Legends Live Forever - Baba Ifayomi II
The militant, honorable, and stern man my uncle was, only he could have built a program suitable to take youth of this capacity and organize a program suitable to teach, discipline and inspire us to think beyond our household and 4 block radius we live in. This wasn’t just a summer program; he was teaching us a way of life. This 8-week immersive rights of passage program educated us on our African ancestors, entrepreneurship, and exposed us to many elements we were not privileged to experience. We went camping, swimming, hiking, kayaking, learned taekwondo, hosted Djembe drum circles all over the city, took photography classes, and many other untraditional experiences for hood kids like us.
One would have to understand the demographics of Baltimore youth to relate to the capacity he had to have as a man for him to embrace all 20-30 youth on a daily basis as well as consult and support their family members who were single mothers, drug dealers/users, and elders struggling to make it through each day. When the media painted the image of Baltimore youth as violent, disorderly and uninspired, he saw as intelligent unrefined diamonds. Even with his disciplinary nature, it was not an easy task to keep us in line! It was many days one of us got caught slipping, and caught a body shot to the chest for running our mouth. He used to have us walk in a straight line like we were in the military and I got into fight with one of my mans. With no restraint, he made an example out of me and pushed me like 5 cement blocks down the street! Somehow, he always found a way to make me the example.
There was plenty of times he had to jack one of us up, and threats came in saying, “Imma get my brother/uncle to do this/that..blah blah blah…”,but little did we know, he was walking up and down the street having conversations with our siblings regardless of gang status, talking to parents while they high or sober. It didn’t matter, he wanted the smoke if it came to it, but he knew all that he was doing was in good faith, out of love and the community respected that.
Baba Ifayomi , also known Nate Tatum, name will live forever in the Greenmount community. At his funeral in 2015, community activist announced all the wonderful achievements he accomplished, all the major projects he facilitated and ended the speech with announcing the name of a building in his name on 20th and Barclay, right around the corner from his house. In 2019, a mural of him was painted on the side of Greenmount Recreation center; the same place I grew up going to everyday! This full circle moment reminds me everyday of the responsibility I have to carry on my uncle's legacy and be a beacon of hope for the community. The exposure we were blessed with through his programming and the male guidance we received was invaluable and instrumental to the development of many of us especially me.
