Tamir Rice would have been celebrating his 18th birthday this week. We talked to 31 male teens turning 18 this year about growing up Black in America. Here’s what some of them had to say. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/06/22/these-black-teens-turning-18-tamir-rices-america/5248634002/

Emo Ismail thinks about what might happen if he was killed by police, and worries his family would have to watch his final moments play over and over on the news.

"You haven't had enough?" Mykel Alvin asked God after one friend died from suicide and another was shot at a funeral. He knows that every memory with someone could be the last.

Marvin Jordan watched the George Floyd protests, but he tries to not let the news get to him. "It’s like history is, like, repeating itself. We’ve been doing this for a long time,” he says. “I just wish it could just stop."

Each time a high-profile deadly interaction unfolded on the news between a Black man and police, Deven Bruner, a National Honor Society vice president, would get a sit-down from his mom. "You have to act a certain way, so you don’t end up like them, in a coffin."

"Why can’t people look at me and be inspired?" Mardre Sykes, attending the University of Oregon in the fall, said.

"I have something to fight for,” Joshua Heron says. “I have people to fight for.”

Xavien Reid plans to one day start a mentoring program for children. “I don’t want them to feel alone ... to feel like there’s nothing out there for them,” he says.

William Brown loves airplanes and dreams of becoming an aerospace engineer. His favorite superhero is Iron Man, an engineer who can fly. “I ain’t wasting no more time,’’ he says. “I see the door that’s open.”

Haleem Stevens watched the video of Ahmaud Arbery getting gunned down by white men in Georgia. He refused to watch it a second time. “I understand that’s going to happen now. I’m trying to change it. I’m worried about how many people will die before I’m able to change it.”

“I shouldn't have to fear for my life just because of the way I look,” Savion Briggs said. He wants to show other Black youths how to have "pride in our skin color and that we can actually become something great."

Amari Ajamu will fulfill a lifelong dream this fall, becoming the fourth-generation family member to attend Grambling State University, a historically Black university in Louisiana. He was accepted on scholarship to play snare on the drumline.

Jonathan Gregory has a plan to bring economic power to Black communities like his own in Chicago. “Anything new that’s put into the area is oftentimes just gentrification. So I want to bring businesses into the Black community and make it more prosperous than it already is.”

Read more about growing up Black in America from the teens we interviewed. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/06/22/these-black-teens-turning-18-tamir-rices-america/5248634002/