The Many Lives of H. Rap Brown

It seemed like a fool’s errand to send Jamil Al-Amin a letter, expecting a response. But there I was, in the summer of 2019, reading his reply, sent from the U.S. Penitentiary in Tucson, Ariz.

Peace be unto those who do Good, Rembert. May The Creator Reward you for your kind thoughts and words. Though this part of our journey is defined by danger, and the goal seems distant, no roads are without endings …

Hope this is a happy day, with sunshine, some quiet, and the feeling that you are being thought of and wished happiness … because you are …

I am enclosing a piece from my book I’m working on, called Holy-Cost … give it a critical reading, and let me know what you think …

At this point in the letter, his note took a more personal turn.

You still playing ball?

He signed the letter “Coach.” It was the only thing I knew him by, as a 9-year-old, in 1996, staring up at his sinewy 6 ft. 5 in. frame. The location was Adams Park, in a gym on the southwest side of Atlanta. Leaving my first practice with my new team, I sat in the car and listened as my mother explained that Coach Al-Amin was a trailblazer of a Black man. I took that to heart and could tell she was serious by the tone of her voice, but my primary focus was (always) the two-part question of “Where are we eating?” and “Do they have banana pudding?” Also, meeting an important Black elder was part of growing up in Black Atlanta—the trailblazers were everywhere.

But there was something different about Coach. For starters, this was an era that seemed to measure the quality of a male coach by how much he yelled; the more, the better. Even at a young age, I’d been bossed around by my fair share of dads. But Coach Al-Amin existed as this giant of a man, clothed in his traditional Muslim threads, rarely speaking outside of his inside voice. He never screamed while we played, only talking to us like little adults.

As can sometimes happen with someone you know intensely for a period in childhood, I eventually forgot about Coach. Life went on, and sports, once my singular priority, became a hobby after I started college.

A few years into the workforce and it’s 2012, the last year I really used Facebook. A thing was happening on the platform, where people would adopt long,