This article originally appeared in the Allegan County News and has been republished with permission. If you are an Allegan Public Schools graduate and would like to be featured in an article, contact our Communications Director.
By LESLIE BALLARD
Allegan County News
“I’ve done more in my life than I’d ever dreamed of doing,” says Sylvester Boyd Jr. of his long and varied career – or careers would be more accurate as he has been a writer, a businessman, a background actor, a teacher, an historian, a motivational speaker and an airline ground crew chief over the years since his graduation from Allegan High School in 1963.
“It was a great class to be part of,” reminisces Sylvester, “and we are still very tight, keep in touch and never miss a class reunion.”
Sylvester’s family moved to the Allegan area in 1958 where he went to a one room schoolhouse before heading to high school. All seven of his siblings went to AHS, and brother Joseph James went on to become the principal at Dawson Elementary School.
He was very active in high school, participating in cross country, track, FFA and managing the basketball team for two years. He still remembers with pride how well the team did in 1964, advancing to the state finals.
“If someone would have told me on graduation day what my life would have been like, I wouldn’t have believed it. Allegan is a big part of my life, and I’m still fond of that part of my life. It was kind of like a Norman Rockwell painting with hayrides and pancake breakfasts. Other people assume I had a rough time growing up in Allegan but that’s not true. I never heard a racial epithet.”
Before the move, Sylvester and his family lived in Chicago where he attended African American, mixed race and predominately white schools, typically living in diverse communities. His history teacher Jack Buist pushed him to participate in class discussions, explaining to Sylvester that he believed the other students needed to hear his perspective in class discussions.
He credits Buist and his grandmother for instilling in him a love of history that has stayed with him. As he was growing up, his grandmother told him stories about her history and that of her family – where and how they had lived, what happened to them and why. So he became interested in history at a young age, curious about “what happened before me. Mr. Buist taught in a way that intrigued me.” That caused him later to focus on geography and history at Chicago State University.
An Author
His grandmother encouraged him to tell the family story. He had no experience or formal training in writing, but her attitude of “just charge ahead and get it done” inspired him to begin writing the saga of his aunt’s life.
The Road from Money was the first book in a four-part series that spans over eight decades and describes his aunt’s journey from the cotton fields of Mississippi to life as a millionaire in Chicago.
Sylvester’s family came from Money, Mississippi, but he has never been there. It is the site of an infamous case of racial injustice that his family witnessed firsthand.
According to FBI records, “in the summer of 1955, 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till had gone on vacation from Chicago to visit family in Money, Mississippi. He was shopping at a store owned by Roy and Carolyn Bryant—and someone said he possibly whistled at Mrs. Bryant, a white woman.
At some point around August 28, he was kidnapped, beaten, shot in the head, had a large metal fan tied to his neck with barbed wire, and was thrown into the Tallahatchie River. His body was soon recovered, and an investigation was opened.” Those responsible were tried and acquitted even though they bragged to friends and acquaintances about having murdered Till.
“The tragic murder helped galvanize the growing civil rights movement in this country in the 1950s and beyond.”
Sylvester’s aunt was a sharecropper and was deprived of an education because of that system. He said she was 17-18 when she finished grammar school. She and her family became part of the Great Migration between 1910 and 1970 when approximately six million African Americans left the rural south for northern urban areas.
Her husband, who looked white, was able to buy property in Chicago despite the restrictive covenants forbidding African Americans to do so. After her husband’s death, she became a millionaire from real estate she inherited from her husband and traveled widely, eventually walking along the Great Wall of China, quite a feat for a woman who started out as she did. Some of her real estate holdings were sold to the University of Chicago.
The Road to Money begins in 1925 and the final book, due out in Spring 2023 ends in 2009, when she dies two days after the inauguration of Barack Obama.
The book series, as Sylvester describes, is 75 percent fact and 25 percent fiction and inspired by stories passed down through the family. “I never thought those stories would come to anything,” he says, but they have resonated with readers, earning Reader’s Favorite and Five Star Reviews as well as being one of five finalists for the American Fiction Awards.
Sylvester’s books have garnered critical praise. According to James A. Cox, Editor in Chief of The Midwest Book Review, “although a work of fiction, it is a story that has deep factual roots in the African American experience. Superbly crafted from beginning to end, The Road from Money: A Journey to Find Why? is as thoughtful and thought-provoking as it is solidly entertaining throughout making it very highly recommended for personal reading lists and community library general fiction collections.”
“Each part has dynamic energy and it has expanded my thinking and knowledge on how growing up as an African American in America’s deep south was at the start of the 20th century. Be prepared to be hungry for more! I am on edge waiting for more, can’t wait for Book 4!” said reviewer Cynthis Robinson.
He is currently “pitching” his book to Hollywood producers. His books are available from Amazon or autographed copies can be purchased on his website along with some of the many national and international interviews and podcasts featuring him.
A Historian
Upon telling a professor that he had specialized in African American history, the professor told him that wasn’t enough. In order to understand his own history, he had to understand the history of others, which led to studies of European, Asian, African, and Native American history among others. “We are all part of each other’s history,” Sylvester observes.
“What is happening is easy to understand from a historian’s point of view. We make it more complicated than it has to be. History will tell you where you’re going if you continue on the path you are on,” he believes.
“We don’t teach history to our young people, so children only know about their own culture and maybe not much of that. Without knowing about others you can’t respect them. Most kids aren’t taught what happened. History is fact because it happened. How it is told, or not told, is where the problem lies.” Ignoring the contributions of African Americans in history books means people of other races don’t know about them and role models for African Americans are eliminated. “You got to see it to be it,” he reminds us.
Sylvester says that while “some older people like the way things were,” history shows that “America has always exploited its minorities. Our flag has never flown over a just country.”
“We’re on the same path as in 1933 when book burnings were part of Hitler’s agenda. Banning books leaves you ignorant of the facts, and facts come from more than just one source. We cannot take away knowledge. Books are wonderful.”
While loving all history, he is quite the student of military history, especially the reasons for it and the results of it. “The results of war are always the same – dead people and destroyed buildings. It is the most foolish thing man does. All that wars benefit is nobody.”
Other Careers
Sylvester worked for a major airline at O’Hare Airport for over ten years. In 1967 he became the one of the first African American ground crew chiefs. In addition to seeing many famous people pass through the airport and sharing a hot dog with Mohammad Ali, his work enabled him to travel widely.
“I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, traveled the world and experienced the food, customs, and architecture of many countries. The world is such a wonderful place. As humans we look at things differently, but we basically do the same things. We all experience the cycle of life, the basis of being human, and we have the same basic needs.”
In 1981, he founded one of the largest minority-owned advertising specialty companies in Illinois, selling products to many major corporations and businesses such as Coors, Frito-Lay, 7-Up, the Illinois Lottery, Proctor and Gamble along with colleges and universities.
Knowledge
As part of his grandmother’s belief that you need to leave something in the world to make it a better place, Sylvester was a substitute teacher in the Chicago Public Schools for five years. “Knowledge is never out of date.”
He recalls students being impressed that he could do math in his head without a calculator. Over reliance on technology concerns him as he points out that knowledge, unlike a cell phone, doesn’t go out in an emergency such as the recent hurricanes.
“I didn’t have a path that I wanted to follow. I looked at becoming a lawyer, a teacher, a meteorologist – studying all of these gave me a background in all of them. I did a lot of different things in my life and used my education for everything I have done.”
He remembers one of his high school teachers telling him that “my job is easy when you want to learn.”
“I love learning. There’s nothing I don’t want to learn,” he says, and he tried to instill in young people the importance of knowledge as he recalled the influence teachers can have from his own experiences.
Acting and Speaking
Sylvester thought the man who came up to him on a Chicago street one day was kidding when he asked him if he wanted to be in a movie. Just for the heck of it, he showed up at the location the next day and began what has become a 10-year career as a background actor (or extra).
He played a security guard in Dilemma starring Kevin James, Queen Latifah and Winona Ryder and has made about 100 appearances in movies and television shows including Empire, Chicago Fire and Chicago PD.
“I’ve worked with a lot of famous actors. Background actors are there as a presence. We provide the reality for the scene in the background.” He received a local award for background actors in 2019.
He believes knowledge should be given to others so he speaks at churches, universities and organizations on various topics. He spoke at the Allegan Library several years ago.
Sylvester and his second wife of 42 years have a blended family of six. When asked if he and his wife, who is white, experienced problems from others, he said, “We didn’t listen or care about skin color. We were in love.”
Issues
“The concept of race is a man-made thing. Everyone has skin color so it’s foolish to focus on that. Focus on being human and forget the color.” He sees issues around the disparities in wealth that are also prevalent in the histories of many peoples. “When one or two percent of the people control the country’s financial wealth, it’s not good. Think of all that wealth at the top like a building. With all the wealth at the top, it will collapse without a good, healthy foundation. When is enough, enough?”
Sylvester also sees the love of power, among individuals and elite classes as problematic. “Someone always wants to be above another or one group above another. The big fish eat the little fish.”
“You have to be careful to whom you give power. Without the vote we have no control over that, and some people now want to change that.”
However, environmental concerns top his list. Water is one of our biggest problems moving forward. “Jack Buist predicted water shortages and migration towards water in the early 60’s, and here we are. He was prophetic.”
“The most important things – environment, air, water – are ignored and by doing that we are destroying ourselves. Only a small part of the world is livable, and we are destroying it. As a species we’re tied to one another- everything is tied to the next thing – it’s all interconnected. Native Americans have always understood that.”
Does man as a species have the ability to get along with each other?” is another question he ponders.
Life
His philosophy is simple – give back and leave the world a better place. Beyond that, “If you do things you like, you enjoy life. Sometimes you have to do what you don’t want to do to get to what you want to do, but you get there. Life is to be lived, not just survived. Be happy and make other lives better,” he advises.
Sylvester’s next project? “I’m thinking of writing a political book next about where we are as a country through history. Maybe a history of America from an African American point of view. I’ll be 80 next year. God has blessed me. I am having a good ride, and I am enjoying it.”
