Saturday, Aug. 22, 1998 | 5:43 a.m.
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP in Las Vegas some 25 years ago, I always wanted to do something special for my community. It seems like only yesterday that I was running around the desert and riding my bike in West Las Vegas. As I reflect on my childhood and try to compare it to the youth of today, I find we are light years apart. Just as there is not much desert left in the Las Vegas Valley, the family support system seems to have disappeared, too.
The fear factor that is present today just wasn't there; we didn't even lock our doors at home. If you did something wrong in the neighborhood, the neighbors could and would spank your behind. But the one thing I think families in our communities have moved away from is support. The African proverb says, "It takes a village to raise a child." I believe if every child had the love and support I had from my mother and sisters, we would be a better community. My mother has always given back to her community by supporting causes that bring equality to women and minorities and education to the youth.
She instilled in our family a sense of believing in yourself and standing strong for what you believe. If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. When I was 12 and said I wanted to be a professional football player, many people said I would never make it, but my mother, said, "If that's what you set your heart and mind to do, you will play in the NFL."
I played seven years for the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders, and we won the Super Bowl in 1984. From my days in Pop Warner football, where we won championships, through high school, where we won two state championships in football and I won two state wrestling titles, my mother, Daisy Miller, was there. At the University of Nevada, Reno, where Miss Daisy's son became a three-time All-America running back and ranked among the all-time leading rushers in college football history, she and my sisters were always there, driving more than 1,000 miles per trip to support me. As recently as last year, my mother and sisters traveled all the way to South Bend, Ind., to celebrate my induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. In my 39 years the family support I have enjoyed has never wavered. But I believe that my mother's proudest moment was when she watched me walk across the stage to receive my bachelor of science degree in criminal justice.
She encouraged us to give back to the community, and that first manifested itself through building and operating convenience stores, a car wash, a sports bar and a general construction company. My mother's love and support assisted me in my decision to run for the Las Vegas City Council and become the first and only African-American to be elected. I'm proud of what I did during my four-year term on the council to organize neighbors and save neighborhoods. My goal was to sponsor new laws and policy changes that would positively affect my constituents, and I attained that goal. Some of these changes included more than 900 new homes in West Las Vegas, a performing-arts theatre, a veterans clinic and a neighborhood-services office that provides immediate access for people who previously had no access. I also helped to install the West Las Vegas Plan (L.V. Enterprise Park, business incubator, etc.), which is still being implemented today, three years after I left office. I believe that running for office merely to be elected is a travesty, and that an elected official's goal should be to leave a legacy that can provide long-term benefits and support to the constituents that they serve.
In that regard, I am more than pleased with my term on the Las Vegas City Council and grateful for the support I received from my colleagues at that time. I placed minorities and women in positions they never held before, secured a partnership with the MGM that put more than 1,700 disadvantaged individuals to work, implemented the 25 + 5 program to ensure that minorities and small businesses did business with the city and had equal access to contracts, and led the charge to conduct the largest disparity study in America. Although I wasn't re-elected, I never missed a beat, once again because of the support of my family.
I am blessed to own and operate several successful businesses -- National Providers of Cleaning Services, a union cleaning company that specializes in rough and final clean-up; Hawkins & Colleagues, a marketing and consulting firm; and one of the largest distributors of retail prepaid telephone cards in the state. But my heart is in the Community Development Programs Center of Nevada (CDPCN) where I serve as executive director.
CDPCN is a nonprofit organization that assists Nevadans in attaining home ownership, budget and credit counseling, loan packaging and technical assistance to small business. We also work in partnership with developers to build affordable housing. CDPCN is currently building two developments featuring affordable housing -- a 56-unit multifamily apartment complex and 192 for-sale town homes. We are excited about our new 40-acre Gerson Park Development where demolition should begin in 30 days. It's so rewarding to be able to continue to serve the community in which I was raised.
My mother is the wind in my sail and the anchor of my life. I credit her with instilling morals, values and a tenacious attitude, and for teaching me that the measure of a man is not determined by the dollars in his pocket, the type of car he drives or the kind of clothes he wears, but in the attitude of his heart as he reaches out to lift others up.
Thank you, Mom, for being my mom, my dad and my best friend.
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