October 20, 2025 • 41 mins
Tackling Neuroscience | Dr. Robert W. Turner II – Keynote at the Brain Health Conference 2025
From the football field to the ivory tower, Dr. Robert W. Turner II shares his powerful journey through sports, identity, and science — and why the future of brain health depends on inclusion, equity, and community.
In this keynote from the 2025 Brain Health Conference, Dr. Turner explores the lived realities behind neuroscience: CTE, Alzheimer’s, and the overlooked health disparities facing Black men. He challenges audiences to step into the research gap — and reminds young scholars and athletes that their voices matter.
🎓 About Dr. Turner: Associate Professor, Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University Author of Not For Long: The Life and Career of the NFL Athlete (Oxford Press) Principal Investigator, Black Men’s Brain Health & Dementia Studies
🧠 Topics covered:
-
The connection between repetitive impacts and brain aging
-
Why Black men’s health data is missing in neuroscience
-
Building community-based research for future generations
🎥 Recorded live at the Brain Health Conference – September 27, 2025.
#BrainHealth #Neuroscience #BlackMensHealth #ResearchEquity #DementiaAwareness #CTE #CommunityScience
00:08 Academic and Professional Background 00:21 Football Career and Transition 00:41 Research and Contributions 01:56 Engaging the Younger Generation 03:46 Black Men's Health and Brain Health 07:12 Personal Journey and Family History 10:57 Challenges and Resilience 13:22 Sports as a Pathway 15:55 Pursuing Higher Education 18:27 Professional Football Experience 18:51 Writing and Research on Athletes' Transitions 19:32 A Journeyman's Struggle 07:35 A Brother's Encouragement 20:14 Grandmother's Wisdom 22:32 Pursuing Higher Education 23:01 The Journey to Sociology 23:41 Research and Contributions 30:10 Black Men's Brain Health Study 33:32 Emerging Scholars Program 35:09 Importance of Research Participation 36:51 Leaving a Legacy of Caregiving 39:47 Challenges in Black Men's Health 41:01 Final Thoughts and Contact Information
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Dr. Robert W.
Turner second is an associate professorin the Department of Population Health
Sciences and has an
appointment in the DukeAging Center at Duke
University.
He earned his PhD in medical andSociology at the Graduate Center
City, university of New York.
Robert
is also faculty
to
collaborated at the more
PTSD and TBI neuro G Lab
Duke University.
(00:21):
After attending
James
Moore Addison University on anathletic scholarship, he played
professional football in the
U-S-L-U-S-F-L-C-F-L
and NFL.
Okay.
He's the opera, Not for
long the cr.
The Life and Career of the
NFL athlete.
Oxford Press and uh, get the
content contributed
the LeBron James produce eachfield documentary Film Student
athlete.
Dr. Turner is a primary investigator.
(00:43):
For the 6.3 million, uh, N-I-M-D-Sfunded RO one grant, the contribution
of repetitive impacts and socialdetri determinants of health to
Alzheimer's disease and related to
dementia
in older black of those black men.
Additionally, he is a principalinvestigator for the NIA funded Black
Men's Dementia Carryover Study co-PIand uh, for R 13 grant entitled Black
(01:08):
Brain Reserve
Resilience in Alzheimer'sDisease Life Course,
protectives And oversees Men'sBrain Health Initiative, which
brings men's, the men's Brainhealth directory, December, 2023.
And I actually just met himfirst time this weekend.
He has been, you know, just a greatresource and person to talk to
so feel very
honored to be able to introduce
them.
so thank you.
(01:29):
Welcome up.
All right.
All.
Hello everybody.
Hello.
Hello.
Give him another hand.
Right?
We made
You made one mistake,
You said this is the last thing I
have to
do today.
Well, you don't know
(01:49):
that because the still in the room.
You never know what's gonna happen.
Um,
Um,
Um, did my slides.
You have Yes, sir. Okay.
We'll take Our first thing I wanna
do
is, is first of all verymuch, thank you for having
me here.
And I, really
sincerely mean that.
Thank you so very much.
And the second thing wedo before my slides come
up, Anyone in
the room
(02:10):
who is 25 and younger, please stand up.
up.
Please
Please
stand up 25
8. Let's see.
The reason I have you stand up
is because I want you to know
that you
that you matter
to me,
(02:30):
okay?
You really do matter
to
me.
You've heard a lot aboutwhat we're talking about
here.
I want you to know thateverything that we're
saying.
It's important
because
we need you
to carry
on this work.
Amen.
So we want
We want you to understand
you
it to be really special.
make a difference in your community.
(02:50):
Okay.
Thank you very much.
That's right.
Alright.
Alright.
Oh,
I guess
I
guess you, you can'tmake them bigger, huh?
So that's all right.
That's all right.
We can, we can workwith it that way we can
work with
it that way.
I'm gonna start off.
And just say
that there,
I'm, I changed this title.
It, what we're making it today is My
(03:12):
Journey from football, from thefootball field to the ivory tower
to caregiver.
Right.
And
hopefully you'll understand.
When we go through this, I won't taketoo long, but I, I just wanted to share a
little bit about myself and hopefully thisis the reason that Priscilla had me come
here,
Right.
And, and, and the workthat, you know, I'm doing
(03:34):
it is hopefully we canreally work together
and do it
here.
So can we go to the, tothe next slide please.
But before I start off,
I
really
want to say, you know, wegotta put it in context.
Why do black men
matter?
Why does
black men's health matterand our brain health matters?
And, and I'm gonna share these slides
(03:54):
with you and you'll beable to see this, but
some of the things I
want
you
to
see that's really important right
up front.
This slide
is, is about four orfive, well, it's about 10
years old now.
Since CO it has
changed.
You
see up there
where it
says 70.7 years
of black men's life
expectancy
(04:15):
Be since
COVID.
That number has reduced now to 67.7
years.
So if
So if you are a black man,
black men in your, your lives, onaverage, what we're saying, we're
only expecting them to live nowadays.
60 point, um, 6, 7, 7.
(04:36):
That's not good,
right?
We
need
you, we need
to do,
and what are
the
causes
of
these
things?
You know, we're more likely
to
die
from heart disease, more likely
to die from stroke,
right?
28%, almost 30% of usdon't have insurance, um,
which is compared to
white
men.
(04:56):
It's
a great deal,
even if you mix everybodytogether Overall.
We're still
higher
uninsured,
right?
Where
Where we have lots
of
different
issues that
we're talking about thataffect us as black men.
Next slide
please.
Just
Just
further evidence.
I
do work
(05:17):
in the
Alzheimer's space, right?
But the thing thatpeople want to talk about
here, that's really, really important.
One
about, you know, 21 millionblack men in US have worse health
outcomes than other racial groups.
So that
So
that
means we are very
vulnerable
health
wise, right?
(05:38):
We've got
to, as a community, work
together to increase our
health.
Right?
And how
do we do that?
One of the things we're
gonna talk about Brain Health today,
obviously talk about the Alzheimer's.
We know that Alzheimer's dementia isreally important to our community.
We have a
very high
almost double that of white Americans.
Right?
But one of the things we
(05:59):
see here
that
I
just want to point
out,
says, black Americans
account for
only
5%
of clinical
trial participation
in the US for Alzheimer's
and dementia.
right?
5%.
Think
Think
about
this for a second
of
that 5%,
because
we,
we,
ended research,
(06:20):
We always,
we need evidence.
need evidence.
Data
the most important thing.
The money
follows
data,
right?
Money
to your communicate,
to your
communities
through
research.
It's
data.
But if we don't show up
the data,
you don't get the money,
Right?
but
that, but here's what'sthe kicker about that 5%,
(06:42):
it
it probably
shake, it won't, um,
really
surprise
lots
surprise
lots of people here.
But of that
5%,
75%.
are
are
women.
Yeah.
True.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which means
only 25% of men, that's 25%
(07:03):
of the 5%
show
up in
research.
In other words,
we're not there.
Right.
Right.
And
what I did once,
I'm from
Piscataway, New Jersey, I'm gonnashare that story in a little bit.
Grew up in a place calledRutger, um, Piscataway,
which is really close to Rutgers.
We took high
school
kids
From my high school, we brought'em down to University of
(07:25):
Maryland for them to have a, youknow, kind of a career development
day.
And it was at the School of Public Health.
Dr.
Steven Johnson was there andhe said to these men, it was,
uh, many of 'em were, they're
all, um, young people of color.
And he said, do yourealize that right down
street from where we are is
the National
Institute of
Health?
(07:45):
And that's where they
make decisions the
decisions
for everybody
in this country.
Those
decisions are made right there.
But
young
young men,
people who
look
like
you,
we're
not in those rooms.
Right.
Right.
We're really
not in those rooms
we haven't trained 'em.
We
haven't put
in a
position to have
(08:05):
those
kinds of jobs.
Right.
One of
the
things
important, to go back
to this
data, right?
So
that's, I just want to encourage, that'swhy it's so important for us to show
up who's
in the room
and who isn't in the room matters.
Okay,
so
I,
I,
I, just want
to
really
pay
attention to those numbersbecause it's really
important.
Next slide.
(08:27):
Alright,
Alright, so now we're going to
about my
top.
Okay.
Alright.
this is a
quick
little
bit about
what you've
heard in
my
bio, but I'm a
former professional football athlete, Uh,
have a
degree
PhD
in medical,
uh, sociology have advanced
training in neurocognitiveaging and dementia.
Principal
investigator
a couple of different research
(08:48):
projects.
Right.
Next
slide
please.
Alright,
Alright, so
people
ask me all the time,
how did
you
go
from
being a professional
athlete to a
doctor?
Well, in many
instances
I'm like
a lot of
men
this room,
a lot
of men in
in
in
in, Muskegon.
(09:08):
and in Detroit.
I'm from,
originally born in NorthNew Jersey, my grandparents.
Part of the
Great
migration
moved from North Carolina,
wanted to
wanted to get away
the deep south,
right?
And all the oppression
that
was happening there in 1920.
They were early part of earlyfirst wave with the uh, great
migration.
(09:28):
And my
grandmother
had an uncle who's that had name happenedto be, Robert, was living in New York City
around
that
time.
And
he said, Hey, come
Ruth,
you
and Major, come on up.
And we'll help you get
start a better life up in New York
City.
So they got
on the train
and
they,
like everybody
else, they're like,
it's time
(09:49):
to get
outta
south.
So
So funny
happened along the way,
you
know,
you
anybody knows about the train
situation.
Up in, in,
uh,
Northeast, there's
a lot of
train stations.
called, uh,
Pennsylvania train station,
right?
So we, when you go to NewYork, to the Penn station,
but the conductor on, on thetrain station at that day said.
(10:13):
you're
at
Newark
Penn Station.
So my
grandparents got
off
it was
New York
from
Penn
Station.
Right.
Right.
But
back in
day, literally, you know, we had networks
of black folks in every city along
the way going
up north.
So they had
that was there
that was.
Part
of where they're from inTillery, North Carolina.
(10:34):
My
grandfather got
job that
day.
Right.
A ball bearing factory for the automobileindustry in Harrison, New Jersey.
So that's where
my family,
you know, set up shop and raised a whole.
My grandmother had nine children the whole
bit.
so
I am
Robert Turner.
My
dad's Robert Turner.
I was the youngest of
(10:55):
his kids, right?
And so
are going well.
Then you all
remember the turbulent.
1960s, the
riots
the sixties,
68, 9 6 7, where
had ours in Newark,
Right?
Police
brutality, those kinds of things.
My dad
was very,
very strong about trying to stay into
(11:15):
city because we had basically
a,
a strong
social
network.
I'm sure
you all remember your young growing up,
you know, in our block.
It was,
was every
uncle, every aunt, everycousin, everywhere, they
gran.
Nobody
where you were.
'cause you were
either at your
house or your granny's house,
or
your, your,
cousin's house,
you ate dinner at every place else.
(11:36):
Never needed a
a babysitter
everybody was right there,
Right.
But
unfortunately, because of,
you know,
the de-industrialization, allthese great jobs were in the city.
As well as the
riots, the fabric of thosecommunities started to tear apart.
We heard yesterday
about the
crack
cocaine and all of
those other things.
My dad who was a Marine,
(11:56):
was fortunate enough
and said, Hey,
listen.
He
fought that good fight
and
said,
You know, my
kids are not a social experiment
We gotta get 'em outta this
environment.
So they moved
us
over to
a
place called Pisca,
New Jersey, which
right at the
foot part of Rutgers
half is of my town there,and the other half,
um, in New
Brunswick.
And
so
that's where
I moved out to there.
(12:18):
And at
that point
I,
know, I started
playing
football in all kinds of sports.
And for the longest time I thought
I really was
following the sports because I had
this love
sports.
And I did, but I realized
that sports
chose me,
and I'll share that in aminute, but one of the most
important things that
parents
did at that time,
is
against, you've all heard
(12:39):
story one
way or
another,
but I
look back
at all the males in my life, mycousins, right, that were all around
same age.
We all
grew up at the same time,
and
of
all of us,
only two of us
made it out
of the eighties
without
either
going to
prison, without, um,
you
know,
being addicted to drugs and those
(13:00):
kinds
things.
And unfortunately, I have one cousin
that was, um,
you
know,
you know, 63 years old just
year.
We were born a
month
apart
and
found them
dead in a hotel, uh, fentanyl,
right?
So, you
know, again, so much of what
going on through all those days, muchlike today, really attacked black men.
I'm
(13:21):
I
very fortunate.
I
fell in love with sports and I started
sports
all along,
right?
But I didn't realize until I, I,
went
got
a PhD
and
I was studying this stuff, and
realized that one of the reasons that I
chose
sports, because in my background
we went
from an all black
community
to a
community
(13:41):
was
about
70% white.
And then we were also in the black
We were living in
red lined areas, so we alllived in the same place.
You couldn't go on the other sides
of town 'cause you weren't get all kinds
of trouble.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
But
the one place, I
remember the first
time that I ever,
ever knew anything about racism at all.
'cause
used to
think
that the world was
black,
(14:01):
to be quite honest
with
you.
Growing up in Newark, all I ever
was black faces.
The only
time I ever saw white people
on
television.
And sometimes in the church,
I went to
Episcopalian church
and it was mixed.
Other than that, my whole networkwas all, all black people.
Then I moved out to a
place and it was all white folks,
so I
remember at like 10 years old, I went
to try to play
baseball.
(14:21):
And I
didn't know how to play baseballvery well, but it was obvious
to me as a young child, I was abetter athlete than everybody else
was in there.
right?
But I was the only black
kid that
in, it was me, me and oneof the two other people,
and outta
everybody.
didn't get chosen.
14.
I
couldn't understand.
I
It didn't make sense to me.
How did I not get chosen?
I didn't even know that itwas a black and white thing,
(14:41):
but
my dad
said That's okay.
he
So he
his own
baseball team
right?
And we beat everybody,
Floyd
They
the
same thing in football,
beat everybody.
Then
of course
the next year
said, Hey, we
would like to
integrate the teams.
He was like, no,
no, we're
we're not doing that.
Right.
But also the other thing is I realizedwhen I, when I went to, was in school,
(15:04):
myself and
many
of the other people of young black kids ofcolor, they put us in remedial programs.
Right.
They
take us, everybody go to lunch,and then they shuffle us off
into
a little closet.
And I said, I don't knowwhat's going on, but
I know I
belong in here.
Yes.
But that was all the messagesthat they were telling
me,
That's all I internalized.
And
I realized that playing sports,that was the one place they
(15:27):
couldn't deny it.
I better
everybody
else, right?
So that,
that's where
I, I learned how to be me.
I learned that I couldwalk around proud and tall
because
nobody
could stop me from that.
Right.
So that's
I wound up
really being driven to
go to
college in the first
place because I thought, Hey, I really
(15:48):
want
play in the NFL.
And I
knew that the only way to get
to the NFL
was you had to go through
school,
Right.
So I said, and, and Iwas first generation,
you know, college
and my
town come from blue collar town.
My
was
an electrician,
marine,
that
of stuff.
He could help me get into the union, buthe couldn't help me get into college.
Right.
I didn't know.
(16:08):
I, I literally, I
joked.
people,
is crazy,
but, and
went to
apply for graduate
school.
I
didn't know
that you had
to.
Go
through an
application process.
I just called the college and I
was like, I want to go.
Right.
And
were like, you know, was in the
application
process.
Really.
Actually it was crazy
'cause I, I
I called NYU
(16:29):
at the
time and
said,
Hey, I'd like you to send
me,
You know, how do
get into
the school?
They
said, well, we'll send youan application package.
And they
said, but you're not gonna get
in.
And
I
And
said,
you know, and that brought up
of these old feelingsthat I wasn't good enough
academically.
And I said,
what do you
mean
I'm
getting in?
You don't
even know me.
I was in,
like, I was like,
this doesn't make sense.
(16:50):
Here we go again.
And
they
said, well,
we
we get more
applications than
any other program.
In
sociology, we get about 400
and we only keep
about six to eight people a year.
And
I said,
I guess I ain't going there.
Right?
But I,
but the
thing is, I didn't even know that you
had.
to fill
out an application.
I didn't know how tofill out an application.
(17:10):
And you say, well, what
does that
mean?
Well,
I went to
college
on a
football
scholarship,
They
out the application for me
and
they just, I just went on
school.
So
I didn't know anything about
any
that
stuff.
I
just, you know,
went on and did all that.
Right.
But again, when
I started thinking about my
connection, my social life,
(17:32):
I
realized at
that point, you know, where some totalof our previous experiences and people
us, I realized
That
again, why sports was so
important
to me and why I had, you know, goneon the path that I had gone on.
And
crazy part
is I had no
idea,
um, that I would
ever become a
doctor.
None whatsoever.
I
I remember the
day that I
graduated
(17:52):
From
college
my, my dad
and my
mom and my grandmother
there.
Everybody, the whole family was there.
And,
and the coach
had recruited me was
there.
and my dad,
know, was
beaming.
His baby boy was, you know, Igraduated and he said to the
coach, he said, my son now
do
anything that he
wants
to do.
dance.
(18:12):
And
I thought, what isn't
he crazy?
What
is
talking
about?
I don't, didn't make sense
to me,
right?
I'm
just going to go play football.
That's what I'm gonna going
up doing.
And fortunately, I
was able
to for the
next four
years
five years to go.
And you see, I played
the,
you know, James MadisonUniversity and I went to,
um,
in the USFL
(18:33):
in
Canadian
Football League, and playedvery briefly in the San
Francisco 49 ERs.
So
you much.
That's right, Peter.
Thank you.
Um, and, but I,
didn't, the
things that I didn't know at that
time,
right?
and I actually,
you've see in the middle I wrote a
book
which
was,
um, is called Not forLong, the Life of the
(18:54):
Career of NFL Athletes.
And that whole book
my dissertation.
and that is around the
difficulty that so many athletes
have in their transition
to
life after football.
And I wanted to
understand why that was,
because
it was very painful
me
because in my mind
I grew up
thinking I'm gonna make the NFL Hall
(19:14):
fame.
I'm
gonna be
like
OJ
Simpson, the old OJ Simpson
who
ran
through the, you know, the, theairports her had a contract.
a big old, everythingelse like that, right?
But
know,
for me,
my career
ended
disappointment.
'cause you know, I, I was,
I was
we
called the book.
I I called, you know, as
(19:35):
a journeyman, I, I was,I was, if there's 53 guys
the team, I was
the 53rd guy
that
they
picked to stay
on the
team, right.
And I
I remember at one
point, you know, I was very, you
know,
at
the
time,
one
of my brothers was, um, was
incarcerated
and I went to go visit
him
that, you
know,
right shortly after
I got
cut.
And he said
to
me, and
I and
I
feeling
really bad, and
(19:56):
he said,
why are you feeling bad?
I
said, well, 'cause I never really livedup to what I, what I, what I thought.
And he goes,
Hey man,
people
wouldn't kill to be inthe NFL and you made it.
He said, don't matter,
you were there.
And that really
helped
me, you know, with my,
my,
um, perspective of
everything.
The other
I
want to share real
quick
(20:17):
in that story
about
grandmother, which
is very important,
it's important
to young
too to hear
this,
but
my grandmother.
unlike
so
many people that I grew up with,
in that
time in
the sixties
and seventies and
eighties, right when in school,
up north,
everybody that day school was done.
You were going down south.
(20:37):
They put you on a
bus you're going to see
your grandparents.
Everybody went down south
and I had family down south as well, but
wasn't going down south.
My grandmother was like, ain't nothing
good down
south.
Ain't
We ain't
going down south.
Right.
Oddly enough,
I
went
school down in Virginiaand my grandmother said
she would never go back
to
south.
She only
went two
times.
(20:57):
Once she made my dad drive her
down
see her brother's funeral,
my dad and my
grandpa.
My
uncle, my grandfather,they were supposed to
the weekend.
My,
my
grandmother,
she got so
uncomfortable there
on their way
down from Newark, they stopped
in,
uh, Washington,
DC
for, for breakfast.
Drove
down to North Carolina,
went to the
(21:17):
funeral and
we ain't staying.
And they made my dad
drive all the way
back another nine hours for one.
My grandfather was, unfortunately,
was
scared of
white books, right?
Wasn't happening.
So
the only other time mygrandmother came down
to,
Um, the
south is when I graduated from college
because
at nine children, none of her childrenwent to college and I was the grandchild,
(21:41):
the first one to ever graduate, andmy grandmother was about five foot
four,
and
I learned later
that between my grandmother andmy grandfather, both of 'em,
they didn't have up to about
a seventh grade
education.
But my
grandmother,
she,
she put
in my
hand a crisp.
Brand
new $100
bill
didn't have
have a
(22:01):
lot of
money.
mean,
Literally, it's a
story she cleaned other people'shomes and all other stuff
and she
said to me,
she
said, I've been waiting my
whole
life for this
day
for
one of my
children or my grandchildrento graduate from college
right now.
Why is that important?
'cause
didn't realize
(22:22):
that
until
told me that.
But I also, at that moment,
what that meant to me
was.
education is so important to my family's
legacy, right?
And so
I
said, I don't know when.
I don't
know
why.
I don't
how, but I
know that I'm going to
go
and go
to
college, continue
to go
to college after
this, right?
(22:42):
Because I, I just felt that I needed
to really
what was
important to my grandmother.
So
years later,
remember, I only
went
to college to play football,
right?
But years later
was like, okay, I'm ready to go.
And get
a master's degree.
'cause I, I thought
that
was the, the
best
thing to do.
And I went
and
started studying and
I learned about sociology.
(23:02):
And The reason I started
studying sociology is a good friend
that
said, um, you're
always
talking about
race.
You need to go study that
in school.
And I said, you can do that.
And she said, yes.
It's called sociology.
I never even
of the word sociology,
but I said, oh, I'm gonna be a
sociologist.
get degree.
So
I went to,
Bon Noble, got a little book and I readabout it, went online and realized that
(23:23):
you can't do anything
a
master's degree
in sociology.
So at that
moment,
and
the infinite wisdom in my life, Isaid, well, I'm gonna just get a PhD.
Right?
And that
the decision.
I didn't know that it was gonnatake a whole bunch of time
in
my life
that,
but
I did.
Right.
so
wind
that's what wound up
happening.
And
so next slide
please.
(23:44):
This
is how I started my journeyat 40 years old to go
to the ivory
tower.
That
was, again,
not something that I wasreally planning on doing.
I only went to graduate school because I
re,
I
was trying to live the
legacy of
my grand,
and I was planning to just go get
a master's
degree.
(24:04):
'cause that's all I knew.
I didn't even know
what
a PhD
was.
Right.
But I said, okay, I get a
master's degree.
But then I realized thatif I'm gonna get it, it
has
to
be something that I can do something
with.
So I just made the decision
to.
Do
that.
and I went on this
journey
to go
through
and
started the school and I,
and really I had
no
in intention whatsoever moving beyond
(24:26):
just getting the
degree
because I was working
full-time.
In fact, the decisionthat I chose to go to
City University of New York,
um,
was because I said, I'm not
leaving New York City.
I want.
I like being in
the city.
I like being
up in the northeast.
This
is where I want to be.
I'm all 45
minutes away
from my
parents, so I'll work and go to
(24:46):
school.
and that's what I did.
It took me eight years to do
it.
Right.
But that was what I did.
And I remember telling one of my,um, professors, I said, you know.
I'm not planning on goingany further with this degree.
I'm gonna go back into the workforce.
I said for one,
I'm not leaving
New York City to go work in Iowa.
Right.
For $65,000.
(25:06):
No disrespect to Iowa or anyplace like that, but I'm a
city
boy.
Right?
And he said
something to me that again.
these things change your life.
He said, Hey, listen,
you are doing something.
You are
studying something
that's so different
Okay.
That
people will pay you a
lot
of money to pursue this line of work.
(25:27):
And I was like, okay, tell me.
And, and so he taught me
about
this whole
enterprise
how to how to do
research,
right?
How to be a, a pi,
right.
Principal investigator.
How to do all these things becauseI really wanted to understand
again.
with my research, wind uptaking me to asking these
questions.
Is particularly about black men.
(25:49):
About men in altogether, but about blackmen because the NFL is 70% black, right?
College, if you look at the majorcollege football programs, right?
Even though it's a little bit morediverse, but if you look at the major
programs, they look who's on the field.
They're all
black
too,
right?
And so I said, okay, I've startedto realize that health was a
big
issue.
(26:09):
And at the time that I had done my book
and I was doing my dissertation.
was also,
you'll remember
in this
area a guy named Dave Doon.
Right.
Played for the ChicagoBears, went to Notre Dame.
African American man was very successful
in everything, but he, he committed
suicide because he was having problems.
And later found out they
had CTE had donated his
brain.
Right.
(26:30):
And there was another guy in my
study who had
committed
suicide and there was a coupleof other people that had
talked to me about depression.
And I
thought, wow, here's an issue.
issue
That obviously is really important.
It's serious, and I'm stilllooking at all these other
black men that look like methat were having these kinds
of issues
and it was impacting them as they age.
(26:51):
So I said, well, I happen to bea black man and I know a lot of
black men and I
see that this is very important,so I need to study this.
I also am a
former football player and I know
the risks
and the dangers that we all hear about
CTE, and I want tounderstand, so how could I
impart.
And everything that I did withmy thinking was how can I make
(27:11):
a
contribution that's
going to help members of my community?
My community?
in this
instance
was a community of former football
players.
My community of the blackcommunity of which I'm part
of, and the
black men, which I
think are
very much understood and wedon't know much about them.
And we look at
those
numbers
up there and we see that we haveall of these kinds of health
concerns.
(27:32):
So how can I take the training that I
have in order to help make adifference in the lives of Those
people
who, who,
I
care
about?
And so that's how I wound up getting
into the ivory tower.
And again,
God has truly blessed me inso many different ways because
of the University of Michigan.
I mentioned last nighthow y'all have invested
(27:54):
for them
to be able to identifypeople like me and to
mentor.
Dr. Perry, Dr. Uh, James Jackson.
So many
people there have really
invested over the last
10
years
poured in me the kind of training to allowme to be able to do this kind of work.
And the crazy part is when we thinkabout this, when we, I go to national
(28:16):
conferences and I do so many ofthese things, and we talk about,
well, how many other black menare there that are doing this kind
of work?
And we got
about that
man.
Uh, right, and, and, and in allseriousness around the country, it's about
that many who actually are studying this
kind of
thing
On a side note, which was
(28:37):
even shocking to me when I was at George
Washington University, I was recruitedby Duke to be able to kind of come down
and work for them on faculty in the
hospital
there.
And I started looking and I lookedat the numbers on a national
level
of the number of black men.
Who were associate professors at a medical
(29:00):
school in the health sciences.
right?
And it was like three.
Yeah,
I was like one
of
three.
And I'm going to myself, thiscan't be right, this can't be good.
This
doesn't
help
us at all.
So I have to be part of a
solution
to help get that people involved with that
as
well.
So can we go to
the next slide
please?
(29:20):
Alright, I'm not gonna dwell onthis, but I, but what's important,
especially for the young folks
in here, right, is you'llsee this 1, 2, 3, 4,
5,
6 different things
that you'll see up there where
says that, um,
the,
Michigan Center for Urban African American
Aging Research.
That was part of
the challenge that, you
know, the, the, um, mentoring that I had.
But after.
(29:42):
Spending eight years pursuingthe Master's in the PhD
program, I spent another eight
years
really
doing fellowship research to gettraining because I didn't have any
training in gerontology and I didn'thave any training in doing, um, brain
health
research in cognitive neuroscience.
So I needed additional training inorder to be able to answer the questions
(30:02):
that nobody else was even asking.
So that's kind of my journey
that
took
me through
here.
Next slide, please.
So I, I just want to take a real side
step for a second and tellyou as part of the work that
I do, we heard Brother
Cooley say,
um, a little bit earlier, I runthe Black Man's Brain Health Study,
right?
It's the first study of thiskind ever to be funded by
(30:24):
the, the
National Institute of um,
health helped that we are
looking, we're recruiting 200 black men.
100 who have
formerly played,
uh, football on any
level.
High school, college,
junior,
junior, high school, college,all the way up to the
pros.
And then we're matching their 100
men there, black
men 50 and over, And another group
(30:45):
of black men who've never
played football.
And we're trying to
'understand, cause we know all of the research
suggest.
Right.
We've probably seen thiseven in the, in in the
news.
that they do race
norming
or they used to do
race norming in the NFL when theylooked at cognitive, um, functioning
and your cognitiveperformance for black men,
and
they compared it
to white
men.
(31:05):
And we are always lower, right?
And we know that it's not
biologic.
Right.
But they tried to say there'ssomething going on there that we need
to
account to adjust for.
So my study
is
trying
to
understand,
we know
there
are differences.
We know that they're not
biological
differences that create
this.
what
accounts for
these differences in our,you know, later life,
normal cognitive function.
(31:26):
Right?
So that's what I think.
And then the
second thing we do, and Dr. Perry,again has been very instrumental in
this, but I've been, I've been fortunateenough to receive funding from.
Um, the Alzheimer's Associationin partnership with the NFL Alumni
Association,
Um, and several other organizations wedo, I have the Black Men's Brain Health
Initiative, and with that initiative,we have a conference that we put on
(31:49):
every
year.
Now I realize maybe I shouldn'thave put Ohio State Buckeye up here,
but
you all
probably know this guy
Maurice tells an incrediblestory, incredible.
He was a
speaker there and he talksabout, um, you know, how he was
incarcerated and how his mind
is in one place.
What he had to go through to relieve
(32:10):
stress and free his mind andall of those other things that
had led to his incarceration.
But the, one of the things that was great
about
his story, if y'all know it, please read
about it.
And he's got a book out.
But
he was in,
he was
committed to
four years, uh, in prison.
And he was, he was at a max
facility because he had, um, beenput in prison for attempted murder.
(32:31):
And then he went through this, hewent through a whole kind of process.
To reform
himself.
And two years in, he was a model
citizen in prison.
And the judge said,okay, well we are ready
to take you to this
max prison, to a minimum
prison.
And he said, your Honor, please
don't
do
that.
(32:51):
He said, because I founda process here that works
for me that is transforming
my
life.
And if it's not broken,
please, let's
not try to fix it.
Let
me do my time
time here.
Right, and he's done.
I mean, this guy, believe
it
or
not, he went from nothing and he owns
25 medical
facilities.
He's a hill community, very wealthy guy.
(33:12):
He's an amazing young brother.
Um, and so he was willing to commit
his time.
to come to our conference to helpmake a difference amongst all football
players and all black men setting an
example of what's going on.
So that's kind of the level
of
the type of
work that we do through the conference.
Next slide, please.
The other thing that's so important,and that's why I had the, the younger
(33:35):
folks here to stand up and talk.
I mean, she raise their handbecause we have an emerging
scholars
program.
Because what we've alsofelt, and we've heard
from the system as a doctor
here.
um, we don't have enough
people
of
color who are in themedical professions, right?
We just don't
have enough clinicians.
Not at all.
But we
also
know
that there are two factors thatare the biggest influences on where
(33:59):
people practice.
clinicians,
practice
doctors, the first of which is where they
went to medical school.
Right.
Go to school and
you stay
in
that
particular area.
The second of which is where you
come
from,
Right, because we, we just heard
earlier, she said that I'mcommitted to going back into
my community and practicing
there.
(34:20):
Right.
So we have a, we have a,
program
that
wants to help young people like Jasonand others on that pathway, whether
they're a researcher or a clinician.
And hopefully in this case,maybe he'll be both, right?
Because we know that they care about the
communities that
they came
from
and they want to
contribute back.
And so
we
need
to be,
(34:40):
and this is where I'm really committed,and this is why I'm here, is because
we
need to be.
The
conduit
to help
people
To be able to go back
and contribute to their own
communities.
Right.
That that's why
we do what we
do.
And I, I really hopethat as all these folks
that
we see
up in
here that, you know, Ican't wait to the day
that you take the mic fromme and talk about how you've
(35:02):
been
able to do so
many wonderful things.
in your own community.
Okay.
Alright.
Next
slide, please.
please.
So I can't stop, I gotta build on what Dr.
Perry
said,
but why
participate in
research, right?
Contribute to our
understanding,
um, and treating dementia in the black
community.
right?
If we, If
we don't have data, peopletreat it as though it doesn't
(35:25):
exist.
You gotta have empirical evidence.
To say this is what's going on
in my community and this is
the help that we need.
This is where we need to focus
our attention and ourmoney to address that
issue.
So we need the
data and we don't have the
data unless you're
involved with
studies.
Right?
Right.
And for future generations, we just talked
(35:47):
about that.
Building a foundation forbetter healthcare outcomes for
the future black generation.
Right.
Again, we need to address this
ethical
issue, right?
empower the community and
support
the, um, scientific
advancement.
People can't come into your communityany longer and say, Hey, we want to do
this
to your
people.
(36:07):
No,
no, no, no.
We
got
too
much
education, too much information to
know
better
now.
Right?
To say,
unless this study does this.
we are not backing it in our
communities.
right?
We have the knowledge.
We understand that we can worktogether to make sure that we
have ethical progress, right?
And then enhancing publichealth, Inform public
(36:28):
policies and improve health
communities.
Right.
Just like I said before
when I
was talking about the kids from my highschool, we need to help them get into
those rooms.
We need
to help them become policy makers.
We
need to help them from the community,take that knowledge and make demands
to bring stuff back
to
That's right.
Right.
So that's what
we do.
Alright, next slide please.
(36:49):
please.
And then
finally,
um, leaving a
legacy of
caregiving.
My dad.
There.
I, I wear his,
um,
his,
dog
tags.
You know, he was aMarine, very proud Marine.
My dad was just an amazing
man,
right?
And he,
um,
had dementia was very rare.
(37:09):
Um, but he had
dementia for 14
years.
right?
The, the research suggests that a person,uh, average will after diagnosis live
about
seven years.
He lived 14
years,
right.
Dad, my dad's my
best
friend Absolutely, and I was very
fortunate
for the last
three years of his life.
For one, working at George WashingtonUniversity allowed me to go home, working
(37:33):
remotely
to take care of my mom for a year, andthen take care of my dad for two years
together.
She had chronic
kidney
disease
and she passed from that.
Then my dad
passed from Alzheimer's,
but
the hardest thing
in the
world to
do in
a way
was, you know, kind of go
on that journey with him.
I don't have kids.
I've never been married, so Idon't know what it's like to
raise children.
Right.
(37:53):
But I do know
what
it's
like
to honor my dad and mymother and my father.
Right.
and to, you know, I saw mydad go through so many of
the
phases
of um, dementia
Alzheimer's, right?
To the point where, you know, he didn't
remember, he
didn't he didn't remember myname, but he knew I belonged in
his life.
He was really
(38:14):
important to him,
Right.
So we would, we would go onone of our biggest rituals
that
we would do,
um,
um,
weekend or every
other
weekend, we'd take a
Costco run
and we'd get a hot dog, right?
Love the big old hot
dog.
And then he'd get, uh, that sundae,the ice cream, but now Sunday with the
chocolate
in there.
And we would just sit down thereand sometimes I talk to him,
I say, dad, you're not saying
(38:35):
nothing to
me.
He said,
because I'm eating
hot.
Have a great old time.
Right.
Um,
but
I do a
research
project now that I was fundedthe first and only study of
this kind in order tolook at black men who
are
caregivers
of a person, a loved one
with dementia, right?
An informal caregiver.
(38:55):
And so what we did on that, we wanted
to
understand the
role of neurocognitive and physiological
stress
on
these
men's health outcomes,
And, and so we're, we're now working.
That was very much a
community project.
We're working with the
community
now to actually do the writeups in
that.
But I can share
with
you one of the most important
things that I learned and that we did, andthat study is both, we did focus groups.
(39:19):
is um, mixed
method multi method kind of study.
We did
everything.
From,
From,
um, collecting saliva from
men,
We did surveys for health profiles.
Uh, we did focus groups
that
understand
the
contextualization of their lives.
We understood there's sleep, health, all
kinds of
different
things, right?
So now we're writing thatup with the community
organizations that we usuallydo faith-based initiative.
(39:41):
But there was two things
that was
really
important
that, and now I'm gonna leave
with
you
and then
we can kind of
close this up,
but
when I was at, um, on the
streets in Washington,
DC.
at the Mount of a subway station.
Um,
and I, and I was telling,trying to describe
this project to a black man, probably at
the
time.
was in his 70
years old.
(40:02):
And he said, hold up, hold
up, hold up.
He said, you want to know what's
stressful?
Being a black
man in America is stressful,
So that
very thing should
form.
all
of the approaches that we have to
try to understand black men's
(40:23):
health.
Right?
That's really
important.
And then the last
thing that
I, that we really found outbecause we had to do some saliva
selection on.
Collection with
these men.
And I had to find a way,'cause one of the things
that kept coming up was, Hey,
I'm not so
sure I want you to
take
some DNA
from me because I needto make sure that the
(40:44):
police can't
get ahold of
this and start tracking.
But
that's a very,
that's real
Real, right?
So that's a real deal.
You'll never know
that unless you're out
into
the
community
again.
All of that
really
shapes how we need to thinkabout what it means to be a black
a black man,
right?
So, um, I just want to say thankyou again for allowing me to be
(41:05):
here.
This is my contact information
as
you can see, and if I can be of any other
resource to you ever, please let me know.
But I'm really excited about, again, howthis group is going to help that group.
Alright?
So thank you.
Dr. Robert W.
Turner second is an associate professorin the Department of Population Health
Sciences and has an
appointment in the DukeAging Center at Duke
University.
He earned his PhD in medical andSociology at the Graduate Center
City, university of New York.
Robert
is also faculty
to
collaborated at the more
PTSD and TBI neuro G Lab
Duke University.
(00:21):
After attending
James
Moore Addison University on anathletic scholarship, he played
professional football in the
U-S-L-U-S-F-L-C-F-L
and NFL.
Okay.
He's the opera, Not for
long the cr.
The Life and Career of the
NFL athlete.
Oxford Press and uh, get the
content contributed
the LeBron James produce eachfield documentary Film Student
athlete.
Dr. Turner is a primary investigator.
(00:43):
For the 6.3 million, uh, N-I-M-D-Sfunded RO one grant, the contribution
of repetitive impacts and socialdetri determinants of health to
Alzheimer's disease and related to
dementia
in older black of those black men.
Additionally, he is a principalinvestigator for the NIA funded Black
Men's Dementia Carryover Study co-PIand uh, for R 13 grant entitled Black
(01:08):
Brain Reserve
Resilience in Alzheimer'sDisease Life Course,
protectives And oversees Men'sBrain Health Initiative, which
brings men's, the men's Brainhealth directory, December, 2023.
And I actually just met himfirst time this weekend.
He has been, you know, just a greatresource and person to talk to
so feel very
honored to be able to introduce
them.
so thank you.
(01:29):
Welcome up.
All right.
All.
Hello everybody.
Hello.
Hello.
Give him another hand.
Right?
We made
You made one mistake,
You said this is the last thing I
have to
do today.
Well, you don't know
(01:49):
that because the still in the room.
You never know what's gonna happen.
Um,
Um,
Um, did my slides.
You have Yes, sir. Okay.
We'll take Our first thing I wanna
do
is, is first of all verymuch, thank you for having
me here.
And I, really
sincerely mean that.
Thank you so very much.
And the second thing wedo before my slides come
up, Anyone in
the room
(02:10):
who is 25 and younger, please stand up.
up.
Please
Please
stand up 25
8. Let's see.
The reason I have you stand up
is because I want you to know
that you
that you matter
to me,
(02:30):
okay?
You really do matter
to
me.
You've heard a lot aboutwhat we're talking about
here.
I want you to know thateverything that we're
saying.
It's important
because
we need you
to carry
on this work.
Amen.
So we want
We want you to understand
you
it to be really special.
make a difference in your community.
(02:50):
Okay.
Thank you very much.
That's right.
Alright.
Alright.
Oh,
I guess
I
guess you, you can'tmake them bigger, huh?
So that's all right.
That's all right.
We can, we can workwith it that way we can
work with
it that way.
I'm gonna start off.
And just say
that there,
I'm, I changed this title.
It, what we're making it today is My
(03:12):
Journey from football, from thefootball field to the ivory tower
to caregiver.
Right.
And
hopefully you'll understand.
When we go through this, I won't taketoo long, but I, I just wanted to share a
little bit about myself and hopefully thisis the reason that Priscilla had me come
here,
Right.
And, and, and the workthat, you know, I'm doing
(03:34):
it is hopefully we canreally work together
and do it
here.
So can we go to the, tothe next slide please.
But before I start off,
I
really
want to say, you know, wegotta put it in context.
Why do black men
matter?
Why does
black men's health matterand our brain health matters?
And, and I'm gonna share these slides
(03:54):
with you and you'll beable to see this, but
some of the things I
want
you
to
see that's really important right
up front.
This slide
is, is about four orfive, well, it's about 10
years old now.
Since CO it has
changed.
You
see up there
where it
says 70.7 years
of black men's life
expectancy
(04:15):
Be since
COVID.
That number has reduced now to 67.7
years.
So if
So if you are a black man,
black men in your, your lives, onaverage, what we're saying, we're
only expecting them to live nowadays.
60 point, um, 6, 7, 7.
(04:36):
That's not good,
right?
We
need
you, we need
to do,
and what are
the
causes
of
these
things?
You know, we're more likely
to
die
from heart disease, more likely
to die from stroke,
right?
28%, almost 30% of usdon't have insurance, um,
which is compared to
white
men.
(04:56):
It's
a great deal,
even if you mix everybodytogether Overall.
We're still
higher
uninsured,
right?
Where
Where we have lots
of
different
issues that
we're talking about thataffect us as black men.
Next slide
please.
Just
Just
further evidence.
I
do work
(05:17):
in the
Alzheimer's space, right?
But the thing thatpeople want to talk about
here, that's really, really important.
One
about, you know, 21 millionblack men in US have worse health
outcomes than other racial groups.
So that
So
that
means we are very
vulnerable
health
wise, right?
(05:38):
We've got
to, as a community, work
together to increase our
health.
Right?
And how
do we do that?
One of the things we're
gonna talk about Brain Health today,
obviously talk about the Alzheimer's.
We know that Alzheimer's dementia isreally important to our community.
We have a
very high
almost double that of white Americans.
Right?
But one of the things we
(05:59):
see here
that
I
just want to point
out,
says, black Americans
account for
only
5%
of clinical
trial participation
in the US for Alzheimer's
and dementia.
right?
5%.
Think
Think
about
this for a second
of
that 5%,
because
we,
we,
ended research,
(06:20):
We always,
we need evidence.
need evidence.
Data
the most important thing.
The money
follows
data,
right?
Money
to your communicate,
to your
communities
through
research.
It's
data.
But if we don't show up
the data,
you don't get the money,
Right?
but
that, but here's what'sthe kicker about that 5%,
(06:42):
it
it probably
shake, it won't, um,
really
surprise
lots
surprise
lots of people here.
But of that
5%,
75%.
are
are
women.
Yeah.
True.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which means
only 25% of men, that's 25%
(07:03):
of the 5%
show
up in
research.
In other words,
we're not there.
Right.
Right.
And
what I did once,
I'm from
Piscataway, New Jersey, I'm gonnashare that story in a little bit.
Grew up in a place calledRutger, um, Piscataway,
which is really close to Rutgers.
We took high
school
kids
From my high school, we brought'em down to University of
(07:25):
Maryland for them to have a, youknow, kind of a career development
day.
And it was at the School of Public Health.
Dr.
Steven Johnson was there andhe said to these men, it was,
uh, many of 'em were, they're
all, um, young people of color.
And he said, do yourealize that right down
street from where we are is
the National
Institute of
Health?
(07:45):
And that's where they
make decisions the
decisions
for everybody
in this country.
Those
decisions are made right there.
But
young
young men,
people who
look
like
you,
we're
not in those rooms.
Right.
Right.
We're really
not in those rooms
we haven't trained 'em.
We
haven't put
in a
position to have
(08:05):
those
kinds of jobs.
Right.
One of
the
things
important, to go back
to this
data, right?
So
that's, I just want to encourage, that'swhy it's so important for us to show
up who's
in the room
and who isn't in the room matters.
Okay,
so
I,
I,
I, just want
to
really
pay
attention to those numbersbecause it's really
important.
Next slide.
(08:27):
Alright,
Alright, so now we're going to
about my
top.
Okay.
Alright.
this is a
quick
little
bit about
what you've
heard in
my
bio, but I'm a
former professional football athlete, Uh,
have a
degree
PhD
in medical,
uh, sociology have advanced
training in neurocognitiveaging and dementia.
Principal
investigator
a couple of different research
(08:48):
projects.
Right.
Next
slide
please.
Alright,
Alright, so
people
ask me all the time,
how did
you
go
from
being a professional
athlete to a
doctor?
Well, in many
instances
I'm like
a lot of
men
this room,
a lot
of men in
in
in
in, Muskegon.
(09:08):
and in Detroit.
I'm from,
originally born in NorthNew Jersey, my grandparents.
Part of the
Great
migration
moved from North Carolina,
wanted to
wanted to get away
the deep south,
right?
And all the oppression
that
was happening there in 1920.
They were early part of earlyfirst wave with the uh, great
migration.
(09:28):
And my
grandmother
had an uncle who's that had name happenedto be, Robert, was living in New York City
around
that
time.
And
he said, Hey, come
Ruth,
you
and Major, come on up.
And we'll help you get
start a better life up in New York
City.
So they got
on the train
and
they,
like everybody
else, they're like,
it's time
(09:49):
to get
outta
south.
So
So funny
happened along the way,
you
know,
you
anybody knows about the train
situation.
Up in, in,
uh,
Northeast, there's
a lot of
train stations.
called, uh,
Pennsylvania train station,
right?
So we, when you go to NewYork, to the Penn station,
but the conductor on, on thetrain station at that day said.
(10:13):
you're
at
Newark
Penn Station.
So my
grandparents got
off
it was
New York
from
Penn
Station.
Right.
Right.
But
back in
day, literally, you know, we had networks
of black folks in every city along
the way going
up north.
So they had
that was there
that was.
Part
of where they're from inTillery, North Carolina.
(10:34):
My
grandfather got
job that
day.
Right.
A ball bearing factory for the automobileindustry in Harrison, New Jersey.
So that's where
my family,
you know, set up shop and raised a whole.
My grandmother had nine children the whole
bit.
so
I am
Robert Turner.
My
dad's Robert Turner.
I was the youngest of
(10:55):
his kids, right?
And so
are going well.
Then you all
remember the turbulent.
1960s, the
riots
the sixties,
68, 9 6 7, where
had ours in Newark,
Right?
Police
brutality, those kinds of things.
My dad
was very,
very strong about trying to stay into
(11:15):
city because we had basically
a,
a strong
social
network.
I'm sure
you all remember your young growing up,
you know, in our block.
It was,
was every
uncle, every aunt, everycousin, everywhere, they
gran.
Nobody
where you were.
'cause you were
either at your
house or your granny's house,
or
your, your,
cousin's house,
you ate dinner at every place else.
(11:36):
Never needed a
a babysitter
everybody was right there,
Right.
But
unfortunately, because of,
you know,
the de-industrialization, allthese great jobs were in the city.
As well as the
riots, the fabric of thosecommunities started to tear apart.
We heard yesterday
about the
crack
cocaine and all of
those other things.
My dad who was a Marine,
(11:56):
was fortunate enough
and said, Hey,
listen.
He
fought that good fight
and
said,
You know, my
kids are not a social experiment
We gotta get 'em outta this
environment.
So they moved
us
over to
a
place called Pisca,
New Jersey, which
right at the
foot part of Rutgers
half is of my town there,and the other half,
um, in New
Brunswick.
And
so
that's where
I moved out to there.
(12:18):
And at
that point
I,
know, I started
playing
football in all kinds of sports.
And for the longest time I thought
I really was
following the sports because I had
this love
sports.
And I did, but I realized
that sports
chose me,
and I'll share that in aminute, but one of the most
important things that
parents
did at that time,
is
against, you've all heard
(12:39):
story one
way or
another,
but I
look back
at all the males in my life, mycousins, right, that were all around
same age.
We all
grew up at the same time,
and
of
all of us,
only two of us
made it out
of the eighties
without
either
going to
prison, without, um,
you
know,
being addicted to drugs and those
(13:00):
kinds
things.
And unfortunately, I have one cousin
that was, um,
you
know,
you know, 63 years old just
year.
We were born a
month
apart
and
found them
dead in a hotel, uh, fentanyl,
right?
So, you
know, again, so much of what
going on through all those days, muchlike today, really attacked black men.
I'm
(13:21):
I
very fortunate.
I
fell in love with sports and I started
sports
all along,
right?
But I didn't realize until I, I,
went
got
a PhD
and
I was studying this stuff, and
realized that one of the reasons that I
chose
sports, because in my background
we went
from an all black
community
to a
community
(13:41):
was
about
70% white.
And then we were also in the black
We were living in
red lined areas, so we alllived in the same place.
You couldn't go on the other sides
of town 'cause you weren't get all kinds
of trouble.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
But
the one place, I
remember the first
time that I ever,
ever knew anything about racism at all.
'cause
used to
think
that the world was
black,
(14:01):
to be quite honest
with
you.
Growing up in Newark, all I ever
was black faces.
The only
time I ever saw white people
on
television.
And sometimes in the church,
I went to
Episcopalian church
and it was mixed.
Other than that, my whole networkwas all, all black people.
Then I moved out to a
place and it was all white folks,
so I
remember at like 10 years old, I went
to try to play
baseball.
(14:21):
And I
didn't know how to play baseballvery well, but it was obvious
to me as a young child, I was abetter athlete than everybody else
was in there.
right?
But I was the only black
kid that
in, it was me, me and oneof the two other people,
and outta
everybody.
didn't get chosen.
14.
I
couldn't understand.
I
It didn't make sense to me.
How did I not get chosen?
I didn't even know that itwas a black and white thing,
(14:41):
but
my dad
said That's okay.
he
So he
his own
baseball team
right?
And we beat everybody,
Floyd
They
the
same thing in football,
beat everybody.
Then
of course
the next year
said, Hey, we
would like to
integrate the teams.
He was like, no,
no, we're
we're not doing that.
Right.
But also the other thing is I realizedwhen I, when I went to, was in school,
(15:04):
myself and
many
of the other people of young black kids ofcolor, they put us in remedial programs.
Right.
They
take us, everybody go to lunch,and then they shuffle us off
into
a little closet.
And I said, I don't knowwhat's going on, but
I know I
belong in here.
Yes.
But that was all the messagesthat they were telling
me,
That's all I internalized.
And
I realized that playing sports,that was the one place they
(15:27):
couldn't deny it.
I better
everybody
else, right?
So that,
that's where
I, I learned how to be me.
I learned that I couldwalk around proud and tall
because
nobody
could stop me from that.
Right.
So that's
I wound up
really being driven to
go to
college in the first
place because I thought, Hey, I really
(15:48):
want
play in the NFL.
And I
knew that the only way to get
to the NFL
was you had to go through
school,
Right.
So I said, and, and Iwas first generation,
you know, college
and my
town come from blue collar town.
My
was
an electrician,
marine,
that
of stuff.
He could help me get into the union, buthe couldn't help me get into college.
Right.
I didn't know.
(16:08):
I, I literally, I
joked.
people,
is crazy,
but, and
went to
apply for graduate
school.
I
didn't know
that you had
to.
Go
through an
application process.
I just called the college and I
was like, I want to go.
Right.
And
were like, you know, was in the
application
process.
Really.
Actually it was crazy
'cause I, I
I called NYU
(16:29):
at the
time and
said,
Hey, I'd like you to send
me,
You know, how do
get into
the school?
They
said, well, we'll send youan application package.
And they
said, but you're not gonna get
in.
And
I
And
said,
you know, and that brought up
of these old feelingsthat I wasn't good enough
academically.
And I said,
what do you
mean
I'm
getting in?
You don't
even know me.
I was in,
like, I was like,
this doesn't make sense.
(16:50):
Here we go again.
And
they
said, well,
we
we get more
applications than
any other program.
In
sociology, we get about 400
and we only keep
about six to eight people a year.
And
I said,
I guess I ain't going there.
Right?
But I,
but the
thing is, I didn't even know that you
had.
to fill
out an application.
I didn't know how tofill out an application.
(17:10):
And you say, well, what
does that
mean?
Well,
I went to
college
on a
football
scholarship,
They
out the application for me
and
they just, I just went on
school.
So
I didn't know anything about
any
that
stuff.
I
just, you know,
went on and did all that.
Right.
But again, when
I started thinking about my
connection, my social life,
(17:32):
I
realized at
that point, you know, where some totalof our previous experiences and people
us, I realized
That
again, why sports was so
important
to me and why I had, you know, goneon the path that I had gone on.
And
crazy part
is I had no
idea,
um, that I would
ever become a
doctor.
None whatsoever.
I
I remember the
day that I
graduated
(17:52):
From
college
my, my dad
and my
mom and my grandmother
there.
Everybody, the whole family was there.
And,
and the coach
had recruited me was
there.
and my dad,
know, was
beaming.
His baby boy was, you know, Igraduated and he said to the
coach, he said, my son now
do
anything that he
wants
to do.
dance.
(18:12):
And
I thought, what isn't
he crazy?
What
is
talking
about?
I don't, didn't make sense
to me,
right?
I'm
just going to go play football.
That's what I'm gonna going
up doing.
And fortunately, I
was able
to for the
next four
years
five years to go.
And you see, I played
the,
you know, James MadisonUniversity and I went to,
um,
in the USFL
(18:33):
in
Canadian
Football League, and playedvery briefly in the San
Francisco 49 ERs.
So
you much.
That's right, Peter.
Thank you.
Um, and, but I,
didn't, the
things that I didn't know at that
time,
right?
and I actually,
you've see in the middle I wrote a
book
which
was,
um, is called Not forLong, the Life of the
(18:54):
Career of NFL Athletes.
And that whole book
my dissertation.
and that is around the
difficulty that so many athletes
have in their transition
to
life after football.
And I wanted to
understand why that was,
because
it was very painful
me
because in my mind
I grew up
thinking I'm gonna make the NFL Hall
(19:14):
fame.
I'm
gonna be
like
OJ
Simpson, the old OJ Simpson
who
ran
through the, you know, the, theairports her had a contract.
a big old, everythingelse like that, right?
But
know,
for me,
my career
ended
disappointment.
'cause you know, I, I was,
I was
we
called the book.
I I called, you know, as
(19:35):
a journeyman, I, I was,I was, if there's 53 guys
the team, I was
the 53rd guy
that
they
picked to stay
on the
team, right.
And I
I remember at one
point, you know, I was very, you
know,
at
the
time,
one
of my brothers was, um, was
incarcerated
and I went to go visit
him
that, you
know,
right shortly after
I got
cut.
And he said
to
me, and
I and
I
feeling
really bad, and
(19:56):
he said,
why are you feeling bad?
I
said, well, 'cause I never really livedup to what I, what I, what I thought.
And he goes,
Hey man,
people
wouldn't kill to be inthe NFL and you made it.
He said, don't matter,
you were there.
And that really
helped
me, you know, with my,
my,
um, perspective of
everything.
The other
I
want to share real
quick
(20:17):
in that story
about
grandmother, which
is very important,
it's important
to young
too to hear
this,
but
my grandmother.
unlike
so
many people that I grew up with,
in that
time in
the sixties
and seventies and
eighties, right when in school,
up north,
everybody that day school was done.
You were going down south.
(20:37):
They put you on a
bus you're going to see
your grandparents.
Everybody went down south
and I had family down south as well, but
wasn't going down south.
My grandmother was like, ain't nothing
good down
south.
Ain't
We ain't
going down south.
Right.
Oddly enough,
I
went
school down in Virginiaand my grandmother said
she would never go back
to
south.
She only
went two
times.
(20:57):
Once she made my dad drive her
down
see her brother's funeral,
my dad and my
grandpa.
My
uncle, my grandfather,they were supposed to
the weekend.
My,
my
grandmother,
she got so
uncomfortable there
on their way
down from Newark, they stopped
in,
uh, Washington,
DC
for, for breakfast.
Drove
down to North Carolina,
went to the
(21:17):
funeral and
we ain't staying.
And they made my dad
drive all the way
back another nine hours for one.
My grandfather was, unfortunately,
was
scared of
white books, right?
Wasn't happening.
So
the only other time mygrandmother came down
to,
Um, the
south is when I graduated from college
because
at nine children, none of her childrenwent to college and I was the grandchild,
(21:41):
the first one to ever graduate, andmy grandmother was about five foot
four,
and
I learned later
that between my grandmother andmy grandfather, both of 'em,
they didn't have up to about
a seventh grade
education.
But my
grandmother,
she,
she put
in my
hand a crisp.
Brand
new $100
bill
didn't have
have a
(22:01):
lot of
money.
mean,
Literally, it's a
story she cleaned other people'shomes and all other stuff
and she
said to me,
she
said, I've been waiting my
whole
life for this
day
for
one of my
children or my grandchildrento graduate from college
right now.
Why is that important?
'cause
didn't realize
(22:22):
that
until
told me that.
But I also, at that moment,
what that meant to me
was.
education is so important to my family's
legacy, right?
And so
I
said, I don't know when.
I don't
know
why.
I don't
how, but I
know that I'm going to
go
and go
to
college, continue
to go
to college after
this, right?
(22:42):
Because I, I just felt that I needed
to really
what was
important to my grandmother.
So
years later,
remember, I only
went
to college to play football,
right?
But years later
was like, okay, I'm ready to go.
And get
a master's degree.
'cause I, I thought
that
was the, the
best
thing to do.
And I went
and
started studying and
I learned about sociology.
(23:02):
And The reason I started
studying sociology is a good friend
that
said, um, you're
always
talking about
race.
You need to go study that
in school.
And I said, you can do that.
And she said, yes.
It's called sociology.
I never even
of the word sociology,
but I said, oh, I'm gonna be a
sociologist.
get degree.
So
I went to,
Bon Noble, got a little book and I readabout it, went online and realized that
(23:23):
you can't do anything
a
master's degree
in sociology.
So at that
moment,
and
the infinite wisdom in my life, Isaid, well, I'm gonna just get a PhD.
Right?
And that
the decision.
I didn't know that it was gonnatake a whole bunch of time
in
my life
that,
but
I did.
Right.
so
wind
that's what wound up
happening.
And
so next slide
please.
(23:44):
This
is how I started my journeyat 40 years old to go
to the ivory
tower.
That
was, again,
not something that I wasreally planning on doing.
I only went to graduate school because I
re,
I
was trying to live the
legacy of
my grand,
and I was planning to just go get
a master's
degree.
(24:04):
'cause that's all I knew.
I didn't even know
what
a PhD
was.
Right.
But I said, okay, I get a
master's degree.
But then I realized thatif I'm gonna get it, it
has
to
be something that I can do something
with.
So I just made the decision
to.
Do
that.
and I went on this
journey
to go
through
and
started the school and I,
and really I had
no
in intention whatsoever moving beyond
(24:26):
just getting the
degree
because I was working
full-time.
In fact, the decisionthat I chose to go to
City University of New York,
um,
was because I said, I'm not
leaving New York City.
I want.
I like being in
the city.
I like being
up in the northeast.
This
is where I want to be.
I'm all 45
minutes away
from my
parents, so I'll work and go to
(24:46):
school.
and that's what I did.
It took me eight years to do
it.
Right.
But that was what I did.
And I remember telling one of my,um, professors, I said, you know.
I'm not planning on goingany further with this degree.
I'm gonna go back into the workforce.
I said for one,
I'm not leaving
New York City to go work in Iowa.
Right.
For $65,000.
(25:06):
No disrespect to Iowa or anyplace like that, but I'm a
city
boy.
Right?
And he said
something to me that again.
these things change your life.
He said, Hey, listen,
you are doing something.
You are
studying something
that's so different
Okay.
That
people will pay you a
lot
of money to pursue this line of work.
(25:27):
And I was like, okay, tell me.
And, and so he taught me
about
this whole
enterprise
how to how to do
research,
right?
How to be a, a pi,
right.
Principal investigator.
How to do all these things becauseI really wanted to understand
again.
with my research, wind uptaking me to asking these
questions.
Is particularly about black men.
(25:49):
About men in altogether, but about blackmen because the NFL is 70% black, right?
College, if you look at the majorcollege football programs, right?
Even though it's a little bit morediverse, but if you look at the major
programs, they look who's on the field.
They're all
black
too,
right?
And so I said, okay, I've startedto realize that health was a
big
issue.
(26:09):
And at the time that I had done my book
and I was doing my dissertation.
was also,
you'll remember
in this
area a guy named Dave Doon.
Right.
Played for the ChicagoBears, went to Notre Dame.
African American man was very successful
in everything, but he, he committed
suicide because he was having problems.
And later found out they
had CTE had donated his
brain.
Right.
(26:30):
And there was another guy in my
study who had
committed
suicide and there was a coupleof other people that had
talked to me about depression.
And I
thought, wow, here's an issue.
issue
That obviously is really important.
It's serious, and I'm stilllooking at all these other
black men that look like methat were having these kinds
of issues
and it was impacting them as they age.
(26:51):
So I said, well, I happen to bea black man and I know a lot of
black men and I
see that this is very important,so I need to study this.
I also am a
former football player and I know
the risks
and the dangers that we all hear about
CTE, and I want tounderstand, so how could I
impart.
And everything that I did withmy thinking was how can I make
(27:11):
a
contribution that's
going to help members of my community?
My community?
in this
instance
was a community of former football
players.
My community of the blackcommunity of which I'm part
of, and the
black men, which I
think are
very much understood and wedon't know much about them.
And we look at
those
numbers
up there and we see that we haveall of these kinds of health
concerns.
(27:32):
So how can I take the training that I
have in order to help make adifference in the lives of Those
people
who, who,
I
care
about?
And so that's how I wound up getting
into the ivory tower.
And again,
God has truly blessed me inso many different ways because
of the University of Michigan.
I mentioned last nighthow y'all have invested
(27:54):
for them
to be able to identifypeople like me and to
mentor.
Dr. Perry, Dr. Uh, James Jackson.
So many
people there have really
invested over the last
10
years
poured in me the kind of training to allowme to be able to do this kind of work.
And the crazy part is when we thinkabout this, when we, I go to national
(28:16):
conferences and I do so many ofthese things, and we talk about,
well, how many other black menare there that are doing this kind
of work?
And we got
about that
man.
Uh, right, and, and, and in allseriousness around the country, it's about
that many who actually are studying this
kind of
thing
On a side note, which was
(28:37):
even shocking to me when I was at George
Washington University, I was recruitedby Duke to be able to kind of come down
and work for them on faculty in the
hospital
there.
And I started looking and I lookedat the numbers on a national
level
of the number of black men.
Who were associate professors at a medical
(29:00):
school in the health sciences.
right?
And it was like three.
Yeah,
I was like one
of
three.
And I'm going to myself, thiscan't be right, this can't be good.
This
doesn't
help
us at all.
So I have to be part of a
solution
to help get that people involved with that
as
well.
So can we go to
the next slide
please?
(29:20):
Alright, I'm not gonna dwell onthis, but I, but what's important,
especially for the young folks
in here, right, is you'llsee this 1, 2, 3, 4,
5,
6 different things
that you'll see up there where
says that, um,
the,
Michigan Center for Urban African American
Aging Research.
That was part of
the challenge that, you
know, the, the, um, mentoring that I had.
But after.
(29:42):
Spending eight years pursuingthe Master's in the PhD
program, I spent another eight
years
really
doing fellowship research to gettraining because I didn't have any
training in gerontology and I didn'thave any training in doing, um, brain
health
research in cognitive neuroscience.
So I needed additional training inorder to be able to answer the questions
(30:02):
that nobody else was even asking.
So that's kind of my journey
that
took
me through
here.
Next slide, please.
So I, I just want to take a real side
step for a second and tellyou as part of the work that
I do, we heard Brother
Cooley say,
um, a little bit earlier, I runthe Black Man's Brain Health Study,
right?
It's the first study of thiskind ever to be funded by
(30:24):
the, the
National Institute of um,
health helped that we are
looking, we're recruiting 200 black men.
100 who have
formerly played,
uh, football on any
level.
High school, college,
junior,
junior, high school, college,all the way up to the
pros.
And then we're matching their 100
men there, black
men 50 and over, And another group
(30:45):
of black men who've never
played football.
And we're trying to
'understand, cause we know all of the research
suggest.
Right.
We've probably seen thiseven in the, in in the
news.
that they do race
norming
or they used to do
race norming in the NFL when theylooked at cognitive, um, functioning
and your cognitiveperformance for black men,
and
they compared it
to white
men.
(31:05):
And we are always lower, right?
And we know that it's not
biologic.
Right.
But they tried to say there'ssomething going on there that we need
to
account to adjust for.
So my study
is
trying
to
understand,
we know
there
are differences.
We know that they're not
biological
differences that create
this.
what
accounts for
these differences in our,you know, later life,
normal cognitive function.
(31:26):
Right?
So that's what I think.
And then the
second thing we do, and Dr. Perry,again has been very instrumental in
this, but I've been, I've been fortunateenough to receive funding from.
Um, the Alzheimer's Associationin partnership with the NFL Alumni
Association,
Um, and several other organizations wedo, I have the Black Men's Brain Health
Initiative, and with that initiative,we have a conference that we put on
(31:49):
every
year.
Now I realize maybe I shouldn'thave put Ohio State Buckeye up here,
but
you all
probably know this guy
Maurice tells an incrediblestory, incredible.
He was a
speaker there and he talksabout, um, you know, how he was
incarcerated and how his mind
is in one place.
What he had to go through to relieve
(32:10):
stress and free his mind andall of those other things that
had led to his incarceration.
But the, one of the things that was great
about
his story, if y'all know it, please read
about it.
And he's got a book out.
But
he was in,
he was
committed to
four years, uh, in prison.
And he was, he was at a max
facility because he had, um, beenput in prison for attempted murder.
(32:31):
And then he went through this, hewent through a whole kind of process.
To reform
himself.
And two years in, he was a model
citizen in prison.
And the judge said,okay, well we are ready
to take you to this
max prison, to a minimum
prison.
And he said, your Honor, please
don't
do
that.
(32:51):
He said, because I founda process here that works
for me that is transforming
my
life.
And if it's not broken,
please, let's
not try to fix it.
Let
me do my time
time here.
Right, and he's done.
I mean, this guy, believe
it
or
not, he went from nothing and he owns
25 medical
facilities.
He's a hill community, very wealthy guy.
(33:12):
He's an amazing young brother.
Um, and so he was willing to commit
his time.
to come to our conference to helpmake a difference amongst all football
players and all black men setting an
example of what's going on.
So that's kind of the level
of
the type of
work that we do through the conference.
Next slide, please.
The other thing that's so important,and that's why I had the, the younger
(33:35):
folks here to stand up and talk.
I mean, she raise their handbecause we have an emerging
scholars
program.
Because what we've alsofelt, and we've heard
from the system as a doctor
here.
um, we don't have enough
people
of
color who are in themedical professions, right?
We just don't
have enough clinicians.
Not at all.
But we
also
know
that there are two factors thatare the biggest influences on where
(33:59):
people practice.
clinicians,
practice
doctors, the first of which is where they
went to medical school.
Right.
Go to school and
you stay
in
that
particular area.
The second of which is where you
come
from,
Right, because we, we just heard
earlier, she said that I'mcommitted to going back into
my community and practicing
there.
(34:20):
Right.
So we have a, we have a,
program
that
wants to help young people like Jasonand others on that pathway, whether
they're a researcher or a clinician.
And hopefully in this case,maybe he'll be both, right?
Because we know that they care about the
communities that
they came
from
and they want to
contribute back.
And so
we
need
to be,
(34:40):
and this is where I'm really committed,and this is why I'm here, is because
we
need to be.
The
conduit
to help
people
To be able to go back
and contribute to their own
communities.
Right.
That that's why
we do what we
do.
And I, I really hopethat as all these folks
that
we see
up in
here that, you know, Ican't wait to the day
that you take the mic fromme and talk about how you've
(35:02):
been
able to do so
many wonderful things.
in your own community.
Okay.
Alright.
Next
slide, please.
please.
So I can't stop, I gotta build on what Dr.
Perry
said,
but why
participate in
research, right?
Contribute to our
understanding,
um, and treating dementia in the black
community.
right?
If we, If
we don't have data, peopletreat it as though it doesn't
(35:25):
exist.
You gotta have empirical evidence.
To say this is what's going on
in my community and this is
the help that we need.
This is where we need to focus
our attention and ourmoney to address that
issue.
So we need the
data and we don't have the
data unless you're
involved with
studies.
Right?
Right.
And for future generations, we just talked
(35:47):
about that.
Building a foundation forbetter healthcare outcomes for
the future black generation.
Right.
Again, we need to address this
ethical
issue, right?
empower the community and
support
the, um, scientific
advancement.
People can't come into your communityany longer and say, Hey, we want to do
this
to your
people.
(36:07):
No,
no, no, no.
We
got
too
much
education, too much information to
know
better
now.
Right?
To say,
unless this study does this.
we are not backing it in our
communities.
right?
We have the knowledge.
We understand that we can worktogether to make sure that we
have ethical progress, right?
And then enhancing publichealth, Inform public
(36:28):
policies and improve health
communities.
Right.
Just like I said before
when I
was talking about the kids from my highschool, we need to help them get into
those rooms.
We need
to help them become policy makers.
We
need to help them from the community,take that knowledge and make demands
to bring stuff back
to
That's right.
Right.
So that's what
we do.
Alright, next slide please.
(36:49):
please.
And then
finally,
um, leaving a
legacy of
caregiving.
My dad.
There.
I, I wear his,
um,
his,
dog
tags.
You know, he was aMarine, very proud Marine.
My dad was just an amazing
man,
right?
And he,
um,
had dementia was very rare.
(37:09):
Um, but he had
dementia for 14
years.
right?
The, the research suggests that a person,uh, average will after diagnosis live
about
seven years.
He lived 14
years,
right.
Dad, my dad's my
best
friend Absolutely, and I was very
fortunate
for the last
three years of his life.
For one, working at George WashingtonUniversity allowed me to go home, working
(37:33):
remotely
to take care of my mom for a year, andthen take care of my dad for two years
together.
She had chronic
kidney
disease
and she passed from that.
Then my dad
passed from Alzheimer's,
but
the hardest thing
in the
world to
do in
a way
was, you know, kind of go
on that journey with him.
I don't have kids.
I've never been married, so Idon't know what it's like to
raise children.
Right.
(37:53):
But I do know
what
it's
like
to honor my dad and mymother and my father.
Right.
and to, you know, I saw mydad go through so many of
the
phases
of um, dementia
Alzheimer's, right?
To the point where, you know, he didn't
remember, he
didn't he didn't remember myname, but he knew I belonged in
his life.
He was really
(38:14):
important to him,
Right.
So we would, we would go onone of our biggest rituals
that
we would do,
um,
um,
weekend or every
other
weekend, we'd take a
Costco run
and we'd get a hot dog, right?
Love the big old hot
dog.
And then he'd get, uh, that sundae,the ice cream, but now Sunday with the
chocolate
in there.
And we would just sit down thereand sometimes I talk to him,
I say, dad, you're not saying
(38:35):
nothing to
me.
He said,
because I'm eating
hot.
Have a great old time.
Right.
Um,
but
I do a
research
project now that I was fundedthe first and only study of
this kind in order tolook at black men who
are
caregivers
of a person, a loved one
with dementia, right?
An informal caregiver.
(38:55):
And so what we did on that, we wanted
to
understand the
role of neurocognitive and physiological
stress
on
these
men's health outcomes,
And, and so we're, we're now working.
That was very much a
community project.
We're working with the
community
now to actually do the writeups in
that.
But I can share
with
you one of the most important
things that I learned and that we did, andthat study is both, we did focus groups.
(39:19):
is um, mixed
method multi method kind of study.
We did
everything.
From,
From,
um, collecting saliva from
men,
We did surveys for health profiles.
Uh, we did focus groups
that
understand
the
contextualization of their lives.
We understood there's sleep, health, all
kinds of
different
things, right?
So now we're writing thatup with the community
organizations that we usuallydo faith-based initiative.
(39:41):
But there was two things
that was
really
important
that, and now I'm gonna leave
with
you
and then
we can kind of
close this up,
but
when I was at, um, on the
streets in Washington,
DC.
at the Mount of a subway station.
Um,
and I, and I was telling,trying to describe
this project to a black man, probably at
the
time.
was in his 70
years old.
(40:02):
And he said, hold up, hold
up, hold up.
He said, you want to know what's
stressful?
Being a black
man in America is stressful,
So that
very thing should
form.
all
of the approaches that we have to
try to understand black men's
(40:23):
health.
Right?
That's really
important.
And then the last
thing that
I, that we really found outbecause we had to do some saliva
selection on.
Collection with
these men.
And I had to find a way,'cause one of the things
that kept coming up was, Hey,
I'm not so
sure I want you to
take
some DNA
from me because I needto make sure that the
(40:44):
police can't
get ahold of
this and start tracking.
But
that's a very,
that's real
Real, right?
So that's a real deal.
You'll never know
that unless you're out
into
the
community
again.
All of that
really
shapes how we need to thinkabout what it means to be a black
a black man,
right?
So, um, I just want to say thankyou again for allowing me to be
(41:05):
here.
This is my contact information
as
you can see, and if I can be of any other
resource to you ever, please let me know.
But I'm really excited about, again, howthis group is going to help that group.
Alright?
So thank you.
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