The Role Model

"YOUTH JUST WANT SOMEONE TO CARE, TO LISTEN, T PROVIDE THEM WITH GUIDANCE."

TOUGH LOVE-AND HOPE, THAT'S WHAT AL DOTSON '82PROVIDES TO INNER-CITY AFRICAN AMERICANS AS CHAIR OF 100 BLACK MEN OF AMERICA,

After. delivering a speech to black leaders about supporting minority youth development, Albert E. Do: son Jr., chairman of 100 Black Men of America Inc., sat down with three teens in the back of a Long Island storefront meeting hall.

First, the soft-spoken attorney encouraged one boy to look him straight in the eye when they shook hands. Then he challengetTtne trio with algebraic equations and quizzed them about the rules of English grammar.

"I'm invited to speak to the adults, but I always seek out the young people," says Dotson, 47, who lives in Miami, Florida, with his wife, Gail, daughter Ashley, 11, and son Albert III, 9. "I want them to see that the person on the podium is someone with whom they can engage and become. I want to make sure the young people have a clear path to me, so that I'm both espousing something and living it."

For Dotson, the Saturday afternoon speech for the 100 Black Men's Long Island chapter was another stop in the group's national effort to energize black community leaders to serve as role models for youths through mentoring, scholarship programs and economic development. At a time when minority children face major challenges at school and at home, "The 100" has stepped up its efforts to reach out to youths throughout the country and the world.

Dotson, a partner in the law firm of Bilzin, Sumberg, Baena, Price & Axelrod, participates in the south Florida chapter s Leadership Academy, mentoring middle and high school students and then helping to defray college costs for high school graduates going on to higher education.

"Youth just want someone to care, to listen, to provide them with guidance," says Dotson, who was president of Alpha Phi Alpha at Dartmouth. "We fill that gap for those who don't have a male figure in their life by providing someone to show tough love, share their personal experience and broaden their focus beyond their immediate neighborhood. We give them hope beyond their current situation, and it's our belief and experience that this type of interaction with young people absolutely makes a difference."

Dotson knows the importance of strong male role models. The eldest of four siblings, Dotson learned the value of hard work and perseverance from his father, Albert Dotson Sr., the first black store manager for Sears, Roebuck & Cos., who worked at stores in Detroit, Atlanta and Chicago before settling in Miami in the 19705.

Other adults in the Miami community also took an interest in him, including attorney Robert Josefsberg '59, whose daughter was one of Dotson's high school chums. It was Josefsberg who suggested that Dotson apply to Dartmouth and who arranged internships at his law firm and with then-State Attorney Janet Reno while Dotson was studying law at Vanderbilt University Law School.

When Dotson told Josefsberg he was thinking about leaving Miami because he was not happy with race relations in south Florida, Josefsberg encouraged him to stay.

"I told him that's not the way Dotsons dealt with adversity, that his father never walked away from a problem and that he should try to make Miami better," says Josefsberg. "He decided to stay in Miami and has become a local, statewide and national leader who is highly respected."

Part of that respect was developed through his work with 100 Black Men, the national group established in New York City in 1963 that has grown to 106 chapters in the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. The groups mission: "To use diverse talents to create an environment where children are motivated to achieve and the black community is empowered to become selfcommunities shareholders in the economic and social fabric of the communities they serve." Just two years out of law school Dotson founded the south Florida chapter in 1989, and he has served as chairman of the Atlanta-based organizations national board since 2004.

Dotson's work with The 100 is an important element of his professional and community activism that has won him recognition for the past three years as one of Ebony magazines "100+ Most Influential Black Americans." Dotson was president of the committee organizing the 2007 Orange Bowl, overseeing a yearlong effort that generates more than $1OO million in economic activity for the Dade County region through the New Year's Day football extravaganza and accompanying community festival. He chairs the board of the Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church, which his family attends.

His legal practice focuses on real estate development and goverment relations, working both with builders on major construction projects and with companies seeking public contracts. His recent clients include Florida Power & Light Cos., now seeking to expand the capacity of its Turkey Point nuclear power plant, and SMPO Properties, which is developing the U.S. Department of Defenses Southern Command Headquarters in south Florida.

Those legal issues, however, seem far away in the Long Island storefront as the personable Dotson shakes hands and poses for snapshots with local leaders.

"We need to show the world that black men do care," says Dotson. "When we do, we can have a major impact."

DAVID MCKAY WILSON is a New York City-based journalist andfrequent DAM contributor. He profiled Neal Katyal 'PI in the July/August 2006 issue.