Nearly 200 members and guests gathered at the Boys & Girls Club of Fall River on Bedford Street to hear Darryl Williams tell how he was shot in a racially-motivated attack at a football half-time in Charlestown, MA, over twenty years ago. Speaking at a special assembly on November 6, 2008, Williams recounted the incident that left him paralyzed from the waist down and the attitude that defined his life from that moment on. When he asked his mother why he was shot, she responded that it was because he was black. Rather than responding in anger, he chose to go on with his life and to tell his story to continue his education, eventually graduating from the Massachusetts Hospital School in Canton. Williams took questions from the audience, as he has done to thousands of young people as a motivational speaker, including questions about the effects of his paralysis to his feelings about those that shot him. Click here for the Herald News article about the event. Click here to read about other events at the Boys and Girls Club. For more information about the Club and its programs, contact Executive Director Peter McCarthy at 508-672-6340.
 

(Top row, left and center) Eric Blais, Zakary Souza and Damian St. Rock await the arrival of Mr. Williams. (Top row, right) Boys and Girls Club Executive Director Peter McCarthy introduces Mr. Williams to the assembly of club members and others. (Middle row) Mr. Williams speaks to teens and others before taking questions. (Bottom row, center) Boys and Girls Club staff member David Curtis, Board Member John Feitleberg and his wife, Polly, listen to Williams tell his story.