Anyone who has ever met me knows there is one thing I do not lack: passion for change.
In part, that might explain why I have so fervently committed my entire adult life to serving the needs of communities. While I have spent more than 20 years in the nonprofit sector, advancing organizational missions, my commitment to transformation is much deeper and more profound than that. It’s also a family affair.
I am the son of a state trooper. My father was the first Black state trooper in Haleyville, Alabama, prior to moving to Montgomery. He eventually became the chief of security for former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
Yes, that George Wallace —the former segregationist governor who later sought redemption.
When Wallace took his last breath in 1998, there were four people in the room, two of whom were holding his hands. One of them was my father.
My mother, a lifelong social worker, dedicated more than 30 years to serving youth and veterans, mostly through the VA Medical Center in Montgomery, Alabama.
Their chosen career paths, as well as my own, are not disconnected. Rather, our paths are intertwined, anchored by a strong sense of commitment to service and community. A commitment that was ingrained in me at an early age and continues to fuel my work and my passion to this day.
These childhood experiences, and the passion it gave birth to, have made me who I am today. While I never knew what I would be until my adult years, it was always implied —and sometimes explicitly stated—that it would involve service to the community. By the time I graduated high school, I had worked with incarcerated men, veterans, at-risk students and homeless individuals, just to name a few. Some people call this volunteerism. I refer to it as fuel.
And that fuel, and passion, leads me to believe in an audacious future for Tarrant County—one that helps create a healthier, more educated, more financially empowered place for all its residents. Equally as important, I believe achieving this will take the collective effort of all of us, working together to eradicate the barriers that impede progress toward a more perfect county.
In other words, United is the Way.