Meet Jamel Wright Jr., the vice president of the youth sports non-profit, Harlem Jets Incorporated. Jamel is a true force to be reckoned with as a positive change agent for his community with a clear focus on building up the next generation. Harlem Jets Inc is an amazing organization that everyone needs to check out. What they’re doing for their youth is not only admirable but imperative to the community. Now their 8U football team has the opportunity to compete in the national championships in Orlando, Florida, and YOU can help send them there! Jamel has a GoFundMe where all proceeds will go towards making the most amazing and memorable trip for these hard-working kids, so please if you can, donate!
Press HERE if you would like to check out their GoFundMe, and enjoy my Q&A with Jamel below!
Sankofa – “Go Back and Get It.”
Jo: First off for the readers, can I please get your name and also the name of your organization?
Jamel: My name is Jamel Wright Jr. I’m the son of the President and CEO of the Harlem Jets, Jamel Wright Sr. The name of my nonprofit organization is Harlem Jets Incorporated, also known as Harlem Jets Sports and Youth Development.
Jo: Are you from Harlem?
Jamel: Yes, I’m from the East side of Harlem
Jo: Tell us about Harlem Jets Inc., what do you guys do? What initiatives does your organization focus on?
Jamel: So Harlem Jets Incorporated is basically a youth sports and development organization. We focus primarily on football, but we also offer wrestling, cheerleading, field hockey and lacrosse. Like I said, we are a sports organization, but we focus more on sports as more of a holistic development of the child and their families.
So initially a child comes to us with the interest of playing sports, but it’s more so about leadership, character development, social and emotional skills, as well as whatever their scholastic endeavors are. All of our kids are required to have at least an 80 average in school and we really just specialize in football-which is not native to New York City-and getting kids into different schools in different environments, really exposing them to more than their certain circumstances in their own environment.
Jo: And what age range does this non profit serve?
Jamel: So historically, Harlem Jets used to go anywhere from five to 18 years old, but at the current moment, we only serve five to 14 year olds.
Jo: When was Harlem Jets Inc. established?
Jamel: I guess you could say 2006. Before then, we were the Giants of Harlem, and then we transitioned to being the Harlem Jets in 2006. So that’s when Harlem Jets was formally founded.
Jo: What inspired your dad to start this nonprofit?
Jamel: I mean we’re from the East Side of Harlem-from Wagner Projects on 122nd and 1st Avenue. As a child, I started playing football when I was six years old. I played for the Giants of Harlem, and even though the Giants no longer exist, it was a pretty well known organization on the east side. If you’re from the east side of Harlem, you know there aren’t that many resources. There aren’t a lot of community centers. There’s not that much to offer for the kids or the community on the east side of Harlem. So, even though basketball is a big thing in Harlem, in my neighborhood we decided to play football. The Giants were just so unorganized and really defunct though. Obviously we had the team and we’d play some games, but being that there wasn’t a lot of parental involvement, there was a lot of disarray and confusion about how to actually play football and be successful at it. Because of this, my father-with a group of other fathers-decided to take on the endeavor, actually organizing and formalizing a football organization. It really was just a chance to give the people from our community more access to resources and a better chance of being successful at sports.
Like I said, basketball was already a thing, but where we are from, we had the opportunity to play football because that was around our area, so really this was to give my neighborhood and my community a chance to do something more positive with themselves and more access to resources.
Jo: Going back to community, when you think of your community in Harlem, what comes to mind?
Jamel: Everything. I live by this Ghanaian proverb called Sankofa. Sankofa can be translated to a lot of different things, but it basically means ‘as far as you go forward, you still continue to look backwards.’
Wherever our travels, our experiences or our circumstances may take us, we never forget our roots. We still are pulling the people where we’re from. We’re still pulling them up and still contributing to our neighborhoods and our communities.
So being from Harlem means everything to me.
Jo: I love that. We actually reference Sankofa a lot on the Urban View Channel 126 on Sirius XM.
Jamel: It’s really why I do everything that I do. When you say you’re from Harlem, that means you’re from greatness. We come from a legacy of things. So just have a pride of where you’re from, and make the community better than how you found it.
Jo: What led you to want to work with the youth specifically in your community along with your father?
Jamel: I mean, it’s how I was raised. We’ve always been doing everything we’ve been doing. In my neighborhood, if you’re from Wagner, there’s still a tournament that we have called Kenny Hutch. It’s like an annual basketball tournament thrown on the East Side. This is really how I was raised. My father did a great job of giving me the guidance and letting me know that I don’t live in this world alone, where there are multiple people-I mean we just don’t live in this world alone. The actions that we put out and the energy that we put on we get back tenfold. So it’s really, like I said, leaving our neighborhoods and then making our communities better than the way we found them-just having pride in ourselves as a whole…As a people.
Jo: So I saw that the Harlem Jets 8U was crowned Big Tri-State North Region champions-congratulations! What does this accomplishment mean for the team?
Jamel: So basically what that means is that in youth football, there are a lot of different governing bodies-just like the AAU. So for football we play in what they call the UYFL, which is just the national governing body that we play in. Then the league that we particularly play in is called Big Tri State, which is New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Basically what all this means is that our 8U is the next generation of really great players that are going to come out of our organization.
So right now our 8U is currently 11-0. They play a little differently because we play football all year long, and the ultimate goal is making it to a national championship for any of our age groups.
It just so happens that our 8U team-well it’s kind of a funny story because the actual coaches of the 8U team right now were from the first team from Harlem Jets to ever go to the national championship almost twelve years ago, when we first started-when we were first actually getting competitive and figuring out how to be successful at football.
So the team that’s going to nationals now, their coaches were the first group of kids to actually go out there. So this means everything to our organization-just being symbolic of a new wealth of players, how tight-knit our community is, and just how successful we’ve been in really replanting and refining our roots.
The 8U team will be going to Orlando to play in the national championship and it’s almost like a playoff type of situation. So right now we’re the number one seed, so one plays four, two plays three and we’ll figure out from there who goes to win the national championship.
Jo: Wow that’s amazing! Are there any other highlights from Harlem Jets Inc we should bring attention to from over the years?
Jamel: I mean there’s so many to list, but in particular, I do want the people of New York City to know that New York City football is really a thing. We do have a budding competitive level and just an environment of football. A lot of people aren’t going to traditionally think of New York City as a football hub, but this is a place where you can find very competitive, very well trained and very well coached players.
I guess the biggest highlight of the Harlem Jets is just the amount of success we’ve had and the change in the lives of a lot of not only scholars/players that come to our organization, but their families as a whole. It’s really a family commitment when you decide to play a sport. So from the mothers and fathers to the nieces and nephews, uncles and aunts-everyone has benefited from being a part of the Harlem Jets.
We have visual players all over the country, and we’re really looking forward to the 2024 NFL draft. We’re hoping to have maybe three to four guys drafted in the league this year, which will be unprecedented for New York City.
So big shoutout to Ajani Cornelius-he’s an offensive tackle at Oregon, #65; Eddie Louis-he’s a wide receiver at South Carolina; Sanoussi Cane-he’s the starting strong safety and captain at Purdue; Khordae Sydnor-he’s also at Purdue. We just got a legacy of guys that really took football to the next level.
And like I said, I have the potential to change not only their lives, but the lives of their family, so it’s just overall success for our organization.
Jo: It must be incredible to see your players go on to pursue professional careers in football. I know you’ve been touching on this throughout our conversation, but how do you see Harlem Jets Inc., actively affecting the lives of your current youth players?
Jamel: I mean we’re from Harlem and although Harlem is really well known for its culture, elegance and historical events that have happened. There’s still violence and drugs in our communities. It’s a very serious proponent of our community, and I would like people to note that Harlem Jets is actually noted as a change component. We are noted in the city-and there’s legal legislation-that we actually deter some of the violence that happens in Harlem.
I mean, there’s a lot of gang violence and so on, but Harlem Jets, when we have our practices, when we have our games-as long as we’ve been around, we’ve been able to actually deter a lot of the violence that goes on in our communities. For instance, if there was like a normal gang beef, or if two kids from two different neighborhoods weren’t able to be together or see each other, when it comes to Harlem Jets, that totally disappears. When you come to Harlem Jets, we’re all Harlem Jets, and we live by the saying, ‘Once a Harlem Jet, always a Harlem Jet.’
So, I can comfortably go in any neighborhood, in any building, to speak to anyone and be a change agent for our community.
Jo: I saw that you have a GoFundMe for the 8U team going to Orlando to compete in the National Championships. What would this experience be like for the kids? And what do you need now to get them out there?
Jamel: Well, right now we have some institutional funds and stuff like that, but basically we’re trying to raise $30,000 to get to Florida, which is approximately $800 per kid. This is so we can give our kids the best and most full experience at the nationals. It’s approximately a two-week experience where they give you some time to practice and obviously there are the games and recovery and so forth. It’s really just to do everything. So we buy all our plane tickets and all stay in the same place. We can all eat the same foods and have the same experiences while they’re out there.
The league takes the kids to Universal studios also, so this is really just to give these kids a full experience. Unfortunately, some of the kids from these neighborhoods won’t have the opportunity to travel, to go to different places, to just have the chance to see different things other than their normal neighborhoods, so this is an opportunity to expose the kids to more and potentially change their lives for the better.
Jo: What do you hope to see in the future for the Harlem Jets Inc?
Jamel: For us to continue to elevate and expand our business. Even though we are a youth football team and a sports organization, we do have endeavors working on potentially opening up a school one day, or opening up a larger and broader training facility. Even though it’s child-focused now, we do have a lot of things planned for our families as well. We’re focused on providing and offering our community with more resources-anything from financial education to health services or industry services, and being able to go on developing an environment or community where our families have access to resources and they can benefit from Harlem as a whole-always just leaving our neighborhoods better than we found them.
Jo: With that said, since you’re doing this amazing work bringing up future generations of Harlem, what do you see for the future of Harlem?
Jamel: I think Harlem’s overall trending and improving. Even though in the news and media, they highlight some of the violence-I think obviously that’s a part of society-but I believe Harlem overall is a beautiful place. Besides some of the “gentrification” that’s been going on, the culture still remains. This summer was one of the more beautiful and magical summers that I’ve been around in Harlem. We had so many festivals, we had Harlem Fashion Row, we had so much new construction going on. I mean, it’s just a vibrant and loving energy, and I really want people to always think of Harlem as a magical place where Black people can survive-and not only survive, but actually thrive and promote excellence.
Jo: What do you think are some of the most important lessons or messages we as adults should be passing on to the youth in our communities?
Jamel: Well like I said, we don’t live in this world alone.
When it comes to the actions and the words that we use, it’s just about being as positive as possible. Even though we may be dealing with certain circumstances and we don’t necessarily have all the things that we want, we do have the things that we need, and we can always aspire for more.
As we continue to build with one another and positively reinforce one another, we can continue to build in our communities. No one is going to just come in to save us-like there is no angel fund; there is no large investor or philanthropy that’s going to come through to actually ‘save the community.’ It’s up to the people in our community to save ourselves, and we do have the access and the ability to do so. But, it’s just about being collective and believing in one another and supporting one another. Even though it’s football and it’s sports, football is really just a symbol of what we hope to do with the community.
Like, every man depends on the next man, even though we’re all doing our individual jobs. In order for us to be successful, we all have to do everything that we do at the highest level, and everyone has a specialty. It’s about the collective and really coming together as a community and pushing each other to be excellent-like, black excellence is really a thing! Even though we live in the projects, that’s not all that we’re known for. Black excellence is really a thing.
Jo: I feel like the way that we grew up as kids must be so different from the way that kids are growing up now. So I guess what I’m wondering is-out of curiosity-do you see a difference in the way you experienced your childhood in society versus these kids? Do you think it may be harder for kids to be kids in this day and age?
Jamel: I mean, yes and no. It’s all similar. Life is cyclical. As a child, I definitely dealt with-and still deal with-some of the same circumstances that some of the kids from my community face. I guess, the only different circumstance is that I didn’t have to go through COVID in my youth.
I think COVID is going to have a long residual effect on children. It’s similar to-I don’t know if you’re familiar with this term, but it’s called the “Latchkey Kid,” which comes from kids that unfortunately had to raise themselves, and they could either go one way or the other.
That latchkey is that they were home by themselves. Their parents were either at work or doing what they had to do to provide for their families. So a lot of children were exposed to different elements that they weren’t necessarily mature enough to understand.
So I think that’s the only thing, really with the kids, that they’re being forced to mature, and raise themselves a little bit earlier than they necessarily need to. There needs to be some more care and love and affection in our community. When I was younger, I guess the community was more together. Now it’s a little bit more like individual lives, where everyone is trying to figure out what they could do for themselves. When I was younger, there was definitely more community involvement where even if you didn’t necessarily know your next door neighbor, you still had that respect for elders in your community, and anybody could say anything to you and kind of check you or correct your behavior.
That’s missing a little bit because of different circumstances with incarceration, drugs and so forth and so on, and that’s another conversation, but it’s really just that togetherness that doesn’t exist as much as it once did. I feel like things are a little bit more splintered, but like I said, the community still exists. It has its peaks and its valleys, but overall Harlem still has room to improve.
Jo: Last question, and I promise I won’t hold you up any longer today-from your journey, work and experience, what do you think is the most important thing in life?
Jamel: Well I mean, there’s no one thing that’s more important than the other. There’s so many contributing factors to your success. People can say family, faith, finances, etc.
I guess for me though, it’s being as well rounded as possible and contributing as much as you possibly can. Like I mentioned earlier, we don’t live in this world alone. The actions that we take do affect others, and we can only control what we can control. I think it’s being as positive as possible and contributing back to your society and community as much as you possibly can in the most positive ways. Don’t forget about your roots. Our communities stand on the values and traditions that earlier generations left for us, and we continue to have that excellence.
Jo: Well, I think that’s a great way to end this Q&A. Thank you for the work that you do, we admire pillars of the community like you and your father. Thank you so much for your time today.
Readers, make sure to check out the Harlem Jets GoFundMe for Orlando and DONATE if you can! Linked below:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/harlem-jets-u8-broad-to-the-national-championship