JOSEPH (V.O.) All my life I’ve been a fighter– emerging from struggle. Couldn’t nobody break me. I made them pay me my due respect.

This is a line from the script “Special, The Joseph Mathews Story”,  the story of a young black teenage boy’s rocky journey towards defining self worth as a black male through wrestling while battling a broken Oklahoma City school system and the temptations of the hood. 

As much as this is a tribute to the life of one man it is an ode to my brothers… and the triumphant spirit of the black man.