A father’s worst fear is seeing his child in trouble. Especially when that child is a young Black man hustling on the street corner, chased by risk and wrapped in potential.
But this story? Oh, this one takes a wild turn.
“Why are you out here like this?”
That’s what 52-year-old Maurice Johnson said when he saw his teenage son, Isaiah, standing on the sidewalk with a duffle bag full of purses.
At first, Maurice thought the worst. “I thought he’d got caught up in something he couldn’t get out of,” he says. “He was just… standing there like he didn’t have a care in the world.”
The scene looked too familiar. A young Black man on the corner, merchandise in hand, cops cruising nearby. For Maurice, it was a movie he’d seen way too many times. And it never ended well.
“I told him, ‘Boy, the police are gonna catch you.’ I was ready to drag him off that corner myself.”
But Isaiah just laughed and said something his dad wasn’t ready for:
“They can never catch me, Pop.”
Turns out… they actually can’t.
Because Isaiah isn’t just any street vendor. The kid selling “purses” on the block isn’t hustling knockoffs or running from anyone.
He’s giving them away.
Yep — this 19-year-old is Isaiah Johnson, rookie point guard for the Denver Nuggets, and one of the NBA’s fastest rising stars. The purses? Designer bags bought with his own NBA paycheck, handed out to single moms and hard-working women in his neighborhood as a thank-you.
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