‘Let Me Share a Poem About a Brotha We All Know’

Jason Ferguson, 60, of East Garfield Park, was handing out flyers at a candidate forum at Collins Academy High School in North Lawndale on Jan. 27. The flyers promoted an upcoming fundraiser—A Black History Celebration: “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud”—that he’s hosting for his GOlympians Track Team he founded in 2011.

Ferguson—an Illinois Senior Olympics gold medalist, poet, historian, coach, Marine Corps veteran, and mentor—said he’s also Marshall High School’s last track-and-field state medalist, winning a medal in long jump in 1982. In fact, he brags, he’s the fastest man in Chicago that everyone he knows knows. But he also knows a thing or two about Black history, using poetry as a device to spread its rich lessons to the young people he mentors. 

The fundraiser will help us get revenue to run the program from May through September. I do track-and-field every summer, but I want to start exposing them to other sports like archery, tennis, ping pong, and badminton. If they catch on to them, they can get scholarships in those sports, too. We just don’t know about that. 

Going forward, the average kid who comes from Marshall will probably start veering to other stuff, because the NBA isn’t what it used to be. It’s a business. It’s not changing lives. They’re giving contracts to NBA players’ kids. It’s getting to where if your daddy’s not in the league, you don’t stand much of a chance of making it. So, I think kids will start turning to other sports. 

At the fundraiser, I’ll have two kids who are competing nationally in robotics demonstrate what they accomplished in the field. I don’t talk about Malcolm, Martin, Rosa. I talk about people and events who y’all probably have never heard of and have been buried in history and are only known to people like me, who have spent most of our lives studying this topic. 

As a matter of fact, let me share something right quick. It’s a poem about a brotha we all know. This is kind of my style with a lot of things I do. 

When this brotha rose from the Digital Underground, I knew right then and there, this brotha was down. His lyrics angered and put some people in shock. That brotha, Mr. Shakur, was better known as Tupac. 

You can say this, or you can say that, even though his rhymes were controversial, his rhymes were fact.

Was Tupac sure his life would be a sample for us to see? Thug Life ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. He was shot five times in New York, and in Vegas, he was shot four, each shot representing one of his nine lives, of which he has no more. 

But he has left a legacy for us to know, which is the wrong and the right way to go. So, if his life wasn’t enough to make you do right, I ain’t mad at you. I’ma say a prayer for you tonight. 

That’s that brotha. And I have 50, 60 more of those about others if you want them. 

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Learn More 

A Black History Celebration: “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” | Feb. 28 | 3–7 p.m. | Deborah’s Place, 2822 W. Jackson Blvd. | Tickets: $25 | CashApp: $GOlympians | Zelle: GOlympians@gmail.com | All proceeds benefit the GOlympians Track Team