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Muhammed’s mission is helping low-income children in Florida lead better lives
Abdul’Haq Muhammed is a lifesaver to children in crime-torn and poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Fort Myers, Fla.
As Americans, we are a diverse population. Historically, we have embraced that diversity as what brings us together and truly makes us one nation encouraging all to seek life, liberty and happiness. By sharing our individual differences and finding commonalities, we can work to unify the nation. One thing unites us: We are all Americans. Each week, this series will introduce you to an exceptional American who is making a difference to unite, rather than divide, our communities.
He is from Harlem. He is a devout Muslim. To the children in some of the crime-torn and poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Fort Myers, Fla., Abdul’Haq Muhammed is a life saver.
He also is tough, principled, generous with his time and his heart, a leader and difference maker for a community, where he helps kids each day build better lives and become difference makers themselves. He has seen his share of crime, from drug deals to shootings, and stopped some of it himself. Still, he hangs on to this: “Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle,” he said.
Muhammed, 68, is the founder and executive director of the Quality Life Center of Southwest Florida, located in Fort Myers. The children there consider him a mentor. He has been their answer to a journey from tough streets to learning discipline and respect, becoming educated, going to college and helping others as well.
His vision, after leaving the Army in 1969, was to build children’s programs. He founded the Woodycrest Center for Human Development in the Bronx, New York. He ran the programs on the faith that people would help make repairs on an aging building and invest in children. That money never arrived the way he thought it should.
“I was idealistic,” he said. “I was promised I would get the money by doing work in the community . ... I decided ... to get the money.”
He left New York to make his fortune from international trade and real estate. He worked in Africa for two years. Then, in 1990, he came to the Fort Myers area.
Every time he turned on the television, he saw the same, unforgettable image: AfricanAmerican teenage boys arrested, handcuffed and pushed into the back of police cars. “It played over and over again in my mind, boys on the ground, arrested, up against a wall,” Muhammed said.
He was encouraged by a friend, who remembered his work in New York, to do the same thing in Fort Myers, specifically a smaller community within the city, called Dunbar. The area has been an epicenter for violence, including many of the record 24 murders in the city in 2012.
He quickly began attracting children — eight at first — using martial arts as the motivation.
Today, his work has helped thousands of children and 120 are involved in programs at the Quality Life Center, including martial arts, dance, drama, fine arts and technology.
“He has been a great, influencing voice,” said Angel Escobar, 18, of Fort Myers, who grew up at the center, is a recent high school graduate and now is teaching children there. “He keeps that voice in my head, telling me ‘you can do it.’ ”