WASHINGTON  – Years before Anwar Taylor became a student at Howard University, he recalls dodging bullets while playing football with other boys from his neighborhood. Nonetheless, Taylor found value in his childhood experience with the support of his mother and mentors like his football coaches. In 2015 and 2017, Taylor lost close family friends, Richard Hallman and Jedadiah Scatliffe gun violence. Scatliffe died shortly after his high-school graduation.

To Taylor there is no spectrum of severity when it comes to gun violence. Gun violence is gun violence whether it is a stray bullet or a school shooting like Stoneman Douglass High School. Both are tragedies with real consequences.

“For kids in intercity areas, there is someone dying every single day. You have to come back homewith your friend, who you grew up with, not there,”says Taylor. “A shooter didn't come inside the school, but around the school, kids are dying every single day.”

Taylor’s personal experience with gun violence and mentorship lead him to develop Breathing Life Into the Next Generation, also known as B.L.I.N.G., to create change from within the community. He started B.L.I.N.G. in the neighborhood he grew up in, Liberty City, Fla. And expanded it to local schools with the mission of exposing Black and Latino youth impacted by gun violence to new experiences, like Miami’s famous beaches and museums. 

“You’ll be surprised…some of them don't even make it to the beach and that’s all you hear about in Miami,” says Taylor. 

Taylor was raised by his mother, a teacher, who taught him the value of mentorship and education. After visiting Howard University’s campus, Taylor turned down an invitation to attend Princeton and decided to earn his undergraduate degree in human, health performance and keisure with a concentration in sports medicine and a minor in chemistry at The Mecca. 

“It was just different…being in an environment of people who…could relate to you, understand where you come from and what all you had to go through to get here…,” he explained. For Taylor, sports is everything he knows: football, mentorship, and health. He is currently active on campus in NAACP’s Health Committee and Florida Club. In addition, Taylor is working with Congresswoman Frederica Wilson as an intern and engaged member of 5,000 Role Models of Excellence. He intends on utilizing his experience working with Congresswoman Wilson to continue his mission with B.L.I.N.G, but applying it to local communities in D.C.

Taylor emphasizes three main points: determination makes anything possible, exploration of different environments is valuable and creating a positive change within the community is crucial. If you are interested in working with Anwar Taylor on B.L.I.N.G or his other initiatives, contact him on LinkedIn. 

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Written by Ma’at Sargeant, OUC student intern