A Shift in Perspective
Over 10 years ago, a garden that was once a vacant lot stood out amongst the rugged housing and concrete dwellings that lined the residential streets of Back of the Yards in Chicago.
Class of 2022 Cadet Zorian Flowers called the enclosure a ‘good sized garden.’ It was surrounded by a silver fence that was usually locked. It had a single walkway down the middle where children would pass through as soon as the gates were opened.
Flowers recollected a tall wooden arch in the garden. There were empty plots for the vegetables on either side of the arch — about six of them were on the left and right sides.
The children would plant vegetables, then eat sandwiches and drink juice on a hot summer day.
That garden did more than provide a momentary distraction for onlookers. Instead, it drew in a 10-year-old Flowers who needed to see a different perspective that contradicted the disorder, violence and chaos he was regularly exposed to.
“It allowed me to see some good in the neighborhood. Everyone was happy in the garden. I mean, it was almost like an escape,” Flowers said. “You walked in; everyone was happy to be there.”
Flowers had one woman to thank for that unforgettable experience.
“Everyone in the neighborhood knows her by ‘Miss Mary’ and she would always come over and take care of all the kids in the community,” he said.
Since the ‘90s, she would facilitate clothing drives, donate turkeys for Thanksgiving, and, to this day, occasionally calls Flowers’s mother to catch up on current events.
Flowers would engross himself in stories of Miss Mary and sifted through old photo albums that showcased the kindly paragon uplifting her community.
“I looked up to Miss Mary, who has always given back, who always saw the positive aspect of everybody’s character, and who knew everyone’s name,” Flowers explained. “When she knew that people were struggling, her mindset was always focused on how she can help them, and I think that is probably the biggest character attribute I pulled from her.”
Thus, the knowledge Flowers absorbed, throughout his youth, from positive role models like Miss Mary would eventually reap fruits. What’s more important, the perilous moments he experienced would teach him a powerful lesson about the fragility of life.
For Flowers, he is among the many cadets at the U.S. Military Academy who received the Henry O. Flipper award for overcoming adversity during arduous circumstances. However, his journey to reach this pedestal in his life was fraught with avoiding gang violence, living in destitution, and doing everything he could to avoid becoming a misguided statistic.
A Product of his Environment
Mixed feelings swelled within Flowers as he thought of his hometown.
On one end, the Back of the Yards was a fun place to be while growing up. He enjoyed his friends and his siblings. He enjoyed hanging out until nine or 10 at night, playing tag in the street. Walks in the park were relaxing excursions. However, the contrary moments left enough of an impression to realize what was at stake at an early age.
Raised by his single mom and grandmother, Flowers lived an itinerant lifestyle with two brothers and two sisters, receiving eviction notices and moving from one home to another.
His father was a known drug dealer at the time. When he was a boy, Flowers remembered riding through the neighborhood with his parents as a police car tailgated his father’s car to a halt. They arrested him afterward for narcotics possession. His mother, Zelinka Bunch, would eventually bail him out.
“I remember my mom bailing him out then taking him to a place to go file for a job,” Flowers said. “Then, my uncle, on my mom’s side, got him a job, and my dad worked there for a while. Whenever we’d be getting up in the morning for school, my dad would be coming in from working a night shift.”
His parents would eventually separate, and on the night that Flowers’s father didn’t come home, his mother wanted him and the rest of his siblings sleeping with her.
“She was just sad ... I remember my mom crying that night and then the next thing I remember was on weekends, we’d just go to my dad’s house, but I would barely maintain connection with my father,” Flowers added.
Outside of domestic hardship, Flowers would soon learn how treacherous life was on any given day or evening, navigating through gutted tenements or roaming about near storefronts.
One night around 7 p.m., community members like James, who looked out for Flowers and the rest of the kids in the neighborhood, would find himself in a life-threatening situation.
“One of the nicest guys in the neighborhood. James was in his late 20s, early 30s, had a daughter who was probably about 8, and another kid who was an adolescent,” Flowers said.
James had walked to the store with his brother. Flowers had family friends who lived a block away from the grocery store. He and his friends were playing outside their home, and James’s brother came back with blood on his shirt.
“James had just gotten stabbed in the neck. Everyone was yelling and screaming, his daughter crying. A crowd of people ran back to the grocery store to witness the extent of his injuries,” Flowers added. “On his way to the hospital, he died in the ambulance.”
James was the type of man who’d always look out for the people in the community, Flowers added. If he went to the store, he would come back with something for the kids.
“He had a good heart for everyone,” Flowers said. “I can still see James’ face to this day because he was just one of the nicest guys ever.”
And yet, the neighborhood, for all the good people who tried to make a difference, would produce individuals set on creating five square miles of turmoil and tragedy in the Back of the Yards.
“If you never grew up in that environment, you would never understand what you’re watching,” Flowers explained. “Like seeing your older brother shoot at a car at 10 years old and seeing how he thinks it’s OK to do that, being stopped by gangbangers asking what gang you’re in — just certain things that most kids don’t have to grow up thinking about. Frightening is how I’d say it is living in southside Chicago — frightening, but it’s also very enlightening.”
Flowers would eventually face the loss of his older brother to gun violence. Yet, despite the hardship, Flowers had the support of people who understood the nature of his world and were driven to guide him to a better place.
The Power of Words and Resiliency
Supporters like Susan Tossi, a Language Arts teacher at Richard J. Daley Elementary Academy, took the onus of cultivating Flowers and many other middle school students like him who dealt with similar disadvantages.
“Zorian is a seeker who is making his own path. He has the innate ability to not just follow a dream, but make his dream come true,” Tossi said. “We can all be dreamers, but he has that ability to find the path that is going to get him there. He has that drive.”
Tossi understood Flowers’s plight. She understood his case needed to be handled with care and a keen sense of mindfulness. For she knew what the alternative could’ve been for him. She attended seven funerals of former male students ages 13 through 15 who had been shot.
Flowers needed a productive escape, and Tossi provided it through the pages of a book.
She believes in the power of words. She understands the impact of the phrases, ‘good job,’ ‘keep trying,’ or ‘you’re punished,’ and what it can mean for a child’s development.
Tossi spent 21 years mentoring and helping students find their voice through the literary word.
In her classroom, eighth graders acquaint themselves with George Orwell and his books “Animal Farmˮ and “1984.ˮ So, to Tossi’s delight, it isn’t a surprise when she finds a student who has difficulty putting a book down. “They get involved in reading a good novel ... and suddenly, I’m telling them ‘put the book down, it’s time for lunch,’” Tossi said. “They’re just so passionate about their reading ... I like the empowerment that you can give to children when they learn to read, and it helps them become more self-confident.”
Tossi would place students in groups and select a book for each group to read. She remembered Flowers’s fervor for reading and the reading group she assigned him to. Tossi labeled this particular group her ‘high achievers.’
In this group, Flowers and the rest of the members had the occasional perk of picking their own book to read.
“Somedays, I would allow them to pick on their own book, and they would always have these big, thick novels that they would have to have to read, but he would always come in, and he made sure that he had read the most pages in the group,” Tossi chuckled. “He would always come into class and put his book down on his desk and say, ‘I read up to this page last night. What page did you guys read up to?ʼ”
Every day, at 8 a.m., Flowers would come into class and have a thought-provoking discussion with his fellow students about the book they read. School was his sanctuary. His home away from home. Yet and still, school could never wholly shield him from the reality he would have to return to.
In 2013, The R.D.E. Academy stood across the street from Cornell Square Park, where a mass shooting took place.
“Thirteen people were shot in the park, and one of our students, he was five years old, was shot. Nobody died,” Tossi said.
Four men came into the park with AK-47s and started mercilessly unloading rounds in response to what prosecutors said was an act of revenge after a quarrel with gang rivals.
Regardless of the danger, her desire to safeguard the children with knowledge never waned. Like her father before her, who fought in World War II, she understood the significance of service and how it could impact the community. Thus, through the tutelage of Tossi and other teachers like her, Flowers readied himself for the next step.
After graduating from the R.D.E Academy, Flowers attended West Chicago Community High School. The school’s prelaw program piqued his interest, and they also had the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps elective program.
“I thought, ‘these are two things that I want. I think I’ll enjoy it.’ But I got there, and it was like the wild wild west,” Flowers said. “I mean, we were on the bus one day, and some kids were getting off the bus, and this guy just started punching a kid for no reason ... knocked one of his teeth out.”
Flowers took immediate action and searched for other high schools.
“I thought, ‘I don’t want to be somewhere where every day there’s a fight,ʼ” he said. “At the school, I was obviously learning a lot. The teachers were fine, but it was just the environment. It was the same environment I was in when I was in the streets ... so I transferred.”
What’s more, domestic issues in the household devolved to a point where his mother could no longer care for him and his siblings, so his grandmother took ownership and raised her grandkids as best she could.
She got up every morning and took the bus to arrive at work around 5:30 a.m. and didn’t get back until 6 p.m.
She would stay in the basement while her grandkids shared three upstairs bedrooms, with one mattress per room.
“This time, there were seven of us. Some of us would sleep on the floor, some on the bed and what I got from that was hard work,” Flowers said. “Just seeing my grandma go to work every day at her age was inspirational. I have never seen anyone work harder than my grandma.”
And so, he drudged away at finding a new high school and landed on the new Back of the Yards College Preparatory High School, which opened in 2013. This newly formed institution would be his saving grace, and it wasn’t too far from his grandmother’s house.
In my second semester, during my freshman year, I went to BOYCP High School, where all of my friends within the community went,” Flowers said. “My class was the first graduating class, and this was just phenomenal. I mean, we had brand new teachers, a brand new facility, the principal was amazing, and they loved all the kids and believed they can all go off to college.”
Flowers added the numbers BOYCP High School was putting out for people getting accepted to college and receiving college scholarships was just phenomenal. It was unheard of in that neighborhood.
“The school had a swim team, water polo team, baseball team, softball team, basketball team and a football team. You just didn’t get that in the Southside of Chicago,” he said.
Instructors like his former high school football coach, Shemus Murphy, noticed how reserved Flowers was during his first and second years.
“He was a receptive kid. He was always reading the room, taking it all in, and he was intelligent,” Murphy said. “He progressed and developed through academics and through the football program. It was a real treat to watch him grow. Not only as a football player but as a student and a young man, most importantly.”
By the time Flowers was a senior, he was one of the most decorated students in the building, Murphy added.
Through the help and support of Aaron Ortiz, a college career coach, Flowers received a nomination and was able to pick which service academy he wanted to enroll in. He chose West Point and began his four-year tenure.
Now, as a cadet command sergeant major who is months away from receiving his diploma from the academy, Flowers reflected on the hard work and unyielding drive he pulled from women like Miss Mary, his mother, grandmother and Mrs. Tossi.
“In May, he will join Henry Flipper and the heroes of this institution in the long line of firsts as the first member of his family to graduate from college, and not just any college, but the U.S. Military Academy,” the Secretary of the Army Honorable Christine Wormuth, said.
Flowers is set to receive a bachelor’s degree in Applied Statistics and Data Science and then branch Field Artillery.