How a George Wythe senior chose to get better and make his own life decision after years of struggling to find himself | Richmond Local News

Many of the students at George Wythe High School know what it’s like to come from families struggling with housing and food insecurity, poor health and educational outcomes, and the feeling that politicians and authorities don’t care what happens to them.

The teacher of that class, John Conroy, said his goal is to get students to think critically about how it got to be this way. He wants to empower kids to advocate for both themselves and their communities.

That’s why Conroy was proud when Demario told U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., during a visit to his elective Real Richmond class in February that he and his family have experienced homelessness — and that they still have trouble finding stable housing years later.

Demario, who just a few weeks earlier got accepted into Hampden-Sydney College on a full academic scholarship, said he’s afraid of what could happen to his parents and three siblings after he leaves.

“I’m just wondering if it’s going to get better finding housing in this community,” he told Kaine, a former Richmond mayor. “I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through.”

Demario’s experiences highlight how gentrification and the growing lack of affordable housing has impacted the life of one Richmond family, but it is far from an isolated story. In a city that had the second highest eviction rate in the U.S. in 2016, and where 40% of the city’s schools have not had a major renovation in 50 years, Demario and his family have personally experienced those realities.

His mother, Denae Lonzer, says those issues are similar to the problems that bedeviled Richmond when she was a student in city schools more than 20 years ago. Beyond housing and education, she knows firsthand how racial disparities in maternal health, lack of early childhood education, gun violence and mental health challenges can impact people.

One of her biggest fears, she says, is her children learning “how real” life can become if they’re confronted with the same trials she has faced when they become adults.

Through it all, she’s always tried to lift up her children and see the best in them. Demario says she is his inspiration.

When times were hardest for his family years ago, Denae often reminded Demario and his siblings that their whole lives are ahead of them.

While dealing with challenges all their lives, the family has lived in many parts of the city in an ongoing search for stable, affordable housing. It’s taken them to Church Hill, Broad Rock Boulevard, Manchester and Highland Park.

Each of those neighborhoods, according to the maps Conroy showed his class, are ember red and orange, indicating high levels of poverty. In another map, the neighborhoods where Black households make up the majority are shaded lime green.

Where his family lives now — a three-bedroom house off of Richmond Highway, behind the Philip Morris cigarette plant — is no different.

There are other modest single-family homes surrounded by trees along their street, but the people here live off a long-neglected suburban highway that the city, in the name of racial progress and healing, recently stripped of an old Confederate title.

The six-lane roadway is lined with abandoned storefronts, Hispanic restaurants, fast-food chains, convenience stores, old warehouses and auto shops with lots full of used cars and junkers. Unlike the neighborhoods that aren’t colored red and green in the maps from Conroy’s lesson, there are no pharmacies or grocery stores along this stretch of road.

Rather than taking the school bus, Demario wakes up around 7 a.m. every day to catch a GRTC bus to class. It’s part of a routine he developed as his family has moved a few times while he’s been in high school.

He attended many different schools before he got to Wythe in ninth grade. He was almost expelled at a couple. When his family relocated to Northside a few years ago, Demario chose to stay at Wythe because it’s where he found friends and teachers who supported him.

But he’s decided to leave the city where he grew up. It wasn’t an easy choice. But it’s what he wants. To reach this point, he chose to get better.

In the story that he tells about his life, there’s old Demario and new Demario.

Says Demario: “Time flies. I never thought I would make it this far. I thought I would, like, be forgotten. I always thought I could be average. Now I feel like I want to be more. I want to be greater than myself.”

He chalks up his transformation to his closest friends and high school athletics, specifically football.

He found his three best friends at Binford Middle School: Deja, Jahquez and Josef. They would horse around and have fun at school. They liked playing many of the same video games, both old and new franchises like Fortnite, Super Mario and Sonic. They all shared an interest in anime shows like Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and One Piece.

“They are my best friends in the entire world – the universe. Without them I wouldn’t be here today,” Demario says. “They showed me that you can be your own person.”

They are typical teenagers. They talk loudly, make dirty and inappropriate jokes, and poke fun at each other. It can sometimes come across as mean, but there’s love between them. “You know we’re family,” Josef tells Demario.

And when Demario needed them, they stood up to his bullies. His friends encouraged him to have a spine. But the latter was hard for Demario, a young Black man who now stands at 6 feet, 1 inch tall and weighs around 360 pounds. 

He knew that getting into fights could land him in a heap of trouble. He was aware it could create problems for his mom. It happened before and he resolved to not go there again.

Their quartet split up at the end of middle school. While Demario went to Wythe, the other three enrolled at Thomas Jefferson High School.

Demario spent his freshmen year focusing on school work and adjusting to a new school without his best friends. He decided to go out for the football team the following year. His large build suited him as a lineman on both offense and defense.

He said his first few practices were a bit awkward. He apologized to kids he knocked down. His coaches and teammates praised him, helping Demario overcome his timidness.

Entering high school, Demario struggled to socialize with his peers. His football coach Jimmy Hart said that may be hard for people to imagine now as he’s matured and gained confidence. 

“They miss the person by looking at him and thinking he should already be full of himself,” he said. “They miss his genuineness.”

His coaches say he’s evolved into a leader, gassing up his teammates, often giving advice and words of praise or encouragement to his fellow athletes.

Conroy, who also coaches Demario on the track team, says he does the same in the classroom, even with kids he doesn’t know well.

At his last track meet of the year, where he hit a new personal record throwing a shot put 35 feet, Demario talked easily with kids from other schools, some of whom also played football in the fall. They chatted about which schools had the worst field conditions and their favorite moments from the past season.

“Not a single day goes by where I don’t encounter Demario checking in on people or helping them out,” Conroy says. “I just know whatever he’s doing … whether it’s a fun hobby, a volunteer thing or his job or career, he’s going to be helping people the rest of his life because that’s just who he is.”

Demario says he plans to try out for the Hampden-Sydney football team and join as a walk-on. His mom proudly wears a team T-shirt often, but reminds him that his worth and confidence comes from more than being an athlete.

“I don’t agree with the football at all. [Your] brain is too valuable,” she tells him. “You give football too much credit. You brought yourself out of your shell.”

Denae’s four children mean the world to her. The choices and mistakes they make can frustrate her, but they are her everything.

She wasn’t sure if her first child, Gianna, would make it when she was born premature, weighing only 1 pound, 3 ounces. Gianna spent 88 days in the hospital before Denae could bring her home. Many of Denae’s relatives were afraid to hold such a tiny and fragile being.

It was a crucible for Denae, who had just graduated high school the year before and was three weeks from her 19th birthday when Gianna was born. Denae almost died too, nearly becoming one of the hundreds of Black women who die each year giving birth, at a rate three times higher than white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Denae’s confidence as a parent grew from there. She had two more children within the next few years, her boys Demario and Danny.

She started to fall into debt and dealing with financial problems because she had stopped working when Gianna was born, but she did what she could to scrape by and make a life with her kids. Even if she had to put aside aspirations of a music career, inspired by her years singing as a young girl, she found joy in being a mom.

It wasn’t easy though, as she feared her children could be randomly shot while they were living in Whitcomb Court, one of the city’s public housing communities.

Historically the neighborhood has been notorious for violent crime, especially in the mid-1990s, when the city recorded a high of 160 homicides in 1994. Last year there were six homicides there, tying Mosby Court, another public housing community, for the most slayings in a single neighborhood.

Gun violence hit close to home throughout Denae’s life. She named her first son after a 16-year-old cousin who died in a shooting close to where they live now in South Richmond.

When Demario was born, Denae promised to make sure her boy would get to live the life that was robbed of Quintel. 

After generations of other tragedies and inequities, Denae has faith that her son will break at least one cycle of the countless curses she said has befallen her family.

“This boy is going to graduate,” Denae says. “He’s going to accomplish something.”

Denae sheltered her children when they were growing up in the projects.

Even in such a hardened environment the kids could melt her heart. Even when they misbehaved, like the time they broke an antique dresser, she can’t help but laugh at the memory of Demario and his little brother Danny explaining that they had turned it into a pirate ship.

Demario was 5 years old when he woke up one morning and half of the things in his house were gone.

Not sure where the television and some of his toys went, he grabbed his cherished plush plane and made his way outside. There he found what he was looking for thrown in what looked like a red cargo container. Someone stopped him from retrieving his belongings.

He clutched his “planey” even closer as his mom ushered him into their car and they left their things behind.

Denae says one of the worst parts about the eviction was losing baby pictures of her children. She also lost high school yearbooks and graduation photos, making it difficult now to show her children what she looked like when she was their age. 

She says it was the worst moment of her life. “It makes you feel not wanted,” she said of the experience.

After losing their home, Denae’s family went on to living out of a car, her mother’s house, motel rooms and a shelter in Petersburg. Denae didn’t want to move her kids to the schools there, so she drove them to Richmond every morning. She always made sure that they got to school because she feared losing custody of them.

Public libraries and parks were a haven. They gave the family someplace to go. Computers with internet access to look for jobs. Books for the kids to read. Trees and playgrounds for fresh air and fun.

Denae says her partner of 14 years, Lewis Davis, the father of her youngest daughter, helped them get through it. Demario, who doesn’t know his father, says Davis has been a positive influence and role model.

“My real dad is Lewis Davis. There’s no one else that could fill that role,” Demario says. “I don’t tell him this, but I’m just glad he raised me.”

Demario said his mother did all she could to make her kids happy. Even when money was tight, she would still buy them small gifts.

Going to bed on inflatable mattresses or in sleeping bags didn’t matter as much whenever the whole family would play a Scooby Doo-themed game of Trouble she bought for Demario. At bedtime, she would read fairytales and tell stories. She told them about how the Lonzers used to own a barbershop in Richmond. She taught them about Martin Luther King Jr.

When things could not seem bleaker, she would put money and handwritten notes underneath their pillows so that they could sleep on their dreams. She prayed by her bedside for them to come true. She would remind her kids that their past would not determine their future, and that they can overcome difficult challenges.

“She always told us that we couldn’t give up no matter what — that that’s what being a Lonzer meant,” Demario said.

Demario started kindergarten at Chimborazo Elementary School a few months after the authorities kicked them out of their home. It was his first time in a structured school setting, as his mom was unable to send him to preschool or a daycare program. His teachers and school administrators were soon calling home and sending reports about him misbehaving.

Demario said he would respond with rage when teachers told him he was doing something wrong. “I always felt like things could be taken away from me. I wanted to fight back. I felt like my anger could be a solution, but it really couldn’t,” Demario says now.

It took him years before he understood what happened to his family right as he was about to start school. “We got evicted. There’s no way to sugarcoat it,” he says. “I didn’t know it at the time.”

Unsure of what to do and at the insistence of school administrators who said Demario had made remarks about harming himself, Denae agreed to send him to the inpatient psychiatric care center at Tucker Pavilion when he was just 5 years old.

He was afraid and confused there. 

“I remember the first day I was there. They strapped me down to a bed and I was trying to get out of it,” he said. “They then injected me with something and I couldn’t move. I was like in a wheelchair getting dragged from one room to another.” 

It was devastating the first time his mom came to see him. When he asked for his coat as the visit was ending, she told him he had to stay.

Demario’s behavior improved little afterward.

When the family moved to a new home soon after, Demario started attending Laburnum Elementary School in Henrico County. Teachers there said he was still misbehaving and sought to remove him, Denae says. He allegedly struck the principal. He went back to Tucker.

It was during his second stay, when he was about 6 or 7 years old, his mom said, that doctors diagnosed him with Asperger’s syndrome, which is now recognized as an autism spectrum disorder.

Demario said he’s tried to forget those experiences in the hospital. But the feelings of shame and regret for the pain he caused his mother, and harm he may have inflicted on others, can’t be erased.

“I lost my fight. I lost everything,” he said of how he felt after leaving the hospital. “I just felt like if I kept my mouth shut, then I’d be fine. That’s why right after I came out, I wanted to go back in because if I went back no one would have to worry about me at all.” 

“I could just be like a mark on the wall that everyone could forget.”

Doctors gave Demario medicine to help him manage his anxieties and other symptoms. It helped in some ways but Demario started to feel it was holding him back when he was about 13.

His mom and the doctors agreed with his decision to stop taking the pills right before he entered high school.

Demario knew he would be applying to colleges at the start of his senior year.

He anticipated applying to Virginia Union University, as he has been in the college preparatory program Upward Bound there over the last couple years. His grandfather also attended Union, so he felt that his family and friends were expecting he might go there and stay in Richmond.

He kept an open mind, though, and applied to five more schools: Virginia Commonwealth University, Norfolk State University, Virginia State University, University of South Carolina and Hampden-Sydney College. He was accepted at each school.

Reviewing his college options, Demario grew enamored with the idea of going to a school in the country.

A Hampden-Sydney catalogue featuring scenic pictures of the college town, about 90 minutes west of Richmond driving, kept his attention. 

The depictions of a university life that included fishing, camping and other outdoor activities reminded him of visits to the James River and summer wilderness camps he attended through after-school programs.

His mom cried when she learned that he earned a full scholarship there.

What made the decision to accept an offer far from home hard is that Demario grounds himself by caring for his loved ones and being around them.

When his friend Deja became anxious about how long it was taking Virginia Union to respond to her application, Demario offered to connect her with a counselor at the Upward Bound program. And when Jahquez learned that he could attend prom just days before the event, Demario had him come over to his house so that they could find a suit for him.

When Demario looks around at home, he sees his younger brother figuring out his own life path ahead of senior year. His little sister, Lenaiya, is about to start middle school. He wants to know they will be OK when he’s not there. 

There’s also the natural apprehension that comes with moving to a different community.

The demographics of the all-male college with no more than 1,000 students share few similarities to the schools he’s attended in Richmond. Teachers sometimes remind that it’s been quite a few years since someone at Wythe enrolled at Hampden-Sydney, which holds the prestigious title of the country’s 10th oldest college, founded in 1775.

The differences weren’t much of a thought for Demario before he visited the campus with his mom. Seeing few other Black people and their interactions with prospective students and their families brought it to mind.

“I had a culture shock myself just walking around with the other parents. I think some of them got mad at me because I didn’t ask about diversity,” Denae says. “What they don’t understand is that he made this decision. And this is the scholarship he has. A lot of them were nudging me saying, ‘make sure he keeps his scholarship.’”

Demario’s strength, one of his would-be superpowers if his life were a Marvel comic book or a Shonen Jump anime, comes from his mother.

“My mom is one of the strongest people I know, just pushing through all she’s been through,” he says. “She’s always there for us. My mom’s amazing.”

Still, Denae has lived in Richmond long enough to see how systemic racism, mismanagement and politics have delayed the city from adequately maintaining or replacing old schools like Wythe, setting a poor example and sending a message to students and their families that they aren’t worthy of investment.

She wonders whether people who might have the power and ability to help are refusing to do so, leaving it up to the those from underprivileged neighborhoods to do it on their own, even if they are disadvantaged because of circumstances that were shaped in part by, at worst, prejudice or, at best, apathy.

“Are they expecting all these children to be superheroes?” she says. “Do they need to go to all the projects and form the Avengers to end crime before they rebuild our schools?”

Those types of thoughts grow louder in her head when she has to figure out how she’ll pay for food and gas when she’s only got $100 left over after covering the $1,300 monthly rent.

She was working three jobs when she became pregnant with her first child. The national healthcare company where she’s worked for nearly six years recently promoted her to the role of subject matter expert. But she and her husband still have a hard time making ends meet.

Even if they can find an affordable place to live, there’s always a possibility that a landlord might not renew their lease to sell the house to an investor, who then might flip it at a higher cost and drive up home prices across the neighborhood. The average rent for a two-bedroom house the Richmond metro area last fall was $1,340. Two years ago it was about $1,130.

Demario says he’s seen how that pressure affects his mother. She’s not invincible, even if she says perseverance and resilience are not options for them. They need those traits to survive.

Helping Demario put on the black suit jacket and jade green bow tie and vest he rented for prom, Denae quipped that her son would need some pointers and greater self-awareness if he is to have any hope of looking sharp in college.

“I’m going to get you a full-length mirror because I’m so scared,” she said as she used folded over pieces of tape to remove specks of lint from his jacket.

She chastised him when he mistakenly called the pocket square that came with his suit “a napkin.” Her fuse was shorter when he said the name of the venue wrong.

“Hippodrome! That’s a historic building. You’re going to need to get the name right,” she said of the theater in Jackson Ward, where Demario and his friends danced and strutted on the same floor where legendary Black artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Richmond’s own Bill “Bojangles” Robinson shaped the neighborhood’s legacy as the “Harlem of the South.”

“You look so cool!” his little sister Lenaiya said as their mom moved on to brushing and styling his hair.

Denae kept her attention trained on Demario as he asked if he could borrow a pair of his dad’s sunglasses. “Do you remember when your brand new glasses floated down the river?” she said. Demario recalled the memory. “Mhm. Turn around,” she replied as she finished primping him.

Three weeks later, Demario’s family cheered as he approached the graduation stage on top of home plate at The Diamond. Smiling from ear to ear, Denae looked to her other son, Danny, and asked if he would be ready to graduate next year.

Denae fears that her children could go through the same hardships she went through. But in moments like these she’s full of hope. “I prayed that they would be well rounded so they wouldn’t have to make the decisions I did,” she says. “I think the sky’s the limit for Demario.”

Demario pictures a few ways life can go from here.

He has fun imagining a professional football career starting with an unorthodox path to the NFL Draft or studying abroad in Japan. His primary ambition is to become a veterinarian, but he wonders what it would be like as a lawyer.

He wants his friends to graduate and succeed. He wants his parents to be happy. He also wants a good life for his teachers, so they can inspire and guide students like him to better lives.

Those are his dreams. It’s OK if they aren’t perfectly defined yet, he says, as he tries to take things one day at a time and cherish the moments with the people around him now.

For everything his mom, dad, friends and mentors have have given him, Demario feels he owes it to them to meet their expectations. He feels especially bound by duty to support his mom and make her proud.

He’s learned that doing so means he must be brave and believe — both in her and himself — even if that means leaving a nest that she has worked tirelessly to keep together.

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s still scary. I’m still imagining the last goodbye hug when I go off to college. It’s going to be a lot of tears that day, but I know I’m going to do fine,” he says.

“If they have faith in me, I have faith in myself.”