Owning Your Story: Wisdom from a Young Detroiter

There are kids who survive a troubled upbringing only to create their own troubled future. Then there's Olatunji Bledsoe. The 18 year old endured the heartache of family deaths, a financial scam and homelessness. But then he needed more: education, personal responsibility and a driver's license. Having proven his resilience, now he wants other young Detroiters to know they can do the same. And so he likes to share his remarkable story.

Bledsoe never met his father. He wanted to, but his mother wouldn't let him, for reasons she never explained. When he was 14, his mother gave him one update on the stranger who was his dad: he had just died, after being hit by a car.

You can imagine the boy's excitement when he met a fatherly figure at his local church a year later. The man told Bledsoe he cared about him. He also said he could make money for the boy, describing an “investment opportunity” in big words that gave Bledsoe a vision of becoming a rich 15 year old. So Bledsoe gave the man all of his savings, earned from working in a candy shop inside the church. Bledsoe can't remember the size of his small nest egg, but he won't forget the outcome: he lost it all.

Later that year, Bledsoe's mother, who suffered from diabetes, lost one leg and most of her stomach. Not long after, she died in the hospital on Mother's Day. Bledsoe and his four brothers didn't find out until two days later, when their grandfather finally came to visit with the news. The boys became wards of the state. Bledsoe was 16.

Bledsoe's first foster mother also adopted two of his younger brothers. But it was no salvation for him. Bledsoe says the woman consistently told him he would never amount to anything.

Yet Bledsoe managed to stay focused on creating a better life for himself. “If I wanted to be in a better scenario, all I could do was succeed,” he says. He pushed his way through homework and classes, right to graduation at Southfield High School.

A few weeks later, Bledsoe's foster mother locked him out of the apartment, and the building's maintenance crew wouldn't allow him inside. Bledsoe slept on his girlfriend's couch for a few days, until foster-care officials found out.

Then things began to turn around.

The foster-care officials enrolled Bledsoe in a Semi-Independent Living (SIL) program, designed to prepare wards of the state for adulthood. SIL brought him to his current guardian, Shakaris Bennett, a man Bledsoe calls family.

Equipped with the right resources, Bledsoe began tackling his goals. First he enrolled in Henry Ford Community College in nearby Dearborn. SIL gives him grants adding up to about $5,000 a year for tuition. Bledsoe is studying business and is just beginning his second semester. He also got his driver's license this year and was hired as a freight operator at Home Depot.

Bledsoe believes his painful childhood tempered him to pursue the goals he's reaching now. “I'm blessed to be in the situation I'm in,” he said. “Everything I went through molded me.”

Already he plans to give back to Detroit. “I'd like to start a community center one day,” he says. “It will give people training on what they need in life. The kids will be in a safe place, and I'll know they'll be going in the right direction. I'll offer it all to them and then just ask them to stay in Detroit and better Detroit. And they'll do it.”

Until then, Bledsoe will keep spreading his story, in hopes of showing others that they, too, can take ownership of their own story. “I share this so that people in Detroit can see a different vision,” he said. “There's more than just making money from drugs and violence. I want people to help other people, and I pray the world will be a better place.”