Landon play one on one with his next door neighbor. The kid was bigger and two-years older–Landon held his own-he got game.

The two played like I remember playing on the playgrounds in DC-no harm-no foul! The neighbor’s older brother was the referee. He had to call several time-outs to untangle them.

Their play brought smiles to our faces. After about an hour of playing in the hot sun, the two sat down together for lunch. We need more young men like them, and parents and grandparents teaching, no harm-no foul and no guns!

Later that day Riley took Hattie and me on a tour of the A&T campus to look at its growth. It was amazing. We visited the statures “The Greensboro 4” and paid our respects!

HB AND HAROLD RILEY HISTORY MAKERS: IN THE STRUGGLE–THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

THE F. W. WOOLWORTH IS NOW A CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM

HATTIE T & LANDON-THE PAST AND OUR FUTURE

The morning of Tuesday, August 1st we packed our bags and Riley drove us to the train station. I requested he make a stop in front of the historic F. W. Woolworth for some last photos.

Reminder: As we head into the next chapter of our lives, we must remember Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis and Virginia Governor, Glenn Youngkin are not the only ones who are promoting CRITICAL RACE THEORY–they are closer than you think. Today, too often STREET SENSE AND COMMON SENSE ARE NO LONGER COMMON. STREET SENSE AND COMMON SENSE cannot be found in any library!

Sometimes it is best to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!