#voicesofthezone

Ken Powell, enlightens people through his music.  He said, “my music raises awareness and conveys what’s happening in the neighborhood.”  Many of you may know him as Kool Ken, he is a man of many talents.  He is an activist, a musician, a producer, a teacher, an athlete, an educator, an entrepreneur, a coach, a veteran and much, much more.  Ken is a native of Lincoln Heights and  currently resides in Fairfield, but is still deep rooted in the Lincoln Heights community.  

Ken abides by the golden rule of “I treat people, how I want to be treated.”  Which is why he is motivated and committed in teaching “mutual respect”.  Ken says, “its my duty and my job to assist people in understanding the truth.”  Black people just want to be equal, we are not asking for “special” treatment.  Ken says, “at the end of the day, we all just want peace, but we also must have equality to gain peace.”  

Raising awareness is key and educating people on the “plight of the black community.”  He said, “I can’t go get a loan, the same way you can.  We have churches in our communities that deposit money into banks, but they (the banks) won’t make a loan to the neighborhood folks.  They take that money out of the community.”  According to Ken, this type of information is important, in order to halt the continual patterns of social injustice.  We must have “uncomfortable conversations”, says Ken.  No longer can people ignore, that these injustices exist.  Ken said he was impressed to see “more of my white brothers and sisters, standing up for what’s right and unequivocally saying, STOP; enough is enough.”  It’s refreshing to see people wanting to protect humanity again and speaking out against injustices, it’s the only way to bring about change.

When Ken was 13 or 14 years old, he and some buddies pulled their money together and decided to walk a couple of miles from their neighborhood of Lincoln Heights to the White Castle in Reading.  Lincoln Heights, a predominately black neighborhood was gravely segregated from Reading, a predominately white neighborhood.  Upon entering the corporation limits of Reading, Ken recalls adults driving by, pointing and looking at them walking down the street.  Then a car of adults, pulls up and throws full unopened beer cans at him and his friends, while hurling racial slurs.  Ken said, “I wasn’t scared, I was mad.”  No one was hurt, but we were all angry.  

This incident is one of several that Ken has encountered, as a black man.  He has been racially profiled by law enforcement, more times than he can count.  He has been arrested and ticketed by officers, who wasn’t willing to hear his side of a situation.  One incident in particular, during Ken’s adulthood, which involved a white driver, who ran Ken off the road; resulted in Ken’s arrest and the white driver walking away with zero ramifications.  The unwillingness of some police officers to treat black men equal to their white counterparts, is why black parents, have to have conversations with their black children on how to interact with the police.  This dialogue happens in most, all black homes, as parents don’t want their child to be another victim of police brutality.  “It’s inevitable”, Ken says, “most black men will have these types of police encounters in their lifetime.”

According to Ken, “black people are conditioned to think inferior and with that comes your acceptance of being treated as inferior.”  Growing up in the predominately black neighborhood of Lincoln Heights, most every person Ken encountered of authority, was white.  Ken said, “We grew up in a black neighborhood, but what color was the dentist, the doctor, the teacher, the mailman, the principal….they were all white.”  Ken had little to no white classmates, but he was surrounded by white people in authoritative roles.  

Growing up in Lincoln Heights, your goal was to leave Lincoln Heights, according to Ken.  You wanted to do better than your neighborhood and being successful, meant you couldn’t live in Lincoln Heights.  Ken said, “the idea was you were doing good, if you had a big house and white neighbors.  But, what you didn’t realize is those white neighbors don’t want you there, when you move in, they move out.”   “It’s perception that if you live in a ‘bad’ neighborhood, it’s predominately black.  And if you live next to white people, you are successful.”  The idea of being around ‘whiteness’ as a sign of success, is  an example of systemic racism.  The concept of ‘being white is right’ is so ingrained in our society that it has caused the decline of black communities.  

Ken said, as an adult, he understands that leaving your your community isn’t the answer.  Once you become “cognizant of your surroundings, you realize how important it is to give back to your neighborhood.”  Younger generations need to see people, like them, succeeding.  “My generation was ignorant and didn’t know that if we leave our communities, they are not going to grow.  Nothing will get better and the generations behind us will be lost”, said Ken.  That’s why Ken is trying to raise awareness of the importance of coming back and staying in Lincoln Heights.

Ken describes his time growing up in Lincoln Heights, as great.  “I had a great childhood”, Ken said.  “I was surrounded by family and friends.  And Lincoln Heights was a close knit community”.  Ken’s childhood sounds just like most kids, growing up in the 70s and 80s.  Ken’s childhood is colorless, in a sense, it resembles most kids of any race.  “We just did normal stuff”, said Ken, “we went to Kings Island, skating, movies, and played sports.”  Ken was quite the athlete, playing football, basketball, and wrestling.  He later went onto wrestle on the collegiate level and is now a wrestling coach for Princeton High School.  

When Ken was a kid in Lincoln Heights, he said, “It was different from what it is today.  It was a community, it was autonomous and provided its own services to its citizens.”  “We had a fire department and a police department, now we have to rely on the County and outside communities for those services”, said Ken.  During my childhood, “there were high expectations on us, as kids”, says Ken, “our community wanted us to do great things and we would see Lincoln Heights’ alumni going to college and doing stuff like that.”  He is fearful that the younger generations in Lincoln Heights don’t have the same expectations, as he did growing up.  

Lincoln Heights Elementary is part of the Princeton City School District and is the poorest elementary in the district, according to Ken.  The neighborhood has been beaten down and opportunities have passed it over.  We can’t expect our young people to rise up, if we continue the cycle that our community has labored in, for years.  “We need to change the way we approach the situation, young and old”, says Ken, “otherwise, change will not occur.”  

Ken still considers Lincoln Heights home.  He believes in the people, their strength and their strong commitment to their community.  He says, “it can be great and that’s our goal, but it’s going to come with a lot of hard work.”  Growth within the community is what it will take for us to succeed.  “We need leaders and visionaries, such as myself, to move back to Lincoln Heights.  Moving out of Lincoln Heights, takes away form the neighborhood”, says Ken.  It’s integral that we grow the community, not only by its residents, but also economically.

Ken is motivated and an activist, two important pieces to the puzzle of putting Lincoln Heights back together.  If anyone can push the Lincoln Heights agenda, it’s Ken.  He is well respected, determined and has a strong commitment to the community of Lincoln Heights.  

Support Ken and check out his music here and his production company here.