The South Baltimore Learning Center stands empty tonight.
Last night Abdul Raheim passed away in his sleep. I had known him since April of this year, when I began serving as a classroom assistant with the South Baltimore Learning Center. Together, we were trying to help young adults get their high school diploma. He was “Mr. Raheim” to his students (“learners” as we call them), and simply “Raheim” to everyone else. When greeting Raheim, you would say “How are you today?” Invariably, he would say, “I’m blessed.”
I said we were helping people get their high school diploma. But that’s an incomplete assessment. As Raheim always stressed, we were doing more than that. We were trying to help people develop critical thinking skills, and to slough off the weights that had irrationally hindered their lives. We were trying to help them become whole.
Raheim brought a holistic approach to his teaching. A math problem would often lead into a discussion about self esteem and the inner child. More than anything, he wanted to see his learners blossom and become the people they were meant to be. He worked tirelessly at homeless shelters throughout the city, and in his “off hours” he would teach classes. He often felt like he was pushing on the ocean. He often lamented that his people, African-Americans, were not becoming all they could become. Yet each day he would get up and do his part.
I have little to no inspirational wisdom to impart right now. Yet I feel it’s important to tap into the core of the idealism that leads us as individuals to get up and do our part. All I have is Marvin Gaye’s “Save The Children.” Raheim, this song was given to me this evening to help me carry on. It’s the basic truth that led you to keep trying: the belief that in the face of a world that’s “destined to die,” no matter what evidence stacks up, that it’s wrong to despair, and it’s right to make efforts to “save the babies.” Those babies can be infants, they can be high school dropouts, they can be 50-year old men and women. Healing the inner child. I know lives were affected by your presence on this earth. Let me then follow your example and save the babies, and let me consider myself blessed.
I will keep reaching out to the members of your class, offering my help with tutoring this summer and whatever else comes this fall. Life will go on down here. Thank you for all you did. I miss you already.