Ordinary men, extraordinary lives

From an outsider's perspective, the four Seattle men honored at Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church yesterday are average. They are fathers, husbands and sons.

They work hard at their jobs, care for their children and other kids in the community, and give back to the world around them.

Yet each has done something so out of the ordinary that it begs for notice. One honoree, the Rev. William Dudley, founded Noah's Ark A.M.E. Zion Church in Renton and builds computers to donate to single-parent families that otherwise could not afford them.

Curtis Raines takes care of his father full time and helped raise a talented musician, Hal Raines.

Clifton Wyatt, a Boeing employee, became the first African American to be elected vice president of Machinists union Local A in District 751.

And poet and actor Agrippa Williams donated a kidney to a complete stranger because, he said, "I had a strange feeling I had a kidney for this guy."

Stories like these moved the Men of Ebenezer A.M.E. Zion to honor the four as Fishers of Men in front of about 50 of the honorees' friends and relatives.

"Why this day? Why this celebration? Because we as black men are an endangered species, but we are proud men and we stand tall," said Men of Ebenezer's David H. Dudley III, a brother of the Rev. Dudley.

The Fishers of Men ceremony takes its name from the Book of Matthew 4:18-19 in which Jesus says to Simon and his brother, Andrew, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

The day had special resonance with Williams. As the youngest of 11 children, he said, he slept in the same room with his parents, and his father shared stories about their family's heritage.

On the night before his father died, Williams, whose first name is Arthur, said his father called him by his middle name, Agrippa, for the first time.

"And he said, 'Agrippa, I'm going to make you a fisher of men!' "

"I always wanted to be like my father, and I'm trying to pass that along to my children," he said. "Another thing I remembered my father telling me is, 'If you'll be a giver, your name will rise high on the pyramid of life.'"

This is the fifth year the men's group at the Seattle church has awarded Fishers of Men honors to people it considers unsung heroes.

The four honored yesterday will join 28 other honorees, some of whom were present to participate in the service.

After musical presentations, hymns and a comedy routine performed by past honoree Clifford A. Barnes III, the men were presented with plaques by family and friends.

When Hal Raines presented the award to his father, Curtis Raines, the elder Raines remarked, "I didn't know I was doing anything special. Most of the time I was just trying to get him out of the house."

He added, "Considering all that's going on in the world, especially with young black men, I guess taking them to church isn't a bad thing to do."

"We have to take care of our own kids, our own children. We have to take care of each other," Dudley said.

"Start at home and work your way out in the community."

Melanie McFarland can be reached at mmcfarland@seattletimes.com.