Brian Willingham

About Brian Willingham

Willingham is a 1983 graduate of Flint's Central High School, former US Army Sergeant, husband and father of three children.He lost contact with his own father at a young age and was without a real male role model till age fourteen when his mother remarried.He has taken that background and turned it into an active life that includes a myriad of community activities including organizing after-school activity programs, father/son events, and promoting his book.

Book signings include displays of his photographs and readings of his poetry accompanied by his dynamic social reflections on life and it's meanings.

Brian is a very popular speaker at police departments and social groups.His topics include racial diversity training, where he delves into the historical background of the legal and social history of racial segregation and the law.As a consultant for The Institute for Leadership and Diversity at Lake Michigan Community College in Benton Harbor, Brian is currently developing a cultural diversity curriculum designed specifically for police officers.

Brian is a gifted speaker who has a deep connection with the communities he serves.Part sermon, part entertainment, part art, his presentations are always dynamic and engaging.

As executive producer of the "What's Reading Got To Do With It!"program on F.A.C.T. Channel 17 on Comcast from Scott Elementary School, Brian is a positive force in the educational of children.The program features book reviews from kids and is great fun!

Links to more information about Brian (click here).

Artist, author and Flint police Officer Brian Willingham reads to a group of Bryant Elementary children during March is Reading month.Willingham said he likes to spend as much time as possible with kids."They need black male role models," he said.

A Word from the Editor about "Soul of a Black Cop"

If this white publisher has learned nothing more from my association with my client and dear friend Brian Willingham, I have learned that racism still rages in our country, and inner-city Flint, Michigan, is an inescapable vortex, one of many microcosms of proof.
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Brian Willingham, 39, a Flint police officer, remembers the Flint community education programs that meant so much to him growing up without a father figure.He wishes the programs were around today for kids.That experience inspired him to volunteer with area children.Willingham is also an artist and author and published his second book, "Soul of a Black Cop," in 2004."I really wrote the book for people in human-service types of fields," he said."I want people to see the city I saw.I would have been in shock and speechless if people would have told me the things I was going to see as a police officer.I hope my book will bring a greater sense of cross-cultural understanding.Sometimes the best way to do that is to show people this is what people are going through so it helps us better help each other."Willingham and his wife, Rhonda, have been married15 years and have three children.
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Willingham sees beyond the cruelties of everyday life to the deeper sickness of a society that doesn't realize its own addiction to war is reproduced in the violence on its city streets.He writes gracefully, with a generous spirit.
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I found [Soul of a Black Cop ],written by Mr. Brian Willingham, profoundly moving in its description, compassion, and deep-felt emotion.Mr. Willingham is a patrol officer in an urban police department ravaged by budget cuts in a city faced with economic decay and the social problems that come with it.The book is a series of vignettes that describe his encounters with his fellow citizens while on patrol.The vignettes presented come alive from the direct and stark descriptions offered by Mr. Willingham.They become meaningful when he connects the job tasks to his own experiences as an African-American police officer trying to find his place in American society as a veteran, black man, father, and in the end, a compassionate human being.Mr. Willingham could easily have included lurid details that would pique the interests of many.Rather, he gives the reader the human side of every encounter and a little bit of himself in the process.He gives humanity to people and situations when most of us would blame the victim or assure ourselves that this is not our world.Yet, as Mr. Willingham so aptly demonstrates, this is our world and we cannot sweep it under the rug.He correctly, but subtly, connects the human tragedies he sees every day to larger social issues like institutional racism and social class.At first glance the vignettes seem like a catalogue of experiences, but considered a little more deeply they paint a self-portrait of a man struggling with his place in the two worlds in which he lives.On the one hand he is one of the many people he encounters everyday, but on the other hand, he is the front line for people on the other side who count on him to keep these worlds apart.
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While reading [it], I found myself visualizing the stories told by Brian Willingham, and sympathizing with the realities in which many urban children live.I was frustrated by the fact that, although filmmakers fictionalize these circumstances for entertainment, many individuals live in these predicaments with their children who are expected to succeed while being reared in in these environments.I believe anyone who has an interest in urban children should read Soul of a Black Cop.I believe anyone who has an interest in impacting the social conditions in urban communities should read [it].I believe university and college professors should require those with a major in education, social work, sociology, psychology, criminal justice, or other social services concentrations to read [it].The riveting stories told in this book will certainly help them understand the realities their clients face.Brian Willingham should be highly commended for authoring this book.

Brian Willingham

Flint Club -- Brian Willingham
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Brian Willingham
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Brian Willingham
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Brian Willingham is a Flint police officer, a published author, and an active volunteer at Scott Elementary School.He recently received the President's Service Award from President Bush himself.In all aspects of his work Brian is a dynamic force for positive change in Flint.
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Brian Willingham has become something of a celebrity in Flint.He's the cop with the soul of a poet.He followed his first book of poetry and photography, Thunder Enlightenment with a memoir about his work as a police officer in Flint called Soul of a Black Cop.But being a writer is only one facet of this dynamic man.Brian was recently honored with the President's Volunteer Service Award for his work at Scott Elementary School in Flint.He received the award from President Bush himself during his recent visit to Michigan.

While neither Cleaves nor Martin officially supported the recall effort against board President James Campbell and Lily Tamez Kehoe, they shared the same concerns as Brian Willingham, the Flint police officer who initiated the effort.
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Willingham, who ran unsuccessfully for the school board in June, said Tuesday he was stopping the recall effort because he thought the community was too splintered over the drive to recall Mayor Woodrow Stanley.

Brian Willingham, 1884 Springfield, a City of Flint Police Officer with the Patrol Operations Bureau.

Seeking a two-year term are: