In life, most of us have a brush with death. Had I not survived, I would not have provided medical care to thousands of patients, nor been a father to my daughter.

Reggie Brass saved my life. He ran a support group for African-American men in south Los Angeles called “My Child Says Daddy” that provided tools for fathers to remain in the lives of their children.

Going through a divorce in the early 1990s, I attended weekly meetings a mile from where I grew up. There I learned how African-American fathers were stigmatized by the courts as “deadbeat dads.”

Reggie Brass, My Child Says Daddy

As part of the solution, Reggie brought judges, attorneys, social workers, psychologists and county agencies to educate us about the judicial system, while sustaining the emotional struggle to remain in our child’s life. He understood up to 90 percent of those incarcerated came from fatherless homes.

We learned to focus on our children, be involved at school and extracurricular events, and teach them to be moral and ethical human beings. “My Child Says Daddy” has evolved into a parenting organization of multi-races and genders.

Reggie Brass saved my life.

Then and now: Black Lives Matter.

Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D., is a geriatric house-call physician who serves as president of the Los Angeles County Commission for Older Adults and Assemblyman to the California Senior Legislature. He has practiced in the Santa Clarita Valley for 32 years.