Mark Jennings
Mark Jennings grew up in one of the toughest parts of Washington DC. He lived in a basement apartment with his mother, and the mean streets just beyond the door were his playground. As an African American child, he felt that those streets were probably going to define his future – and maybe dictate his epitaph. Not many kids from his neighborhood escaped them.
“I felt I’d just probably stay in DC my whole life,” Jennings says. “I didn’t know if I’d end up selling drugs or going to prison – or if I’d be killed. Back then, DC was the murder capital of the U.S. It was the concrete jungle.”
But his mother didn’t look at things the same way. Determined to secure Mark a better life, she enrolled him in Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, seeking a mentor for the eight-year-old boy. She found one – but he didn’t work out because Jennings didn’t like him. Then she found another. He didn’t work out either. But she didn’t give up: the third mentor she found for Jennings was Darius Anderson.
“I got rid of the first two, so I figured I could get rid of Darius as well,” says Anderson. “I mean, he was a white guy from California, he was an intern for a congressman, and he lived in GW (the neighborhood surrounding George Washington University). What did he have in common with me? Nothing.”
But Anderson didn’t leave. More to the point, laughs Jennings, he wouldn’t leave.
“I ignored him, I tried not to talk to him, but he kept coming around,” Jennings said. “I tried to ditch him, but he stuck with me. He’d come to our apartment and help me with my schoolwork and go with me to the storefront church my uncle owned. He’d go into neighborhoods I wouldn’t think of going if I had been him. He just made it clear he wasn’t going to abandon me. And when I saw his dedication, his genuineness, I began to come around. It didn’t happen all at once – actually, it took a long time. But I did come around, and we’ve been close friends ever since.”
Jennings says Anderson helped him stay on track through his school years – and not just with his homework.
“More than anything else, he helped me become a dreamer,” says Jennings. “He helped me think big, helped me think outside the box. One time, he took me out to California. All I had known was DC, and here I was in Los Angeles. We’d drive on the freeways, and I saw the Pacific Ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. We went to Disneyland. I saw that the world was a big place, that it had a lot of possibilities. That trip literally changed my life.”
After graduating from high school, Jennings went to college – but not just any college. He was accepted into Harvard Divinity School.
“I had a 2.2 GPA and an 830 SAT, but somehow I still made it in,” he says. “But it wasn’t easy staying there. I used a credit card to pay my rent, and I ended up bouncing it. And that’s when Darius stepped in again. He paid my rent for a solid year. I was able to get a full scholarship for my final year, but I never would’ve made it through Harvard without his help. And it wasn’t just about the money. It was bigger than that. He was just always there. He never went away.”
Following his graduation, Jennings worked as a journalist and as a gang prevention program administrator in Los Angeles. Anderson always stayed in touch – and continued to help whenever asked.
“He put me in touch with Coach Cornell Ward at Compton College, who helped me run the gang prevention program and really contributed to making it successful,” says Jennings. “So again, it went beyond money – it was Darius’ network that made the difference. And he’s helped me tremendously in my current position as the associate executive director of Project FIND, a New York nonprofit that provides services and support to low- and moderate-income seniors. We recently launched an outreach program for African American seniors who haven’t been vaccinated for COVID, and I knew that Darius hangs out sometimes with Cedric the Entertainer and Anthony Anderson. So I called him and said, hey, it’d really be great if one of those guys helped us out with our vaccination initiative. He started making calls. It came down to the wire, but he got Cedric to do an intro for one of our Zoom sessions.”
Jennings says Anderson’s business projects bolsters his own aspirations.
“I don’t know how he does it, but he can look at a patch of dirt and say that’s the next big thing – and because he’s the one who develops it, he’s right,” Jennings says. “And he brings that ability to everything he does. He bought the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco, then built it up as an education and research facility and transferred it to a nonprofit rather than maximizing revenue by turning it into an aquatic Disneyland. And I watched as he raised more than $30 million to keep Martin Luther King’s papers with the King family. That’s just impressive work. It does my heart good to witness it, and it inspires me to have similar goals in my own career.”
The two men both have busy schedules these days, but Anderson ensures they spend quality time together on a regular basis, says Jennings.
“I have five kids, and Darius took us all out to California for a visit a couple of years ago,” he says. “We went to his new development, Wing & Barrel Ranch, and spent some time shooting sporting clays. And earlier, when I was living and working in California, he flew my dad out to visit me. It was the only time my father has ever been on an airplane, and he really enjoyed it. And to show his appreciation, he bought Darius a lottery scratch card. Darius scratched off the numbers, and it said he’d won $500,000. So he starts running around his office excitedly, showing it off to everyone. But then he saw on the back of the card that it was only redeemable from Santa Claus at the North Pole – my dad is a real practical joker. But Darius wasn’t upset in the slightest. He just laughed. He laughs a lot, about a lot of things.”
Like any father, Jennings is concerned about his children’s future – particularly where education is concerned. And again, he says, he’s found Anderson ready and willing to step in and lend a hand.
“My son, Joe Darius Jennings, started college this year,” says Jennings. “Darius opened an account in his name the day he was born, and deposits $100 a month into it. There’s over $40,000 in there now. That’s the main reason my son can go to college. Darius has taught me there’s good in this world – he showed me it isn’t an evil place.”
