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!

No. 1-Elgin Baylor played above the rim before Wilt Chamberlain who was already there. It was though by many Elgin could walk on water.

Dave Bing was the first NBA guard to win an NBA scoring title.

No. 1 Elgin Baylor and Dave Bing are the only public school players in the history of the NBA, who are in the Hall of Fame and named two of the 50 Greatest Players in the history of the league. They attended the same high school in Washington, DC. They are the only players to achieve the honor. Elgin and Dave put Spingarn High School on the map. I knew both players up close and personal. We shared the same coaches, Dave Brown and William Roundtree.

DC Mayor Walter Washington presents proclamation proclaiming Dave Brown Day in Washington, DC

The 1957 Green Wave football team led by Coach Dave Brown. I am in the back row with helmet under my arm.

Former Green Wave players Andrew Johnson (not seen in photo) and Byron Kirkley are Santa’s Helpers for my annual Christmas toy party for Rev. Roundtree’s Youth Center in SE D C.

HBell 1958–have ball will shoot and “Box in One”defensive stopper.

HBell-the first high school student/athlete to honor his Principal-Teachers and staff.

L-R Coach William Roundtree-Officer Ray Dixon-HBell-Dave Bing-Principal Dr. Purvis Williams and former student, Ms. Marie Primus.

No. 1-Earl Monroe and coach, the legendary Clarence ‘Bighouse’ Gaines hanging out at the the Foxtrappe Club in DC for my Inside Sports Celebrity Fashion Show. The Pearl aka Black Jesus, and Guard Almighty revolutionize “Guard Play” in the NBA. Earl, Gus Johnson and Wes Useld were the first “Show Time” act in the NBA. Their act could be seen in the Baltimore Arena at any given game.

No. 1-The Pearl and Bing go one on one. They both played for the Washington Bullets. The Pearl at the beginning of his NBA career and Bing at the end of his.

No. 1–NBA Hall of Fame player Adrian Dantley honored as the Inside Sports athlete of the Year. Former TV 7 News Anchor Fred Thomas does the honors. I remember I brought to Adrian’s attention that his agent David Falk had scammed several million dollars out his account. Dantley settled out of court?

N0. 1–Donovan Mitchell opted out of the University of Louisville after two years and was selected by the Denver Nuggets and traded to the Utah Jazz. Donovan served notice early, he was named to the All-Rookie Team, won the Slam Dunk Contest at the NBA All-Star Game and averaged 20 points a game. I am still trying to figure out how Ben Simmons of the Phila. 76ers was named NBA Rookie of the Year. Simmons average 15 points-8 assist and 8 rebounds! Donovan became an impact player immediately not only on the court, but also in the community. When politicians in Utah tried to ban Critical Race Theory from being taught in the Utah Public School System, Donovan refused to go along to get along.  He yelled, “foul” in their attempt to block legislation against teaching CRITICAL RACE THEORY. He was successful in blocking the legislation from passing. Donovan became the No. 1 enemy in the Utah House of Representatives. He refuse to shut-up and just dribble. He saw something and said something–a family trait. Donovan is my cousin on my mother’s side of the family.  Before being traded to Cleveland in 2022, he signed a blockbuster 5 year contact rumored to be worth 195 million dollars with the Utah Jazz. The ink was hardly dry on the contract when he donated 12 million dollars back to his middle school where he and his sister were students and his mother was a teacher. In Cleveland he kept it moving. On January 2, 2023 he turned the NBA upside down when he brought the Cleveland Cavaliers back from a 21 point deficit against the Chicago Bulls to win in OT 145-134. He was just two rebounds short from becoming the first NBA player to register a triple-double, scoring 73 points, 10 assist and 10 rebounds, he would have stood alone. His scoring 73 points, 10 assist and 8 rebounds puts him in the company of Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant-not bad company to be in. His talented supporting cast completely disappeared during the 2023 play-off lost to his hometown team, the New York Knicks. Whether Cleveland is the right fit for Donovan remains to be seen.

THE ROUNDBALL REPORT: The NBA success of the participants on the show can be directly traced to Harold Bell and Inside Sports. When the shows’ participants were denied press credentials to cover the NBA Wizards to enhanced their careers–the host and producer Andrew Dyer called me to intervene. Not once, twice, but three times. The third time was to get members of the show their first ever credentials to the NBA All-Star Game in LA. Thanks to my NBA Guardian Angel, Mr. Brian McIntyre (ret. VP NBA PR) he secured the credentials. I had experienced the same type of racism at the divided presstable at the Capitol Centre in Largo, Maryland during the 70s. Whites sat on one side of the half-courtline and blacks sat on the other side of the halfcourt-line. A white sports writer Frank Pastor and I notice the discrepancy while standing above the floor at half-time. We switched seats, he went to the black side of the press table and took my seat and I went to the white side of the press table and took his seat–Mission Accomplish. I have been a marked man ever since.

The sports/jazz voice of W-H-U-R Radio, the late Ron Sutton and I smile for the camera at a integrated press table during a Bullets game at the Capitol Centre in 1974.

When the Bullets moved their operations to DC they packed their bags and brought the racism with them–old habits die hard! The sad part of this story is that Andrew Dyer, Christie Winters-Scott, Monica McNutt and others forgot how they got to where they are now! They forgot that I invited them to lunch at Union Station to introduce them to Sam Jones (NBA), and James Brown (CBS) for the first time. I included them in the Earl Lloyd celebration during NBA All-Star Weekend. They forgot my meetings with the racist Wizards PR staff on their behalf to get their credentials approved. They forgot, NBA All-Star Game credentials, and me hosting and co-hosting the Roundball Report, etc. Something is definitely in our water as it relates to us. Ungrateful–Thanks but no thanks!

Washington Post April 2023

Eric Johnson, is a 47 year-old Mayor of Dallas, Texas. The demographis for the city of Dallas read, 70% white and 30% black. He is the second black Mayor elected in the city’s history and one of two to win reelection. The first to win a reelection was by weird coincident, his name was—Eric Johsson.

According to the story in the Washington Post by columnist, Karen Tumlty, Eric Johnson was a precocious kid from a rough West Dallas neighborhood whose drive and intelligence was so impressive his first grade teacher helped him to get a scholarship to an elite private school, where he thrived.

Thanks to teachers like his, he went on to earn three Ivy League degrees. In 2023 teachers are still under appreciated and the most underpaid public servants in America. Thanks to politicians who are putting limitations on what they can teach (CRT) teachers are leaving the profession as if someone yelled, “FIRE.”

Proving again, how accurate the quote was from my friend, baseball great, Hank Aaron. He said, “A man is only limited by his lack of opportunities.”

Johnson, returned home to spend almost a decade serving in the State House of Representatives as a progressive Democrat known as a champion of civil rights. He, never forgot where he came from.

Johnson as a young man in the House of Representatives was the new kid on the block but still he led a successful campaign to remove an offensive and historically inaccurate plague asserting, “The Civil War was not a Rebellion nor its underlying cause was to substaine slavery.” The plague was found on the wall near his office in the State Capitol and was last seen in a trash can!

As we celebrate Juneteeth 2023 he has not forgotten, Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, January 6th and Donald Trump.

Johnson, always seem to be a step ahead of the other politicians. He was expected to run for Congress at some point, but he surprised pretty much everyone by making a late entry instead into a nine-candidate, nonopartisant mayoral race in 2019.

He found allies in the Dallas business community, one of his biggest supporters was Ray Hunt, a billionaire oilman. Hunt was dazzled by Johnson the first time they met and decideded he was the man to lead the city!–he beat a veteran city council member in a runoff.

In his early days as Mayor, few would have predicted he would be a sure bet to win reelection.

Johnson, took names and called out incompetent city leaders, black, white, Democrat and Republican. He clashed with city council members, he endorsed some of their opponents in the 2021 election.

Johnson was the city’s second black Mayor, he did not let that hold him back by tiptoing through the tuplips. No one was off limits, The city’s first black female police chief, U. Renee Hall who on her way out pronounced herself “Offended” and “Exhausted” by Johnson’s attacks on her job performance.

His battles with the City Manager, T. C. Broadax–whose office, under Dallas’s system of government, held more day-to-day governing power than the Mayor’s–many think it could have been made into a Tony Award winning Soap opera for daytime television. Their clases could have given “The Days of Our Lives and Victor Newman” a run for their money.

According to the Washington Post, Johnson had a secret weapon that leaders in other big cities had no clue how to attack–CRIME!

When he took office, violent crime was rising in Dallas to levels not seen since the 1990s. His tactics of reducing crime may need to be refined such as deployng “violent interrupters” to resolve street-level conflicts and guide those who need them to social services, and cleaning up bllighted areas, such as trash-filled vacant lots and dilapidated buildings, where crime can breed–he has taken the risk to implement the changes for a better Dallas.

The new Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia had a plan where he would work closely with criminologists at the University of Texas at San Antonia. The plan refocused policing in Dallas on “Hot Spots.” The chief would divide the city into 101,000 “micro-grids”–areas roughly the size of two-football fields!

He discovered that crime was heavily concentrated into a relatively few: an apartment complex or a nightclub parking lot. Just 50 of those hot spots accounted for 10%of violent street crime in the city of Dallas.

In these high risk areas the department will sent police to sit with their emergency lights or where 10-officer crime response teams were dispatched (he remembers Tyre Nichols in Memphis).

The approach could be polarizing, given that hot spots tend to be in communities of color. But statistics suggest it is working. My question, “At what cost relating to the lives of law-enforcement and innocent by standers?”

Of the nations largest cities, Dallas appears to be the only one to buck the trend of rising crime; in each of the past two years, statistics for murders, rapes, and aggravated assualts have gone down. Further more, the Dallas Morning News noted, the number of arrests last year dropped by 19%. The naysayerswill say, “Crime numbers are volatile and that different jurisdictions collect them differently, making comparisons across cities are imprecise. In the early months of this year, the surge in one category–homicide had increased again in Dallas.

Mayor Johnson is obsessed by data, says, “I am confident that the trend is real, and that it is holding. I am either the luckiest mayor in the United States or this stuff actually works.”

Ras J. Baraka is the 40th Mayor of the City of Newark.

MAKING COPS AND PEOPLE WORK IN NEWARK

Ras J. Baraka is a native of Newark, New Jersey, his family has lived in the City for more than 80 years, Mayor Baraka’s progressive approach to governing has won him accolades from grassroots organizations to the White House. With a forward-thinking agenda that reduced crime to its lowest levels in five decades, he addressed affordability while maintaining steady growth, lowered unemployment, returned local control of schools after more than two decades, and replaced all 23,000 known lead service lines in less than three years at no cost to residents, Baraka has defied expectations since taking office in 2014.

Mayor Baraka’s futurist agenda has included the implementation of a groundbreaking partnership called Hire. Buy. Live. Newark, a program that marks the first time that any US city has sought to transform its economy by combining employment, procurement, and residential strategies.

As part of his commitment to strengthen Newark’s position in the expanded technology space, the City launched LinkNWK (pronounced Link Newark). This communications network of sidewalk kiosks provides Newark residents and visitors with free, gigabit Wi-Fi, mobile device charging, phone calls to anywhere in the U.S., access to municipal services, maps and directions, and real-time local information on city streets at no cost to taxpayers or users. Additionally, broadband and Wi-Fi have been extended to city parks and recreation centers, and the City seeks to ensure that every resident has access to free or very low-cost broadband to bridge the digital divide.

Mayor Baraka is recognized nationally as a thought leader in the space of urban revitalization, and his commitment to reducing crime in Newark, reimagining public safety, tackling the city’s housing crisis, and developing innovative and community-driven approaches to eliminating income inequality has solidified his status as one of the country’s most progressive elected officials.

What is the secret to the success of Mayors Johnson and Baraka as black politicians? First, neither was born with Silver Spoons in their mouths.

Johnson was born and raised on the rough side of town in Dallas and Baraka is the apple that did not fall too far from the tree. His father Amiri and his mother Amina were activist and educators on the front lines in the Civil Rights struggle.

Mayor Baraka outlined a strategy he called “Occupy the Block” which is aimed at the crime in the city. A single city block is selected where he, others including law-enforcement will “hold court” — setting up tables and chairs for chess, cards, and open discussion on anything from the city’s youth to the violence they too often experience.

Officers Friendly: Montgomery County’s Finest Motorcycle Cops in “The Hood”

I remember there was one year during Mayor Baraka’s tenure, there was not a single shot fired by the Newark Police Department (unheard of in the inner-cities in this country).

The secret to their success according to INSIDERS–they listen to others! No such thing in the DMV.

The Mayor For Life–Marion Barry and I were friends/associates during his love affair with DC. I remember when he, Stokey Carmichael and H. Rap Brown all arrived in DC in 1965.

The legedary radio/TV personality Petey Greene and I were working for UPO aka United Planning Organization. UPO wa a self-help organization designed to reach back into the Black Community to help us to help ourselves. H. Rap would join me and Petey as a “Neighborhood Worker” for UPO in the Cardozo U Street corridor.

COMMUNITY FORUM

L-R Roland Harris- Congressman Walter Faultroy-Petey Greene–HBell-DC Police Chief Bertell Jefferson

HARD OF HEARING LEADERSHIP

Mayor Marion Barry was forwarned, but he still allowed “The Bitch to Set Him Up.”

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing was forewarned that being the Mayor of Detroit was “A Dead End Street!”

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser was forwarned Peter Newsome “Would not be a good chief for DC.” Mayor Bowser is now looking for her third chief and no one wants the job-not even the intrim!

Prince Georges County Executive Jack Johnson forwarned “Authories were closing in”

Prince Georges County Executive Angela Alsobrooks forwarned “Made the switch to a new Police Chief.“

The late Congressman John Lewis defined TROUBLE MAKERS, Mayors, Johnson and Baraka in the best sense of the word–they make “GOOD TROUBLE“.

I was honored that Congressman Lewis was a member of my team when I campaigned successfully to have NFL great Willie Wood and NBA Pioneer Earl Lloyd inducted into their hall of fames after being denied entry. Curt Flood, Dick Allen, Maury Wills and Johnny Sample are still on the outside looking in!

Green Bay Packer and NFL Hall Fame great, Willie Wood says “Thank You” to legendary sports columnist Dick Heller.

NBA legend, Red Auerbach and I campaign for NBA pioneer Earl Lloyd.

If you are going to make TROUBLE make “GOOD TROUBLE!”

Thurston is a Santa’s Helper during Kids In Trouble annual toy party.

Thurston top left Hillcrest Saturday Program football team. The most talented group of young athletes I have ever been associated with. The players left to right of Thurston-Eugene Byrd-Alfred Harvey-Chet Underwood-Bernard “All World’ Hillary- Lloyd ‘Preacher’ Jones-Sidney Williams Middle Row: ??–Gene Ward-Johnny Brooks-Butch Harvey-Michael ‘Dynamite’ Palmer-Bottom Row: Junebug Bruce-Ronald Hamiltob-Billy ‘Buck’ Johnson-Dumb Dumb Wade–Kirby Burkes (RIP)

Brothers from the sandbox, Billy Johnson-Chet Underwood and Ricky Manning pay their respects to Thurston with the Bells-Hattie & Harold

Ricky Manning preparing to be a pool shark early.

Thurston kneeling second from left at the Kids In Trouble Police/Youth Forum at Bible Way Church in DC. The late Jim Brown (NFL) and Congressman Tom Davis (R-Va) were the co-host.

This has been a tuff year for Kids In Trouble alumni. The program lost Michael ‘Gee’ Gordon, Robert Richards, Willie Evans, Thurston McLain and support team members, William Walker, Sr and Joe Gorham.

During this sad ocassion and celebration of young men who were the cornerstones of the program I was told there are living members of the Harrison Playground/Hillcrest Saturday Program family who disliked me.

This revelation was like being told by your wife, the child you were walking down the isle to be married was not yours. The bad news was coming from a young man who was no stranger, I thought of him as a son.

It didn’t take me long to figured out the problem, the young people (now adults) I dedicated my adult life trying to provide them with important vehicles for a better life had misplaced priorities.

I am a better writer than I am a talker. I decided to respond in print.

The Problem: the folks he claimed disliked me evidently had me locked into their LITTLE WORLD of Harrison Playground and Hillcrest Saturday Program, and were looking for love in all the wrong places! 

My work and influence as it relates to youth and sports media go far beyond Harrison Playground and Hillcrest Children’s Center Saturday Program–my work with youth and sports talk radio is celebrated around the WORLD. This often happens when one decides to be unconventional, like telling the TRUTH, be first, lead and not follow.

I am a pioneer in the community when it comes to Reach-Back: The NBA-NFL-MLB & NHL all followed Kids In Trouble when comes to providing opportunities for inner-city youth!

Reach Back via pro athletes started in DC with Willie Wood (NFL) and Dave Bing (NBA) via Kids In Trouble in 1967. They were the first pro athletes to come home and REACH-BACK to our youth.

Evidently, these player hating adults forgot, I had white kids bussed into the Hillcrest  Saturday Program to tutor the elementary school children in the program. I could not find any black students from Howard U or DC Teacher’s colleges to reach back and help their own. 

The white kids from Takomac Park are responsible for high school and colleges students around the country earning credits toward their diplomas and degrees for Community Service (unheard of in the 70s & 80s). 

They forgot the Hillcrest Saturday Program had visitors on SaturdayS that included, Redskin players, Larry Brown, Roy Jefferson, Harold McLinton, Ted Vactor, Jim Brown (NFL), Dave Bing, Red Auerbach, Sam Jones, KC Jones (NBA), College Coaches, Clarence ‘Bighouse’ Gaines and John Thompson, Judge Luke Moore (DC Superior Court), and Petey Greene (W-O-L Radio).

I should not fail to mention the Washington Post columnist, Bill Raspberry. He won the Pulitzer Prize covering Harold Bell and Kids In Trouble.

Chet Underwood in background during Hillcrest Saturday Program Community Day. John Snipes the Mayor of U Street, Petey Greene and Bill Raspberry join the festivities.

The Harrison Playground and Hillcrest Saturday Program family had experiences like no other rec centers in the DMV. They experience MLB and the Washington Nationals, NFL and the Washington Redskins, NBA and the Washington Bullets.

Many got the opportunity to travel out of the city to Dave Bing’s, Sonny Hill/John Chaney, Bighouse Gaines/Earl Monroe and Spencer Haywood Basketball Camps–on my dime. Where is the beef?

Philadephia Mayor Wilson Goode visits the Sonny Hill/John Chaney basketball camp.

The Hillcrest Saturday Program All-Stars with Dave Bing

First ever NFL Films promo was videotaped at Hillcrest Saturday Program with Larry Brown and Harold McLinton teaching water safety to neighborhood youth.

Three DC pro athletes were blackballed from their hall of fame, Willie Wood (NFL), Earl Lloyd (NBA) and Maury Wills (MLB)  Willie, literally pulled himself up by his bootstraps and became one the greatest defensive backs to ever play in the NFL.  Earl, was the first black to play in the NBA. Maury made the homerun obselete as he ran and stole the legendary Ty Cobb out of the record books as the new King of the stolen base.

Despite never having a network television show I was still able to use my media worldly influence to get Willie and Earl voted into their Hall of Fame, Willie in 1989 and Earl in 2003.  Thanks to my friends, Congressman John Lewis, NBA legend, Red Auerbach and legendary sports columnist Dick Heller.

Letter from Congressman John Lewis letting us know he was a TEAM player.

Check to see how many sports talk show host have campaigned to get BLACKballed pro athletes inducted  into their Hall of Fame.  Curt Flood, Johnny Sample, Dick Allen, Maury Wills, and others are still on the outside looking in and they all helped revolutionize their sport.

During my 6 years as a historian for the popular Bens Chili Bowl, I spoke with thousands of young people from around the globe.  When they made travel plans to visit DC one of their stops would be Bens,  The first thing they wanted to know was, if Harold Bell was scheduled to work on the day of their visit.

I have hundreds of letters and cards from students and teachers thanking me for my TRUTH to POWER talks.  I was so popular, the Chili Bowl family started to become haters and naysayers. I said “No Mas” and walked away.

On top of that, every radio and television sports talk show format is a copy of Inside Sports including the WORLD LEADER ESPN!

Harold Bell and Inside Sports changed the way we talk and report sports in America and beyond. I was the first sports talk show host to add Sports and Politics to his format–no harm no foul.

I was the first sports media personality to be honored as Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine. 

MY BAD, I APOLOGIZE FOR NOT TOOTING MY HORN LOUD ENOUGH FOR YOU GUYS TO HEAR! 

My buddy Sonny Hill (NBA TV Analyst) was right on the one when he said, “Harold Bell your people in DC will be the last ones to appreciate what you have done for them.”  He was right!

The neighborhood Pimp in the Pulpit I recently called out was not even in my class when it comes to helping young people and black folks in the DMV. 

I worked with my friend, the late Dr. George Logan-El with an at-risk group of young men who called themselves, The Untouchables in the Alexandria, Virginia school system. 

I organized a youth center on Homer Avenue in Suitland for after-school youth.  The County Executive Jack Johnson now an ex-con still owes me $54,000.

I raised money on my birthday at the Foxtrappe Club to help find the killer or killers of Atlanta Black children in the 80s.  If they had taken the time to research most of these stories are found on my blog / https://theoriginalinsidesports.blog

I worked with at-risk children and youth gangs in Simple City SE, Potomac Gardens, Mayfair Parkside, Mt. Pleasant, Kenilworth Courts, and Barry Farms.  Let me remind them once again, I was not limited to Harrison Playground or Hillcrest Saturday Program.

When Muslim Leader Louis Farakhan had members of the Muslim Religion assigned to clean up drugs in my old neighborhood of Parkside/Mayfair, I was right there working with them.  The drug dealers were vanishing until the Feds decided to cut funds to the program-too much success! 

I walked the streets during the 1968 riots with nothing but a DC POLICE DEPARTMENT BADGE TRYING TO SAVE LIVES! 

This is the same department I went toe to toe with regarding, The Thin Blue Line and Code of Silence relating to my two brothers.  My younger brother Earl was a DC cop for 14 years and my older brother Bobby was a U. S. Marshall for 20 years. The difference was a black Assistant Chief, Tighman O’Bryant. He had the balls to stand up to the FOP the KKK of the department. They blocked him from becoming the first black chief.

How many times have you player haters seen any of these Pimps in the Pulpit out after dark or down at the City Council to protest racist cops? 

Several years ago I showed up at the DC City Council Confirmation hearing on Peter Newsome to be the new Police Chief in DC.  I sat right next to him and protested his nomination. 

I made Mayor Muriel Bowser, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and City Councilwoman Mary Che aware he was a racist, a crook, and had his boys in blue steal evidence out of the property room that was to be used in court against him.  Newsome was also found lying on a DC street corner drunk with his gun in his holster, and he had physically abused his wife and black girlfriend. 

The Mayor and the DC City Council nominated him for the job anyway and violent crime has been on the rise ever since.  Three years later he left by the backdoor and never told the Mayor he was taking a similar job in Virginia.  Your Pimp in the Pulpit was nowhere to be found! 

He was trying to tell you the kind of pimp he was when he tried to get my mentee Robert Richards to sell me out at The Hillcrest Saturday Program. That is what they do when they cannot control you, they try to get others to sell you out!

Once again our problem, we keep looking for love in all the wrong places. You don’t really know me, but I can’t blame you.  Sometimes black folks cannot see the forest for the trees.  I am glad that God knows my story and my heart.  I am as flawed as the next man or woman. He knows my story, he wrote it.

When it comes to Gene Ward, Johnny Robinson, Michael ‘Gee’ Gordon, Robert Richards, Thurston McLain, Raymond Hill, and all of the Harrison Playground and Hillcrest crew–I lost some and I won some! 

Some have called me an ANGRY BLACK MAN and sometimes they have been right–it has nothing to do with what the white man has done to me–it has more to do with what we have done to ourselves. 

How many remember I was a member of Thurston’s wedding? Thurston McLain is one of my great testimonies, everything he saw me do he tried–all of his endeavors are spelled S-U-C-C-E-S-S (RIP)

Have you forgotten, Lonnie Taylor who came out of the “HOOD” is another testimony?  He would become the first Black Chief of Staff for a White Congressman on Capitol Hill.  He wrote a letter thanking me and the Hillcrest Saturday Program for his S-U-C-C-E-S-S.

While you were working behind a desk or somewhere else out of sight, I was on the front lines in this struggle to be free.  My struggled started in 1960, my freshman year in college. I will remain in it until God calls me home. 

I have been copied but never duplicated.  This was a teachable lesson that needed to be recorded.

Be sure to share this BLOG with those who dislike me, but say, they still love me!  Love definitely has nothing to do with it! Peace and blessings. 

As Always,

Mr. Bell

PROFILE INSIDE SPORTS & HAROLD BELL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQX63CYlAJM /

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jPKCd3HoDE / Maryland Public Television/ Preview Ken Burns Ali documentary

https://www.bigmarker.com/nabj/NABJ-Sam-Lacy-Awards-Program? bmid=99ea2ef240f2/ NABJ 2020 pioneer award

THE TRUTH: DALE HANSEN WAS VOTED THE NO. 1 SPORTSCASTER IN AMERICA USING MY INSIDE SPORTS FORMAT.

THE WASHINGTON POST HAS THE COPYRIGHTS TO INSIDE SPORTS (my wife Hattie’s original idea). They keep taking and we keep hating.  

TRANSCRIPT / Harold this is Dale Hansen in Dallas.  I lost your telephone number when you called the other day.  I finally had to track through your notes and I finally found it.  I am sorry I didn’t get back to you.  Your stuff is fantastic to read about.  Everything you have done makes my little bit a peeling off of White Privilege and rather insignificant, but I thank you for sharing this with me.  I hope you get this message, Thank you, sir, thank you very much.  

THE GREAT ONES: All did promos to promo Inside Sports, let me name just a few, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Jim Brown and Don King.

JIM BROWN IS THE GREATEST RUNNING BACK TO EVER PLAY IN THE NFL–-BAR NONE!

Jim Brown died on May 3, 2023 at his home in Los Angeles, he was 87 years-old.

In an interview with legendary NBA Coach, Red Auerbach, he said, “Whenever the conversation comes up regarding the greatest all-around athlete, two names always led the discussion, Jim Brown and Jackie Robinson.”

I met Jim my freshman year at Winston State University aka Teachers College in 1960 in Winston Salem, NC. He was the guest speaker for our athletic banquest. The late Coach Clarence ‘Bighouse’ Gaines made the banquet off limits to all freshman athletes. I showed up anyway.

Jim had just signed on with Pepsi-Cola as a promotional rep and he was touring the country, telling anyone who would listen, Pepsi was the best.

MY FIRST AND LAST AUTOGRAPH FROM A PRO ATHLETE!

When I hear vocalist Bob Seager’s classic “Running Against the Wind” I think of Jim Brown. He ran against the wind on the biggest stage available, The Game Called Life. He carried his act from Solomon’s Island in South Carolina to the University of Syracuse, to the NFL and on to Hollywood, never saying, “I am sorry.”

I was an off and on friend of his for over 60 years “I am sorry” was not a part of his vocabulary.

Legendary jazz crooner, Frank Sinatra was not the only one to do it “My Way”! Jim Brown once said, “I do what I want, when I want!”

Jim Brown was a complicated and complex human being. He definely marched to his own drum beat. I was an eye witness up close and personal to his Good, Bad and Ugly ways for over 60 years.

There were times I had to wear my “Peace Maker Hat” to squash beefs he was having with his peers and they always seen to be other great running backs, two of them were friends of mine.

First, meet Avatus Stone a native Washingtonian and one of the greatest all-around athletes to ever come out of DC.

THE GREAT AVATUS STONE

He was a standout athlete from Armstrong High School in NW Washington D.C. Avatus lettered in football, basketball and baseball. He entered Syracuse in 1949 to become the first black player during the era of Coach Ben Schwartzwalder.

Avatue Stone was a standout quarterback, defensive back and punter. He was a force on the Syracuse squad in 1950, his first season. Although newspaper accounts described his play as “erratic” there is no denying he was a dangerous player when he was on his game.

Another native Washingtonian Wilmet-Sedat Singh was the first black QB to play for Syracuse in the 1930s.

Against Rutgers in the 1950 season, Avatus boomed a 67-yard punt that stood as a school record for decades. Another Syracuse record was set against Penn State when he grabbed three interceptions – running one back 98 yards for a touchdown and another 85 yards to score. Only two other players have tied that single game total, Tommy Meyers in 1970 and Markus Paul in 1985.

Avatus returned to Syracuse in 1951, starting quarterback Pete Stark suffered a broken leg, Avatus was moved to the position making him the only black QB for a major college team that season.

The Orangemen promptly went on to win three of the final four contests that season. Avatus threw a school record three touchdowns against Fordham and his 25.9 yards per completion that day remains 7th in the Syracuse record book.

With all these achievements he was expected to have a stellar senior season in 1952. But two days before the first game he tore the ligaments in his knee in practice and missed the entire season.

When Syracuse announced the roster for the Orange Bowl game, it was legit there were no black players on the Syracuse roster when the University of Alabama barred any black players to play against them in the Orange Bowl in 1952.

AVATUS STONE WAS DOWN BUT NOT OUT IN 1952

Integration came slowly to Syracuse from Wilmet-Sedat Singh in the 30s to Avatus Stone and Jim Brown in the 50s. The Syracuse football team in 1950 was not equal for black players. Avatus was not allowed to eat or room with white teammates and the coaching staff barred him from fraternizing with white co-eds (who he reportedly dated while at school). When Stone lashed out against these prohibitions he was labeled a “troublemaker.”

Due to untimely injuries, Avatus never reached his full college potential. He was drafted by the NFL St. Louis Cardinals in 1953. He reported to the Cardinal’s camp and two weeks later disappeared. He was found in the Canadian League with the Ottawa Rough Riders. It was rumored the Rough Riders gave his mother $2,000 to come to Canada.

The Cardinals threaten to sue, all of the threats and posturing between the two clubs never materialized in a lawsuit. Avatus remained with the Rough Riders and enjoyed a fruitful season in 1953, finishing among the league leaders in rushing, scoring, pass interceptions, punting, and kickoff returns.

He played in the Canadian league through 1957, was twice named to the All-Star team. In 1955 he received the Jeff Russel Memorial Trophy as the Most Outstanding Player in the Eastern Division.

Avatus Stone was last seen in 1958 in the camp of the NFL Baltimore Colts. He played in one game and disappeared again for the last time.

I first met Avatus in the early 50s in my Parkside Housing Project in NE DC. The brothers from the housing project would meet after school on an empty lot and play tackle football behind a DGS Food Store.

There was a new middle class apartment complex Mayfair Mansions built directly across the street from my housing project in the 50s.

One evening a mother from Mayfair showed up with her son and left him to join us. It didn’t go well for her son. We roughed him up pretty good and he ran home with tears in his eyes.

The next day she brought the son back again and left him to fend for himself. This time he would return home with a bloody nose. The very next day she returned with him again, but this time Avatus Stone was with them.

Avatus, took charge of the field with pass catching drills and taught us defensive passing skills. The little kid had no more problems from us.

The little kid went on to become a trailbalazing wide receiver for the Naval Academy and the University Maryland in the ACC. His name is Darryl Hill.

The history he never talks about (CRT). He wants us to believe he was a tough guy growing up in NE DC. I know the real deal!

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND TRAILBLAZING PASS CATCHER DARRYL HILL

Avatus and I would later become great friends, his wife Carrie and my wife Hattie were Physical Education teachers at McKinley Tech High School in NE DC. We hung out on his boat on the weekends, and there were the dinner parties at their home in SW DC.

We would talk about his football trials and tribulations at Syracuse, the Canadian League and the NFL, no regrets, except Jim Brown.

He could not figure out why Jim spend his NFL career bad mouthing him about his life on Syracuse Unversity. The problem, Jim was reminded by the Syracuse coaches on his arrival not to be like Avatus Stone “The Original Trouble Maker.”

It was hard for me to believe these two great athletes had never met!

Avatus knew Jim and I were good friends. One day he asked me to set up a meeting for the two of them. No problem, Jim would becoming to DC in a couple of weeks for a fund raiser for my non-profit Kids In Trouble, Inc.

CONGRESSMAN LOU STOKES & JIM BROWN ON THE HILL

The fundraiser would be held at the PIER 7 on the SW Waterfront. I invited Congressman Lou Stokes (D-Ohio) an Vinnie Cohen. Stokes and Jim were good friends during his great playing days in Cleveland and Vinnie was his roommate at Syracuse.

As luck would have it Avatus was now a successful businessman and he was called out of town at the last minute for an important business meeting on the day of the fundraiser. Avatus died a year later–I tried.

I never told Jim, Avatus Stone was scheduled to attend. I was looking forward to making that connection.

Lenny Moore of the Baltimore Colts is considered one of the most electrifying players to ever play in the NFL. The tandrem of QB Johnny Unitas, WR Raymond Berry, TE John Mackey and WR/RB Lenny Moore was considered the most dangerous offense in the entire NFL in the 60s.

Lenny Moore was an All-American at Penn State. In the NFL he played both halfback and flanker/WR. He spend his entire 12 year career with the Baltimore Colts from 1956 to 1967. Lenny’s NFL trademark was the white tape he wore outside of his football cleats during the games (Spats).  He is the only running back in NFL history to score 25 pass catching touchdowns while averaging 50+ yards. He spend his entire professional career giving back to others. Kids In Trouble was one of the benefactors and the Baltimore Juvenile Justice System was the other. Lenny was an officer and a gentleman.

When the Cleveland Browns returned to Baltimore after a 12 year absense it was the homecoming of homecomings. Jim Brown traveled from California to Baltimore to maintain his ties with owner Art Modell.

Lenny Moore made his home in Baltimore after his career was over. He was a fan favorite during and after his playing days. The Baltimore Raven players loved him and confided in him. Jim tried to maintain his locker room presence but found it difficult traveling from California to Baltimore for home games.

He became paranoid about Lenny’s presense in the locker room with the players. According to Lenny, Jim was spreading the word Lenny was telling lies about him to the Raven players.

When Lenny called to ask me to come to Baltimore for lunch, I had no clue that would be about a misunderstanding between him and Jim Brown. Lenny is one of the nicest brothers in pro sports. He was truly a man of integrity. It was an easy truce for me to settle.

It took me several days to catch up with Jim, I told him, “Lenny Moore would never say anything negative about you to anyone. He loves you like a brother.”

Evidently, he took my advice to call Lenny and straighten things out. Lenny called me several days later to say Jim had called and claimed it was all a misunderstanding and he apologize. Usually, when there were misunderstanings, it was never his. Lenny Moore is a jewel of a man!

I introduced the University of Maryland All-American running back Lamont Jordan to Lenny at one of my Kids In Trouble Christmas toy parties at Union Station. Lenny told him, ” If you need any advice heading into the NFL, I am just a telephone call away in Baltimore”.

Jordan was drafted by the New York Jets and later signed a multi-million dollar contract with the Oakland Raiders. He squandered millions of dollars away on drugs and prositutes listening to John Thompson and Doc Walker. Lenny was just a telephone call away. Sad to say, “A fool and his money were soon parted”, Jordan returned home a broken man.

UNION STATION KIDS IN TROUBLE CHRISTMAS TOY PARTY: GEORGE NOCK (NFL)-LAMONT JORDAN (MD. U)-LAWRENCE WADE (EASTERN HS)-STANDING: THE LATE BOXING HISTORIAN BERT RANDOLPH SUGAR (BOXING)-SAM JONES (NBA)-HB (KIT) & LENNY MOORE (NFL)

I introduced the University of Maryland All-American running back Lamont Jordan to Lenny at one of my Kids In Trouble Christmas toy parties at Union Station. Lamont was having problems on whether to leave school early for the NFL draft or to stay and finish his senior year!

Lenny told him, ” If you need any advice heading into the NFL, I am just a telephone call away in Baltimore”.

There were several other incidents in media and politics I had to step in and call a truce on Jim’s behalf. There were sports media personalities like James Brown (CBS), he thought it was funny to introduce himself as not the Jim Brown who tossed women over baconies. This was all done during a sports media panel discussion on the campus of the University of the District of Columbia (before CBS). I later spoke with James after the panel discussion and I told him, “Your introduction was not funny and as a black man you shown no respect.”

There was USA Today sports columnist Jon Saraceno. He wrote a column saying, “Jim Brown will always be a hero to blacks, but he does not deserve their admiration. His domestic violence abuse of black women is shameful.”

This was not Saraceno’s call, he had never walked in Jim Brown’s shoes or any other black man in America. He should have checked the history of the slave owners and their abuse of black women long before Jim Brown (This was not to deny Jim had some abuse issues with women).

I called Saraceno out and invited him on sports talk radio to discuss Jim Brown’s abuse of black women. I wanted to know, what did he know and when did he know it as it related to Jim’s abuse of black women?

Instead, Saraceno called Cowboy Reggie a sports talk show host friend of mine in Richmond, Virginia begging him to ask me to stop misquoting him. Saraceno later apologized to Jim in his column.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters a dear friend of Jim Brown or so he thought, called him out at one of the annual Congressional Black Caucus Weekends several years ago. She called him a pimp and hustler in the black community (Jackie Joyner Kersey did something similar on national television).

When I gave Jim the taped version of Water’s testimony, he said, “I introduced her to her husband, my teammate, Sidney Williams. She has been at my home in the company of Jack Kemp (Secretary of Housing and former NFL QB). I don’t know where she is coming from?” Famous last words!

Jim Brown has been accused of domestic violence on six different occasions. His wife Monique called the cops the 7th and last time in 2007. When the cops arrived he was found standing by her smashed up car. He was arrested and taken to jail.

He went before the judge, she offered him 400 hours of community service or 40 hours of picking up trash on the highway. Jim Brown’s response, “I take jail!”

A jail cell for 5 months with 23 hours spend inside and one hour of daylight, made him think a little different.

His call from jail was to his wife Monique, it was a call for help. He told her to call me to help get him an early released and I did.

My media contacts, Congressman Stokes and Jack Kemp were instrumental in assisting me to help get him an early released.

He served less than than 30 days. He hated asking anyone for help. It is the one thing I got from our relationship, I wear as a badge of honor–Jim Brown asked Harold Bell for HELP! I have it on tape him expressing his appreciation.

Jim Brown was a complicated and complex man and love had nothing to do with it–accept for himself and his wife of 25+ years-Monique.

Black Hollywood practiced CRT when it comes to Jim Brown? Brown is a true Hollywood legend and a pioneer. The above 2022 edition “A CELEBRATION OF BLACKS IN FILM.” In the 96 pages Jim Brown is never seen or mention. Governors, Ron DeSantis (Florida) and Glenn Youngkin (Virginia) are not the only ones who’s campaigns are centered around CRITICAL RACE THEORY. Black Hollywood is following their lead. Jim Brown, never worn a dress or spend the night with Marlon Brando or P Diddy–Come on man!

ON SATURDAY MAY 20, 2023 SHERIFF JOHN D. CARR IN DRIVEBY FOR MY 85th BIRTHDAY AT TY BARNETT’S GYM IN CAPITOL HEIGHTS WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS

I was thinking I would never see “Officer Friendly” again in my life time and along comes John D. Carr.

I have spend 50+ years working in the streets of the DMV with youth gangs and at-risk children. My career choice was to try to make children really “First.” I was once a child/youth trying to go to hell in a hurry.

My Kids In Trouble program has carried me from the U Street corridor (Black Broadway), Mt. Pleasant, Potomac Gardens, Barry Farms, Parkside/Mayfair, Simple City, Homer Avenue (Suitland), to Alexandria, Virginia.

As a 4th generation Washingtonian, I have seen the Good-Bad and Ugly when it comes to law enforcrment in the DMV. The Prince Georges County Police Department was known for decades as one of the most racist and brutal police departments in the country when it came to black residents. The Prince Georges County Sheriff’s Department was their partners in crime.

When my brothers became law-enforcement officers I had mixed emotions. My older brother Bobby, was college educated (Maryland State) and a businessman. He left the business world behind to become a U. S. Marshall. Earl my younger brother decided on a law enforcement career after becoming a juvenile deliquent and serving a short stint in Cedar Knoll a juvenile facility. He got his act together after graduating from DC’s Spingarn High School and enrolled in the U. S. Army in 1961.

There he became a segeant in the Military Police (MP), a starting fullback on the football team, a heavyweight boxing champion , a table tennis champion, and a champion for the civil and human rights of black military soldiers on the base in Nuremberg, Germany.

The on and off base racism became too difficult for him and other black soldiers to ignore. White soldiers had no problem finding off base housing for themselves and their families, but finding off base housing for black enlisted men was next to impossible. Black soldiers were also denied addmission to downtown clubs during their leisure time. finally, blacks soldiers said, “Enough was enough.”

Sgt. Bell led 35 militant troops in a march that almost ended in violence. They marched on a segregated discotheque (The Cage) in downtown. The base sent Military Police (mostly white) to the club to squash the distubance. These were my brother’s colleagues. Earl remembered, “I was the only peaceful man there. Everybody else wanted to fight, and I had to keep saying be cool.” they were not worried about going to jail or their military record. All they wanted to do was straighten that white man out!

Here we are in 2023 and we are still trying to straighten that white man out, to make things worse we got some black folks to straighten out!

A white man tried to straighten the white folks out and he failed. On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, creating the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. The order mandated the desegregation of the U.S. military.

I remember stories of World War II veterans of how they returned home after the war, had to ride in the back of the bus. They were made to go to the kitchen to eat, while German prisoners of war ate with white U. S. military service men!

Let me count the failures: google the first black Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the disrespect he encounters daily

In 1969 S/Sgt. Bell’s perfect service record was marred a month after the march in downtown Nuremberg. While he was umpiring a softball game. He drew a $30 fine for identifying himself to a white lieutenant as “Mr. Bell.” Insisting that normal military courtesy regulations are waived during athletic competitions.

The lieutenant was just a grandstand spectator who joined an augument between him and two players on the field. The Lieutenant was out of order, but he was seizing a chance to retaliate for the protest march on downtown Nuremberg.

S/Sgt Earl Bell, after two tours of Army life, decided he was not going to re-enlist. He gave up on the Army because there was too much racism and the black officers were of little or no help.

He jumped from the frying pan into the fire when he returned home to join the DC Police Department. The racism he encountered was just as bad or worst than the U. S. Army and the black cops (homeboys) in white shirts were just as white as the shirts they wore.

TOP COP D. C. POLICE CHIEF BURTELL JEFFERSON & SGT. EARL K. BELL

TOP COP: HOST ANNUAL KIDS IN TROUBLE CHRISTMAS TOY PARTY

They were scare of the FOP/KKK and the Code of Silence and the Thin Blue Line. Sgt. Bull Bell took names and kicked ass and if white cops thought “White Privilege” was going to be their ticket to disrespecting him and get away with it–it would not be on his watch.

We grew up on on the borderlines of Kenilworth Avenue and Eastern Avenue (Parkside/Mayfair), and East Capitol Streets and Central Avenue (Simple City). Here respect was earned and not given and that included neighborhood thugs and the cop on the beat. We must get back to that way of thinking if our children are going to have any chance of surving this gun violence in our country.

Prince Georges County cops were feared and for good reason. Traveling from DC into Prince Georges County for a black man was like traveling into the Bermuda Triangle–there were stories of brothers never returning. Mostly, I think they were stories to scare knuckeheads like me and they did. I would only travel in the county during daylight hours–that sounds familiar-like today!

My brother Earl’s 14 year career ended when he drove over an icy overpass on Southern Avenue and Suitland Parkway in DC one early morning. The road was icy and he met a 16 wheeler truck head-on and the truckk won. He was on the way to his first day at the Police and Fire Clinic in South East DC.

He had been assigned there after a whiteshirt homeboy had discipline him for knocking out a white Lieutenant in the 6th District HQ. The Lieutenant had stepped on Earl’s shoeless foot while trying to get an explanation on why Earl had parked in his spot!

I had spoken with the Assistant Chief about the incident and he swore the Lieutenant was wrong and he had Earl’s back–famous last words.

My brother ended up paralized for life ending his law-enforcement career–I never let go. Sgt. Earl ‘Bull’ Bell was a good cop because I stayed on his case not to forget Parkside/Mayfair.

My brother Bobby, retired after 20 years as a U. S. Marshall. He had racist encounters on his job, but Judge Luke C. Moore was my mentor and friend. Luke was the first black modern day U. S. Marshall-in-Charge. He had to make one call for Bobby, after that first call my brother was good. I cannot count the times Luke saved me from myself!

DC SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES: LUKE C. MOORE & GENE HAMILTON IN THE HOUSE FOR KIT TRIBUTE

The new Sheriff in town, John D. Carr was born and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland. He attended Bishop McNamara High School, Forestville, Maryland; University of Maryland, College Park, he has a B.A. (criminology & criminal justice); Norwich University, M.A. (public administration). Past member, Prince George’s County Democratic Central Committee. Board of Directors, Maryland Crimes Victims Resource Center. Member, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives; National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); National Tactical Officers Association. He is married and has four children.

When Sheriff Carr says, “Children are first”, it is personal and you can take it to the bank.

For Sheriff Carr to make not only children first, but he has to make all the residents of Prince George County first and that is going to take a T-E-A-M. His team should be and pray includes, the new Prince Georges County Chief of Police, the new DC Police Chief and the Alexandria Chief of Police. The crime and violece in DC will affect the jurisdictions surrounding the Nations Capitol. Out of control leadership leads to children’s blood flowing in our streets and out of contol crime rates.

The children are acting out because they are watching adult leadership act out, in their homes and schools. They don’t know who they can trust!

THE KIDS IN TROUBLE POLICE/YOUTH FORUM BIBLE WAY CHURCH IN WASHINGTON, DC.

CO-HOST NFL LEGEND THE LATE JIM BROWN AND CONGRESSMAN TOM DAVIS (R-VIR)

In 1993 Robert was a guest on C-SPAN discussing the trials and tribulations of coaching in the DC public schools (seen nationwide). https://www.c-span.org/video/?36952-1/athletics-school. He died January 3, 2023.

I was looking forward to the New Year 2023, but first I had to get out of December 2022 alive. The years of 21 and 22 were difficult times with the pandemic piled on top of the racism that has engulfed America.

Gentrification has become the new “Back of the Bus” for blacks and unarmed black men being shot down in our streets. 1,000+ homicides overall in 2022. One thousand children shot and killed or wounded under the age of seventeen!

There seems to be no end in sight. The annual battle cry of the politicians and pimps in the pulpit, “Enough is Enough.”

In the meantime, on December 28th my wife Hattie and I were watching an N.B.A. game. The Dallas Mavericks were playing an improved New York Knick’s team, a doormat no longer. The Knicks were up by 9 points with 33 seconds left in the game.

The Maverick’s Luke Doncic took over and sent the game into overtime. In overtime he took the game to another level. He finished with 60 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists for an unheard-of triple double. He was making history right before our very eyes. The final score, the Mavericks 126 and the Knicks 121. The victory against the Knicks in Dallas was the first time in N.B.A. history that a player had recorded 60 points in a triple-double.

The other highest point totals with 20 rebounds and 10 assists all came more than 50 years ago: Wilt Chamberlain’s 53-32-14 in 1968, Elgin Baylor’s 52-25-10 in 1961 and Chamberlain’s 51-29-11 all in the 1960s (G.O.A.T.S of the 60s & 70s).

During the game I received a call from one of my young men involved with “The Village”, Harrison Rec Center, Harrison Elementary, Kids In Trouble and Hillcrest Children’s Center Saturday Programs and Cardozo High School (1968-2013).

The call was from former Cardozo HS basketball coach and Athletic Director, Robert Richards. He was calling me from his hospital bed at Walter Reed Hospital/Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. The call came around midnight. 

The game was over, when I saw the call was from Robert, I answered dispite the late hour. I could see this call was different-he had me on Face Time via cell phone for the first time ever. Hattie was sitting nearby when Robert said hello and explained he was in Walter Reed Hospital and waiting for someone to pick him up and take him home!

This was rather strange because of the time of night. We talked for several more minutes trying to make sense of this late-night call. The call dropped, and he called me right back. I could now see clearly that he was in a hospital bed. I was contemplating on driving to the hospital but Hattie was shaking her head-NO-NO! It would have been like going cross country, from Suitland, Maryland to the top of Georgia Avenue, NW.

Hattie thought Richard sounded a little delirious!

I convinced Richard to hang up the phone and let me see if I could find him some help and he agreed. First, I called 911 to see if they had a number for Walter Reed Hospital. The operator gave me the number and I dialed the number it was out of service. I was left trying to find someone closer to Walter Reed even though it was going on 1 a.m.

My next call was to Evelyn Cureton, a Cardozo grad and good friend of KIT and Coach Richards. She lived in the upper NW in the Georgia Avenue corridor. I didn’t think Evelyn was going to be too happy about me ringing her phone at that time of the morning. “No risk no reward,” I dialed her number and got her answering service. I left no message.

My last call was to our friend Eric Campbell, a mainstay back in the day at Harrison Rec Center. I got his answering service and I left a message to give me a call first thing in the morning. I tried calling Richard and I got no answer. I sit at the dining room table for about 30 minutes before going to bed.

The next morning, I spoke with Evelyn and Eric, they both asked, “What’s Up?” The real deal was Walter Reed had moved out to Bethesda, Maryland!” and Richard was still in the Washington Hospital Center. Hattie as usual had my back.

I eventually found a number for his wife Carole and gave her a call. She confirmed that Robert was boulderline dilirious. She had been to the hospital to visit him and she tried to sit with him beyond visiting hours but because of convid visiting hours could not be extended.

One week later (January 4, 2023) my cell rang while I was driving to the Giant to pick up some water. I noticed the name on the caller ID was Robert Richards. I pulled over to the curb with a smile of relief and said, “Hello” the voice on the other end was Carole. She said, “Harold, Richard is gone!”

Robert’s uncle Earl Richards was my early hero while growing up in our NE Parkside housing project. He was a great high school athlete while attending Armstong HS and St. Paul & Augustine College in Raleigh, NC.

Earl and I later became teammates on the Virginia Sailors, a minor league team for the Washington Redskins. He was an outstanding player/coach. His skills as a center/LB were ahead of his time, too early for the NFL.

Earl Richards is standing directly behind Bob ‘Blue’ Johnson No. 22. We are in Mobile, Alabama’s Ladd Stadium. We had just won our first minor league championship in 1970. I am No. 82 in photo.

Robert followed his uncle into coaching (Eastern HS football coach) in the DC Public Schools at Cardozo HS as its Athletic Director, football and basketball coach.

There are very few financial rewards in helping peope, but the spiriture rewards are unlimited. Robert Richards was a spiriture reward. For Richard to reach out to me in his last hours–is truly a blessing.

IT TOOK A VILLAGE VIA KIT: Harrison Rec Center-Harrison Elementary-KIT Hillcrest Saturday Program-The Gang is in the house. L-R Sammie-Ricky-Chet-HB-Tyrone-Richard-Eric-Gus Kneeling Michael ‘Gee’-Jimmy Lee and Billy Buck.

TOP ROW-Robert Richards’ on the left. His last hurrah was at Harrison Elementary School with the guys and girls from the village. We were celebrating the homegoing service of Michael ‘Gee’ Gordon. Harrison was where it all started. The Nedabs, Lucy, Bernard and Oliver lived next door to the school–they were never late!

IN MEMORIAN: MY FRIENDS AND MENTEES–I AM GOING TO MISS YOU!

BOYS TO MEN IN THE HOOD:

JOE GORHAM-MICHAEL ‘GEE’ GORDON-WILLIAM WALKER, SR-ROBERT RICHARDS-OLIVER B. NEDAB

Hi Ray,

You and Thomas Hearns were two great warriors.  Hearns is and was the better human being and probably the better boxer. 

“The Hit Man” never forgot who he was and where he came from.  I know because I had the opportunity to see you both up close and personal during the glory years.

Muhammad Ali is definitely The Greatest, after his retirement, the “welterweights and middleweights”, kept boxing alive.  During the late 70s and 80s, you and Tommy were the frontrunners–you being the cash cow. There were some decision you lost, but won!  

Ray, remember the bogus story you, Janks Morton, and Mike Trainor planned in the LA Times with sports columnist, the late Earl Guskey?   

You claimed I was a part of your entourage and you left me home with the rest of the soreheads.  You claimed I was mad because I had asked you for a job and you said “No!” This is just one of the BIG LIES that you told regarding me. 

For example, another BIG LIE, I asked you to donate to my non-profit organization Kids In Trouble (a pastor in the DMV recently made the same claim-another lie).  I have never asked you for a ticket or a dollar!  Why would you make something like that up?

You seem to have forgotten when Mike Trainor was talking down to your parents during a training session like they had just gotten off the boat, I reminded him that was a no-no. You never uttered a word.

I told you when I found out that Trainor was seeing your checks before you, I said, “When this charade is over, he will have more money than you.” There was not that much difference in Trainor and Don King. King robbed you loudly and Trainor robbed you quietly.

Inside Sports Boxing Roundtable with Ray, Don King, Heavyweight Champion Larry Holmes, Dave Jacobs, Sr. and Dave Jr.

Sugar Ray Leonard, Jr. wrote a blog, titled, “Harold Bell I am Not My Father!” I asked him to confront you about those lies that were written in the LA Times, but he never got back to me.  You can run but you cannot hide.

Ray, do you remember after you won your first title against Alfredo Benitez, I was the first media personality you called on your arrival home?

You called me while I was on the air (Inside Sports) with comedian Chris Thomas as my co-host. You said, “Harold Bell I am the Welterweight Champion today because you were there when no one else was!” Why is it that this is THE BIG LIE you want to hide?

Ray the only thing you have in common with Muhammad Ali as it relates to me, is when THE GREATEST knocked out Big George in Zaire, Africa, I was the first media personality he called to interview him on his arrival back in the U. S.  It was not Ed Bradley (60 Minutes), Bryant Gumble (NBC), or Howard Cosell (ABC), it was Harold Bell (Inside Sports). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C5f66WDvT0ow9d3HkdUwzRHKvx-5Xrfw/view 

Ray, remember, a LIE will change one-thousand times–the TRUTH never changes. I hope Santa Claus brings you the TRUTH for the holidays. Merry Christmas my friend.

photo by Fred Sheppard

THE JINGLE BELLS: HATTIE T & HB

A CHRISTMAS STORY BY COURTLAND MILLOY www.blackmeninamerica.com

THE WAY WE MADE CHILDREN FIRST 365 DAYS OF THE YEAR

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE BELLS–HATTIE T & HB (photo Fred Sheppard)

Re-visited 12-16-2022–Courtland Milloy the Washington Post 1998

Washington Redskin LB, the late Harold McLinton is Santa for the annual KIT toy party at the Marriot Twin Bridges Hotel in Arlington, Virginia (1970).

In 1968, Harold Bell was a “roving leader” for the D.C. Department of Recreation, working with troubled youths, while also playing wide receiver for the Virginia Sailors, a farm team for the Washington Redskins.

Harold and his teammate WR Ed Bitner share a photo with young fan after winning the minor league football championship in Mobile, Alabama. 

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis that year, Bell drew on his knowledge of the streets as well as his contacts with professional athletes to help quell the riots that rocked Washington. One of his most enduring achievements: was to establish a Christmas toy drive for children who lived in riot-torn areas.

Next week, Bell and his wife, Hattie, will put on their 30th Christmas toy party for needy children. The Bells met in 1967 when Hattie was a swimming coach at Cardozo High School in Northwest Washington and Harold was volunteering as a wide receiver coach with the school’s football team. They celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary on November 30.

“I just lucked out with her,” Harold said. “Hattie is someone who enjoys working with young people as much as I do, and she’s never complained about the challenges that we have faced. She’s the real Santa; I’m just her helper.”

Hattie said the same thing about Harold, adding, “It’s all a bout seeing children smile. As Harold says to professional athletes all the time, No one is too tall to stoop to help a child.’ “

Hattie T and her Cardozo High School MerimaIds swimming team.

Mayor Wilson Goode, Sonny Hill, and Harold are in the hood in Philly.

Bell started a nonprofit organization, Kids In Trouble Inc., or KIT, soon after the riots. Former football great Jim Brown currently serves as the chairman. Its aim is to expand recreational opportunities for youngsters and encourage them to go to college. During the summer Sonny Hill/John Chaney basketball camp invites KIT participants to their camp in Philly.  And sports personalities such as Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Dave Bing, and Spencer Haywood have shared with the children stories of success and how they overcame obstacles. 

Bell started a nonprofit organization, Kids In Trouble Inc., or KIT, soon after the riots. Former football great Jim Brown currently serves as the chairman. Its aim is to expand recreational opportunities for youngsters and encourage them to go to college. During the summer Sonny Hill/John Chaney basketball camp invites KIT participants to their camp in Philly.  And sports personalities such as Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Dave Bing, and Spencer Haywood have shared with the children stories of success and how they overcame obstacles. 

NFL legend Jim Brown host KIT toy party at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, DC

At the first toy party, in 1968, his Virginia Sailors’ teammate, the late George Kelly, played Santa Claus and he managed to collect enough toys for about 50 children,” Bell recalled. “We held it at the old Hillcrest Children’s Center at 14th and W streets NW. It was so beautiful that I had to go into a room by myself, lock the door, and cry. That’s how much it filled me up, and I’ve just had to do it every year since.”

In 1970, Bell persuaded Redskins linebacker Harold McLinton to play Santa for the party, and he showed up with wide receiver Roy Jefferson. running back Larry Brown and defensive back Ted Vactor as his helpers. The children loved it, and the Redskins became Christmas party regulars.  

The late NBA great Sam Jones later signed on as a helper.  He became an integral part of the toy drive with Al Attles, KC Jones, and Roy Jefferson.

“Harold, Roy, Larry, Ted, and Sam are some of the most unselfish men I know,” Bell said. “Roy would always show up with a sack of toys and food. He’d dare me to spend my own money. Sam was a stalwart. He’s the kind of guy who’s always there when you need him.”

Former players (R-L) the late Byron Kirkley and Harold Bell are Santa’s Helpers for their former HS basketball coach, the late Rev. William Rountree, and his youth center kids.

When Larry Brown was named the NFL’s most valuable player in 1972, Gillette Razor Blade Co. presented him a check for $5,000 on a Bob Hope TV special. Brown donated the entire amount to the Hillcrest Children’s Center Saturday Program for Kids, which Bell was running at the time.

In 1971 Redskin RB and MVP Larry Brown and LB Harold McLinton give inner-city children swimming lessons during first ever NFL Films promo for national television. The lesson were given at the KIT Hillcrest Saturday Program in Washington, DC

Such generosity stands in stark contrast to the actions of some athletes these days, especially in the lockout-plagued NBA, where millionaire players see themselves — not poor children — as charity cases.

Bell attended Spingarn High. In the late 50s before graduating from Fairmont Height HS in Prince Georges County in 1959. He served briefly as a golf caddy for Vice President Richard M. Nixon at the all-male, all-white Burning Tree Club in Bethesda. In 1969, Bell ran into President Nixon, who was touring the riot-scarred Shaw neighborhood. Two weeks later, Nixon invited Harold and Hattie Bell to a White House dinner with Secretary of State William Rogers.

Nixon then appointed Harold Bell to head the Domestic Actions Program (DOD) making him the first civilian to coordinate the use of athletic facilities on military bases for children in the community.  It was on Bolling he found the first ever Half-Way House for at-risk boys on a military installation. And for several years after that, Bell hosted a radio sports talk show, Inside Sports.

“This city has changed a lot in 30 years, but the problems that come from growing up poor remain the same,” said Bell, who is 59. “The children, especially, need a lot of help, and I just believe that those of us who have made it have an obligation to reach back. I’ve been through tough times, so I know what it’s like and I know how important a helping hand can be.”

This year’s Christmas party is scheduled for Dec. 22. Plans are underway to hold it at the J.W. Marriott Hotel, which has supported Bell in years past. Anyone wanting to donate new toys or make a financial contribution to help about 300 needy elementary school children can do so at Ebenezer AME Church, 7707 Allentown Rd., Fort Washington; Ben’s Chili Bowl, 13th and U streets NW; D.C.

This year, Santa’s helpers include sports legends Sam Jones of the National Basketball Association and Roy Jefferson, Willie Wood, George Nock, and Rick “Doc” Walker of the National Football League. 

But the main attraction will be the hundreds of children who have been looking forward to the party for weeks now. As Hattie Bell put it, “Just the sight of their collective smiles, brought on not just because they received new toys but because they could see that somebody cares, is a blessing all by itself.”

CAPTION: Harold and Hattie Bell have been finding ways to be Santa’s helpers for the DMV’s school children each Christmas since they married, 54 years ago. 

A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY WITH KIDS IN TROUBLE, INC FROM BOYS TO MEN TO A LADY WHO BECAME A CHAMP!

 

Miles Clarke–Pee Wee Bowl–Bowie HS (No. 52)–Bowie State-Big Man on campus.

Makale Thompson on left in a dance-off during a KIT fundraiser at Giant Food Store at the age of 10. Makale at the age of 17 senior WR/Safety for McNamara HS in PG County. Hattie and I are presenting Makale a KIT check for a school fundraiser.

Antonio Logan-El was 3 years-old when he became the poster boy for Kids In Trouble, Inc. He is seen sitting on a Grand Piano at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, DC. He is surrounded by KIT Life Time Achievement Award winners; L-R: the late Dr. George Logan-El-Montgomery County first black police Chief, Clarence Edwards-HBell-Federal Judge Alex Williams and Boxing Historian, the late Bert Sugar. At the age of 12 he was reaching back as a server for the KIT toy party and at the age of 17 he was a 300 pounder All-American football player for Forestville HS. He is a grad of Towson State University. He owes his success to his grandfather, Dr. George Logan-El (Piano photo by Don Baker)

Robert Glenn was age 10 when I took him to the hoop with his own ball. He is a grad of Morehouse University.

Sugar Ray Leonard was a kid in trouble. He is seen at the top with his Gold Medal around his neck on Inside Sports interacting with several elementary school children. This was after his Olympic Gold Medal win in the 1976 Olympic Games in Mexico City. He came home expecting a parade. Instead, the media attacked him for having a baby out of wedlock. He did not have a pocket to pee in or a window to throw the pee out. He went in his house and hid out. Harold Bell to the rescue–the rest is boxing history!

Hattie and I met Robin Sugar Williams at the age of 10 at an elementary school on Alabama Avenue in SE Washington, DC. We watched her grow from a child and become a lady–this lady became a mom and a Champ. She has sung at the White House and traveled the world as a renowed gospel singer. Robin and Fonzie the clown were the backbone of KIT.

I was watching an episode of the popular television show America’s Got Talent. The show featured Archie Williams. He spent 37 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit–RAPE and MURDER! The DNA of a serial rapist freed him three years ago.

The question from host/executive producer Simon Cowell was, “How did you survive?” He answered saying, “My body was in prison but not my mind.” In other words FREEDOM is of the mind.

The song he sang, “Don’t Let the Sun Fall Down On Me” was a dedicated to what happen to him in 1982 can still happen to any black man in America in 2022. This brings me back to Maury Wills, he did not “Let the Sun Fall Down on Him.”

Maury, followed the lead of the World’s first black Heavyweight Champion, Jack Johnson, the great athlete, scholar and actor, Paul Roberson, the imcomparable basebal pioneer and civil rights leader, Jackie Robinson, last but not least, The Greatest, Muhammad Ali.

They all understood the most important game being played in America was not football, baseball or basketball–it is “The Game Called Life.” It is the only game being played where being called a Super-Star truly means something.

Maury, decided he was going to be a FREE black man in his lifetime. Archie Williams said it best, “The system locked up my body and not my mind.” Black men can not let the system lock up their minds!

Maury left a trail in in his NE DC Parkside housing project, for little fellows that followed him, like his brother Donald and me. There were athletes who followed us from the projects with names like Cecil Turner, Jimmy Bland, Kenneth Springfield, Alfonso Lawson, Gus Lee, Roger Scott and Darryl Hill (honorary Parksider).

The little fellows that followed Maury, Donald and me, left an impact in their communities. They became NFL players, teachers, principals, psychiatrist, FBI agent, sports talk show host and the first black to play at the Naval Academy and in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference).

Roger Scott aka “Shoes” is considered the best all-around athlete to ever come out of the Parkside housing project.

My 50+ years in sports media, writing as an freelancer for the Afro-American, New York Amsterdam, New Observer, Washington Times, and Washington Post newspapers, add blogs for the Bleacher Report, I know Fake News when I see it! As a talk show host on AM Gospel radio, the weakest signal in the radio universe my audience was far-few and in between. Still I successfully campaigned for two local blackballed pro athletes from the DMV in support of them being enshired into their hall of fames. Green Bay Packer great Willie Wood (NFL) was one, and Washington/Syracuse Nationals, Earl Lloyd (NBA) was the other. I also campaigned for LA Dodger great Maury Wills (MLB) but I came up short.

Willie was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1989, and Earl into the NBA Hall of Fame in 2003.

I hate looking back wishing I could have and should have, but I had Washington Times sports columnist, Dick Heller, All-Pro NFL and Green Bay Packer LB Dave Robinson in Willie’s corner. Earl Lloyd, I had Red Auerbach (NBA Hall of Fame), Sam Jones (NBA Hall of Fame), Congressman John Lewis (civil rights icon) and Dick Heller on his team. Maury, had no such support, but I still believed the support was out there.

It is often said, “It ain’t over to the Fat Lady sings.” I am on the way out and not on the way in. This is where the Wills Gang and Ebenezer AME can pick the ball up where I left off.

Yes Maury, wanted to be voted into the baseball hall of fame, yes he deserves to be in there, he earned it. But the most important hall of fame–is God’s Hall of Fame. The Player-Haters and KKK have no vote.

THE MAURY WILLS FIELD ON GEORGIA AVENUE CORRIDOR IN NW WASHINGTON, DC

Webinar: NABJ Sam Lacy Awards Program by NABJ (bigmarker.com) 

WORDS TO LIVE BY:

YOU CANNOT SOAR WITH EAGLES IF YOU ARE HANGING OUT WITH CHICKENS

EVERY BLACK FACE YOU SEE IS NOT YOUR BROTHER OR SISTER AND EVERY WHITE FACE YOU SEE IS NOT YOU YOUR ENEMY