Back
in New York City, Tani participated in his first tournament in 2018 with the
lowest chess rating, 105, of any participant. He worked hard and attended a
free summer chess program in New York City schools, and soon he began to win.
Chess trophies began to stack up in the homeless shelter. He won chessboards as
well, making it easier to practice. "He is so driven," Coach Martinez
told us. "He does ten times more chess puzzles than the average kid. He
just wants to be better."
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Still,
it was hard for Tani. He came home from school crying one day when classmates
teased him about being homeless. At an immigration hearing, he misunderstood
the judge and burst into tears when he thought he was about to be deported back
to Nigeria. On the plus side, Tani had an enormously hardworking and supportive
family. His dad, Kayode Adewumi, held two jobs: he worked long hours as an Uber
driver using a car he rented and also passed a real estate exam and became a licensed
real estate salesman. His mom took a course to become a home health-care aide.
It was easy to see where the boy's diligence and ambition came from. Likewise,
the family was enormously nurturing and proud of Tani's achievements. Every
Saturday, his mom took him to a three-hour free chess clinic in Harlem, and his
dad let him use his laptop computer with chess software that the school
provided free of charge. Even Tani's older brother, fifteen-year-old Austin,
who aims to become an engineer, regularly took time off to accompany Tani to
chess events. The family is very religious but, a bit reluctantly, allowed Tani
to miss Sunday church services to attend chess tournaments.
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"Tani
is rich beyond measure," Russell Makofsky, who oversees the chess program,
told us - for what the boy lacked in family financial resources he received in
family love and support. In 2019, with a rating that had swelled to 1587, Tani
went to the state tournament. It had been only a year since he had started
playing chess, but he had evolved into an aggressive, intuitive player. In one
round, he boldly exchanged a bishop for a much less valuable pawn, and the
school coaches worried that he had made a foolish move. But they fed the move
into a computer simulator, and it declared that Tani's chances of winning had
just increased: it saw, as Tani had, that the gambit improved his position
several moves later. At this level, Tani was competing mostly against kids from
elite private schools with their own $100-an-hour chess tutors, but in the end,
Tani won that game and was undefeated in the entire tournament. He won the
state championship for his age group.
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"It's
an inspiring example of how life's challenges do not define a person,"
Jane Hsu, the principal of his school, told us. Makofsky, the chess
administrator, just shook his head wonderingly. "One year to get to this
level, to climb a mountain and be the best of the best, without family
resources," he told us. "I've never seen it."
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We
are hopeful that grit will triumph over vulnerability. In Manhattan, we walked
with Tani back to his homeless shelter as he lugged his huge trophy. An elderly
white woman on the street looked at this scrawny black boy with an oversize
trophy and asked him, "What's that for?" Without stopping, he said
matter-of-factly, "Chess. I won the state chess tournament." The
woman's eyes opened wider. "Chess?" she repeated. "Wow!"
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Tani's
triumph reflects his brilliance and diligence, but also a combination of
circumstances that too rarely come together. It helped, of course, that Tani's
family is strong and was committed to getting him into the chess club and to
every practice and tournament. It was also crucial that the chess club was
willing to waive all fees and admit him. None of this would have happened if PS
116 hadn't taught chess and employed a first-rate chess teacher devoted to
helping Tani improve his game. Most homeless kids don't have Tani's talent, but
they also don't have his opportunity or drive. "I want to be the youngest
grand master," he told us.
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Nick
wrote about Tani in his Times column, and the resulting outpouring of goodwill
was staggering. Within hours, a handful of families had offered housing to the
family. One woman had an empty furnished home that she was prepared to let them
live in, another had extra space in her apartment overlooking Central Park, and
another said she would help rent the family an apartment near Tani's school.
Several others offered to buy Tani's dad a car so he would not have to rent the
car that he drives for Uber. A company offered jobs to Tani's parents. A couple
of private schools offered full scholarships. Lawyers offered immigration
advice. President Bill Clinton invited Tani and his family to visit him in his
Harlem office, so the boy took the morning off from school for that. And
hundreds of readers contributed to a GoFundMe page that quickly raised more
than $250,000 for Tani and his family.
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A
few days later, we helped the Adewumis move into their new home, a pleasant
two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, not far from his school. A generous reader
had paid the rent for the first year, and another family had furnished it.
"I have a home," Tani told us giddily, as he raced around the empty
rooms. "I have a home!" He said he was particularly excited about
eating a home-cooked meal for the first time in a year. "I want my mom's
cooking again," he explained.
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The
Adewumis were overwhelmed but grounded, They politely declined the scholarship
offers from elite private schools, while saying that they might reconsider when
Tani reached middle school. For now, he would remain loyal to the elementary
school that had given him a chance and welcomed him onto its chess team even
when he could not pay fees. "This school showed confidence in Tanitoluwa,
so we return the confidence," his mom told Principal Hsu. And then,
fighting tears, they hugged.
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The
challenge is that when we highlight an inspiring story like Tani's, readers
invariably want to support that particular child rather than the class of
people similarly affected. Humans are moved to help individuals, not to address
structural problems. But the solution to child homelessness is not winning the
state chess championship. That's not scalable. So what the Adewumis did next
was particularly meaningful. They decided not to touch the quarter-million
dollars in the GoFundMe account, aside from 10 percent that they would give to
their church as a tithe. The rest went into a new Tanitoluwa Adewumi Foundation
to be used to help struggling immigrants like the ones they had been a week
earlier. "God has already blessed me," Tani's dad explained. "I
want to release my blessing to others."
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We
asked Tani what he thought about handing over this vast sum rather than, say,
keeping a few dollars to buy a bicycle or a video game, or simply going out for
a celebratory dinner. "I want to help other kids," he said, but just
a trace of wistfulness crossed his face when we mentioned the other options. So
we pressed him: Wasn't there anything he wanted? After a long silence, he
confessed: "Well, maybe a computer," he said. "That would be
nice." As soon as Nick reported that, of course, Tani was deluged with
offers of computers.
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Exactly
a month after the first article appeared, Tani's parents had a Nigerian-style
dinner in their home for all the people who had helped them, from the chess
coach to the donor of the new car parked outside. Philip Falayi, a Nigerian
pastor who had let the Adewumis sleep in his church for their first few days in
New York, blessed the food, and Tani played chess in the corner with one of his
school buddies. A bookshelf of donated chess books, the towering state chess
trophy and a practice schedule to prepare for the national tournament completed
the scene. "We are so thankful to everyone," Tani's dad told those
present. "This happened because of all of you."
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To
see Tani with his trophy was to sense the possibilities when needy kids are
supported. It's the same sensation we had cheering the graduation for Women in
Recovery, and the right policies can replicate both kinds of opportunities. We
say "policies" because there's a risk that recounting such a
heartwarming tale may leave the impression that charity can solve social ills
entirely rather than fill gaps. The outpouring of help for Tani's family was
moving, but kids should have housing even if they are not chess prodigies. What
we need is not just the dazzling generosity that people showed Tani's family,
although that was transformative here, but systemic solutions to help children
even when they don't know a bishop from a pawn. So we should be inspired, yes,
but inspired to try to build comprehensive systems to replicate that web of
support as much as possible for all kids, and that requires Americans to show
generosity not only in private charity but also in public policy.
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Nicholas Kristoff "Tightrope:
Americans Reaching for Hope" (2020)
