Justbeing. A Danger.
A Challenge A mission.

I was in the first grade, and I had just been given my first bicycle.
One afternoon, my sisters and I were out riding after a bike lesson. We were on our way home, and I was feeling the adrenaline pedaling down the Sanford, Florida, streets.
Suddenly, I was blindsided. Out of nowhere, a large dog leapt at me and knocked me to the ground. The dog barked and bit. I was being attacked.
I tried using the bike as a shield. My sister yelled and tried to scare the dog away. Then I saw a white couple run toward their pet and try to restrain him.
I was on the ground, bloody.
"Are you ok?” the woman asked. “Our son and his friends trained the dog to chase black people. It's for safety."
What did they expect me to say in return? "Oh, that makes sense.” “Oh, no worries."
They stood there looking down at me – a terrified seven-year-old black boy who had just been assaulted by their perfectly trained attack dog.
My older sister helped me to my feet. We saw my mom running down the street. Soon she was screaming. "What happened?!"
"A dog," I said.
My lips trembled. My voice and throat were sore from crying and screaming. I could barely speak. It would be more than two decades until I rode a bicycle again.

I ran track in high school and in college.
Often I’d train with the cross-country team in the fall to stay in shape until the spring track season.
One day while on the run, I heard someone yell in my direction: "Fucking nigger! Stay out of this neighborhood nigger! Don't run around here."
I looked around at my teammates,
who were all white.
Nobody said anything.
We kept running.
When we got back to school, the team decided that I wouldn't run with them anymore
– or we’d take another route on the days I did.

On February 26, 2012, Travon Martin was followed through a neighborhood
– my childhood neighborhood of Sanford, Florida – and shot.
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbrey was murdered while jogging outside.
From childhood to manhood, these and so many more stories of black people
Justbeing marked my subconscious.
I learned that I would always be restricted in some way.

In the summer of 2020, more and more black men came to me seeking therapy.
They desperately sought a space to Justbe without concern for their emotional or physical well-being.
For two years since, I have counseled on the idea that all people should allow themselves to just be even if it might result in harm.
I’ve stressed that we must all understand that emotional and physical freedom sometimes comes at a cost. Eventually, we must weigh freedom against safety. That this is just how it is for a black person in America.
I’ve challenged my clients to allow themselves to enjoy things others aren't restricted by due to their race.
Such restriction of self, even in small, unnoticeable moments, accumulates into an emotional debt that can be incredibly hard to pay off if we keep letting the small moments add up.
Instead of asserting our freedom, we pay it back by losing sleep, growing irritable, or becoming anxious – unable to connect and enjoy time with others.
I worked on this Justbeing concept for two years with other black men and women.

On November 8, 2022, I went for a run. I had skipped the gym that morning and had the clothes anyway.
That day, I told myself I was not going to think about the hard stuff. I was going to Justbe.
It was a great run until I turned the corner on the street to my office. Ahead of me was another runner, whom I assumed was also running on his lunch break. The only difference between us was that he was white. I watched as the white runner approached a man and woman walking up ahead. Hearing his footsteps,
the pair looked back and politely moved to the side so he could pass.
But when it came my turn to pass the couple, the man put his arm in front of the woman in a protective stance, and they waited until I had passed to begin walking and talking again.
I stopped running when I got to the end of the street, slowed to a walk, and turned back around toward my office building where this couple was walking.
As I turned to walk up the steps, the woman gasped and put her hands up as if she was being held at gunpoint.
The man again made a protective stance in front of her.
"I'm just a black man running," I said hurriedly.
I was out of breath and didn't know what more to say.
But what went through my mind was the possibility that this white couple might be scared and might have a gun – a lethal combination that the world would deem justifiable for inflicting harm upon my body. White fear has always proven to be dangerous for someone just being themselves.
I pointed to my office building and said, "This is my office. I'm Phillip Lewis,"
pointing out the sign on the front that read Office of Phillip J. Lewis.
The woman lowered her hands, grabbed the man's arm, and walked away with her partner without saying a word. It took everything I had to continue my afternoon therapy sessions.
The emotions hit me hard.
First, I was angry at myself for thinking I had to justify why I was walking into my own office building.
I was mad I didn't do something more to justify what I was doing and my existence in this space in front of my own office.
But I also knew these instinctual reactions were the results of my “training.”
I was taught that there was a genuine and credible concern that something problematic could happen because of whatever thoughts these people had about me as I passed by.
That night I thought to myself, “I can't let this impact me this way. I must do something to make this feeling right for myself. I must practice what I have been telling my clients.
“From now on,” I thought half-jokingly,
“if you go running, you need to have a T-shirt that says, ‘just a black man running.’”

This experience impacted me so much that I scheduled a session with my therapist the next day.
I told her the story and expressed my frustration with the thought of making a T-shirt to feel safe while running on my lunch break.
I was anxious about preaching Justbeing, knowing that my clients could be endangered like I was if they practiced what I preached.
She looked at me and said the most freeing words I have heard since I was that seven-year-old on a bicycle in Sanford, Florida.
She said:
"You're allowed to feel what you’re feeling. You’re allowed to do what you think will address it.
Make the T-shirt."
So, I did.
That’s how Justbeing, Inc was born.
I invite you to join us as we find and create spaces for people of color to exercise the right of Justbeing.

—PL