A thin documentary

Netflix gave Mr. T 48 minutes. That is nowhere near enough for a man who went from the Robert Taylor Homes to the top of the world.

“A 48-minute documentary is not enough to do justice to such a life.”

Still a role model

Even a rushed film reminded Pastor Corey Brooks why he holds Mr. T up to the kids at Project H.O.O.D. Hard work, doing right, having a dream.

Born into 12 kids

Laurence Tureaud arrived May 21, 1952, second youngest of twelve. His father, a minister, left when he was five.

Eighty-seven dollars a month

His mother Willie cleaned houses in Lake Forest, topped up by an $87 welfare check. Poor in money, rich in family and spirit.

The ghetto was not in him

He saw the violence no child should see. He saw white men call his father a boy. None of it took root.

“I was born and raised in the ghetto, but the ghetto was not born and raised in me.”

The name was a demand

His brother came home from Vietnam as a Marine and was still called boy. At 18, Laurence became Mr. T so the first word anyone said to him would be Mister.

Muscles built on concrete

Football star and city wrestling champ at Dunbar Vocational. No gym. Push-ups on project concrete, chin-ups off tree branches, wrestling his brothers.

“They built those muscles the honest way.”

He moved to the money

The Prairie View A&M scholarship did not work out, so he went to the Loop because that is where opportunity was. Three jobs at once, one of them bouncing at a club.

The elevator robbery

Thugs took his mother's welfare money in a project elevator and threatened to cut her throat. He grabbed a shotgun and went looking for them.

Failure into a calling

He felt he had failed to protect her, so he became a bodyguard and protected other people instead. He built a new pathway rather than falling into gang life.

A promise at nine

He told his mother he would be big and strong and buy her a beautiful house and pretty dresses. She did not laugh. She told him to work hard, save, and get after it.

Values, not gold chains

Not the mohawk, not the scowl, not I pity the fool. The values his mother named were the engine of everything that followed.

Doom teaches nothing

Brooks says telling South Side kids the system is out to get them leads nowhere. Those talks die the moment the gloom runs out.

“What good does it do to poison a young child's mind with all that negativity?”

He bought her the mansion

Mr. T bought his mother a house with an elevator in Lake Forest, the neighborhood where she had cleaned other people's homes.

“I pity the fool who looks at Mr. T's life and still tells our kids they cannot rise.”