I went to Harlem to honor others. Harlem turned around and honored me.
(HARLEM, N.Y. — July 25, 2026) — The good people of Harlem set me up.
But I do not mean that in a bad way.
I went to New York City, as I have many times before, to present the Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards. This ceremony was held near St. Nicholas Avenue and West 111th Street in Harlem.
I arrived with a list of people to honor. I expected to present the awards, celebrate the honorees, and return home to Baltimore.
I had no idea what Vito Jones and New York State Senator Cordell Cleare had planned.
In the middle of the ceremony, Vito and Senator Cleare took the microphone and flipped the script. The next thing I knew, Senator Cleare was presenting me with a proclamation from the State of New York.
Tears began streaming down my face.
Odessa Hopkins Made the Connection
I met Vito Jones about a decade ago through my dear friend and longtime supporter Odessa Hopkins of Harlem, New York.
Odessa and her husband, Rick, owned the CEO Business Café in Prince George’s County, Maryland. We held a number of events at their establishment over the years.
When I told Odessa that I wanted to take the Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards to New York City, she told me that Vito Jones was someone I absolutely had to meet.
She was right.
Vito is not simply an event organizer. He is a respected Harlem leader—a godfather figure whose standing, relationships, and judgment have been earned over decades.
Not just anybody carries that kind of gravitas.
When Vito brings people together, Harlem responds. When he places someone before the community, his endorsement means something.
Years ago, Vito and Cleare opened the door for Black Wall Street Harlem to recognize Sylvia L. White, the legendary Harlem Hospital administrator and community leader. That was not simply another name on an awards program. Harlem Hospital is part of the living history of the community. Generations of Black Harlemites were born and cared for there.
Through Vito, I had the privilege of meeting and honoring one of Harlem’s queens.
Loyalty Matters
One of the qualities I admire most about Vito Jones is his loyalty.
Ever since I have known him, Vito has been ten toes down in his support of Cordell Cleare. He supported her before she was elected to the New York State Senate. He was A-number-one in her camp then, and he remains there today.
Politics can be the cruddiest game in the world.
People change sides. They abandon relationships. They show up after the victory and suddenly forget who stood with someone before the title arrived.
That is why an elected official cannot put a price on having someone like Vito Jones in their corner.
Vito’s loyalty is not seasonal. It does not depend upon a campaign, position, or political wind. When he believes in you, he stands with you.
Senator Cordell Cleare has a genuine friend in Vito Jones. In politics—and in life—you cannot beat that.
Harlem, Inc. Received Me With Honor
Harlem, Inc. also put me up at the Aloft Harlem—compliments of the organization.
When I learned what they had done, all I could say was, “Oh.”
The Aloft, which opened in 2010, was the first new major hotel to open in Harlem in more than 40 years. They did not simply find me somewhere to sleep. They received me with intention and placed me inside a part of modern Harlem history.
That gesture told me something before the proclamation was ever presented.
I was not merely visiting the community to conduct an event. I was Harlem’s guest, and Harlem, Inc. intended to treat me like one.
Vito Set the Table
St. Nicholas Avenue and West 111th Street is a tricky little joint to find.
St. Nicholas cuts diagonally through the regular Manhattan street grid, so you have to pay attention. But that is also how a place becomes familiar. You get turned around, double back, walk another block and eventually develop a feel for it.
When I finally arrived, Vito Jones was ready.
The chairs were arranged. The podium was in place. Everything needed for the ceremony had been prepared.
Vito had set the table.
He set the table for our honorees. He set the table for BMORENews.com. He set the table for the Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards.
He set the table like the quintessential professional and host that he is.
That is what true leaders do. They do not merely invite people into a space and leave them to figure everything out. They prepare the room. They create the atmosphere. They anticipate what will be needed. They make their guests feel that their presence matters.
I thought Vito had set the table so that I could honor Harlem.
What I did not know was that he and Senator Cleare had also reserved a place at that table for me.
What My Father Wanted Wasn’t Sold in Stores
The surprise took me back to Christmas when I was a little boy.
Like most children, I would be excited about opening my toys. Somewhere along the way, I would ask my father, Donald Edward “Doc” Glover, what he wanted for Christmas.
Invariably, he would answer, “Nothing.”
Then he would tell me:
“What I want, son, they don’t sell in stores.”
That lesson has remained with me through every holiday and every season of my life.
Many people never learn it. The lesson is simple, but it is not for everybody.
I am talking about the joy of giving—the joy you experience when you put a smile on somebody else’s face.
It is the joy Senator Cleare receives from knowing she has effectively served her constituents. It is the joy on Vito’s face when he brings together the beautiful people in his Harlem universe for fellowship, recognition and a good time.
I heard someone say, “Nobody does it like Vito.”
I am a witness. They were telling the truth.
Somebody Might See You
My father taught me another lesson that became the foundation of the Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards.
He said:
“Donnie, if you get out there and try, somebody might see you, and they might even help you. But you will never know if you never try.”
I got out there and tried.
In the early days of BMORENews.com, my website was ugly.
I can admit that.
It was ugly, but it was mine. I had built it on my own. It was evidence that I was trying to create something, even though I did not yet know everything required to take it to the next level.
A New Yorker living in Baltimore named Julian B. Moore saw my ugly website.
Julian, who has since passed, did not laugh at what I had created. He saw what I was trying to build.
He helped me. He taught me. More importantly, he taught me how to fish better for myself.
In 2003, Julian showed me what a next-level website could look like. He showed me what video could look like on BMORENews.com at a time when most independent publishers were not thinking seriously about online video.
My father was right.
I got out there and tried. Somebody saw me, and that person helped me.
The Awards Became More Than Marketing
The Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards began, in part, as a marketing strategy.
I understood that recognizing entrepreneurs could bring people together, build relationships and introduce BMORENews.com to new audiences.
That is marketing. I have never been ashamed of that.
But somewhere along the journey, my soul required the awards to become something more.
They became more than some damn awards.
Each award had to mean something. Each honoree had to be treated as someone special. Each person needed an individual moment to shine.
These were no longer simply names to place on a program or people to use in promoting an event. They were real people with real dreams, working in real time to build their empires.
I recognized myself in them.
I knew what it felt like to get out there with something imperfect and hope somebody would see the effort. I knew what it meant to work when nobody was watching, make mistakes, learn and keep building.
Through these awards, I wanted to become the person my father described.
I wanted to see people trying.
Every Joe Manns Black Wall Street Award says:
We see you.
We see you working.
We see you building.
We see what other people may have overlooked.
You can win. Just stay at it.
Ninety percent of life is simply showing up. Sometimes, people need to know that somebody noticed when they did.
If You Take a Step
My father also told me:
“If you take a step toward God, God will take a step toward you—and His steps are bigger than yours.”
That is what this journey has taught me.
My step was saying that I wanted to take my work to New York.
God’s step was placing the right people along the road.
My step was continuing to bring the Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards to Harlem.
God’s step was sending people like Odessa Hopkins and Vito Jones.
My step was going to Harlem to honor other people.
God’s step was having Harlem turn around and honor me.
We sometimes delay pursuing a vision because we cannot see the entire road. But God never asked us to see every mile. He asks us to take the step directly in front of us.
And His steps are bigger than ours.
That has always been my faith.
If God gives you the vision, God will give you the provision.
Provision does not always arrive as money. Sometimes, provision arrives as a person.
I Love Harlem
Let me say this plainly: I love Harlem.
I love the brownstones.
Oh, my God, do I love those brownstones.
I took picture after picture because each block seemed to carry another piece of history. Those buildings do not merely sit there. They speak. They make you wonder who climbed those steps, who sat beside those windows, and what dreams were developed inside those rooms.
Harlem is the heart of Black American culture.
This is the soil that nurtured the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen, Wallace Thurman, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps and Alain Locke helped establish Harlem as an intellectual and creative capital of the Black world.
They produced literature, poetry and criticism that changed how Black people saw ourselves—and how the world was forced to see us.
Then there is the Apollo.
I had to get my picture in front of that legendary theater. How could I come to Harlem and not stand beneath the name of the place where Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and so many other giants made history?
I also took a picture outside the Renaissance New York Harlem Hotel at the historic Victoria Theater development. The same development houses The Apollo Stages at The Victoria—the Apollo’s first physical expansion in its 90-year history.
That is Harlem: protecting its history while creating new platforms for the next generation.
The Streets Carry History
Over the years, I have learned a little something about St. Nicholas Avenue, Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Malcolm X Boulevard—in that order.
I have spent time driving and walking those streets. I do not claim to know Harlem like a native, but I am no longer a complete stranger to its rhythm.
The street names eventually stop being words on a map and become places connected to memories.
And look at those names:
St. Nicholas.
Frederick Douglass.
Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
Malcolm X.
In Harlem, even the directions carry history.
Jazz Found Me on Lenox Avenue
The night before the ceremony, I headed to Jacob Restaurant on Malcolm X Boulevard—Lenox Avenue to native New Yorkers.
Jacob’s is one of my regular stops in Harlem. I primarily go for the jerk, but that night I had beef short ribs that were falling off the bone.
Good God Almighty.
On my way there, I heard live jazz.
It sounded as though the music might have been rising out of the subway, but I did not stop to investigate. I was headed to Jacob’s.
That is Harlem.
Sometimes, you do not have to purchase a ticket or enter a nightclub to encounter the culture.
The music finds you on the street.
Harriet Kissed Me Goodbye
I cannot go to 125th Street without taking a picture in front of the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. statue.
I also photographed the Frederick Douglass statue at Frederick Douglass Circle, the northwestern gateway to Central Park and Harlem.
But as I was leaving St. Nicholas Avenue and heading back toward the George Washington Bridge, God had one more gift waiting for me.
I passed the Harriet Tubman Memorial.
Harriet Tubman—besides my mother and my two grandmothers—is my unquestioned hero.
She came straight out of Maryland, yet there she stood in Harlem, cast in bronze at the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue, West 122nd Street, and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.
I had not planned to see her. I was simply driving out of Harlem when she appeared.
In that moment, it felt as though Harriet Tubman kissed me goodbye.
Harlem Saw Me
I did not go to Harlem asking to be honored.
I arrived in my familiar role: the giver, the convener, the publisher, and the person placing the spotlight on somebody else.
Then Vito Jones and Senator Cordell Cleare interrupted that pattern.
They made the giver receive.
Plenty of people have accepted awards, publicity, introductions and access to my platform. Far fewer have stopped to ask:
Who is honoring Doni?
Who is documenting what he has built?
Who is pouring back into the man who continually pours into other people?
That is what Harlem did.
The proclamation was more than a document. It was visible evidence that the years had been witnessed.
Harlem was saying:
We see what you have been doing.
We recognize your consistency.
Your work reached us.
Your love did not disappear into the air.
That is what brought tears to my eyes.
My father told me that if I got out there and tried, somebody might see me.
Julian B. Moore saw me in 2003.
For years afterward, I used my platform to see other people.
Then Vito Jones, Senator Cordell Cleare, and the people of Harlem saw me.
I came carrying awards. Harlem sent me home carrying something my father told me they do not sell in stores.
Love.
DMX said it best:
“Give me unconditional love, and I’ll give it right back.”
Thank you, Odessa Hopkins, for making the introduction.
Thank you, Senator Cordell Cleare, for the proclamation and your service to Harlem.
Thank you, Harlem, Inc., for receiving me with such extraordinary hospitality.
Thank you, Vito Jones, for your leadership, professionalism, loyalty, and love.
And thank you, Harlem, for setting me up.
You got me.
Now, I am going to give that love right back.
First and foremost, thank You, God, for traveling mercies.
Hallelujah.
