Editorial board: Inaugural African American Male Leadership Summit inspires

Marc Jones had a question for teens at the inaugural African American Male Leadership Summit in Round Lake Beach last week.

Whom in their lives, he asked, did they look up to?

Most cited family members who had earned a college degree or succeeded in their careers.

Jones, the second black man to be elected to the Waukegan Park District board, pointed out the one thing all those people had in common. They pushed forward despite obstacles, he said. They pushed forward despite those who would judge them based on the color of their skin.

"You have a choice when things happen in life to let them overtake you," Jones said in his leadership session. "Or you can be the one inspiring younger family members by your example."

And this leadership summit should inspire other schools by its example.

The program brought together about 120 young men from eight Lake County high schools to learn from local leaders and share with their peers.

The focus was on leadership, entrepreneurship and community.

The men who spoke were inspiring, as was the program itself. And we're glad to hear the summit will continue.

We're also moved by the words of local leaders who spoke to the teens.

The summit fell on a week filled with tragic, heartbreaking news, from the deadly bombings in Sri Lanka to revelations about the brutal killing of Crystal Lake 5-year-old AJ Freund. So the anecdote shared by the summit's keynote speaker Thursday resonated that much more in light of the timing.

The speaker was Lake County circuit court Judge George Bridges, the first black man to hold that position and a former Waukegan police chief. He relayed the story of Alfred Nobel, who was startled to read his own obituary when it was mistakenly published in a local newspaper.

Born in Stockholm, Nobel invented dynamite and other explosives. And the obit - which should have been for Nobel's brother - was said to have branded Alfred "the merchant of death."

Bridges told his young audience at the summit that reading the obit made Nobel reconsider his legacy. He went on to establish the Nobel Prizes, which recognize extraordinary accomplishments in science, literature and the pursuit of peace.

"You have the ability just as Alfred Nobel did to impact and change your legacy," Bridges told the assembled students. "What do you want written about you?"

Isn't that a question we should all be asking?