I met Chad back in the mid-90s at Howard University.

We would hang out at our friend Camilla Forbes's crib with the raft of young artists,

rappers, and dancers.

Chad was kind, charismatic, self-determined, and kind of mystical.

I can see him now walking across the yard with the chew stick in his mouth and incense

in his afro. In 1998, he was among a group of student leaders who sought to stop the university

from closing its College of Fine Arts. I covered Chad in the protest for the student

newspaper The Hilltop. A few months later, when our friend Camilla cast him in her first

student play, I wrote the line of notes for the playbill. When I was offered the chance to write the Black Panther comic book for Marvel,

Chad had already been cast in the movie to play Tichala.

And then when he died in 2020, I was asked to write a short obit to appear in the comic.

After Chad passed, I attended a private ceremony for him in California.

There was drumming.

There was singing.

There was a laying of hands on the casket.

There was a lot of sadness and a lot of crying.

But there was something beautiful in seeing these two families he'd pulled together.

One from his days at the Mecca of Howard University. And then another at this mecca that he'd pulled together, one from his days at the mecca of Howard University, and then another

at this mecca that he'd made out of Black Panther. The weight of it all was born by both

families, but the weight of the latter, those who had to go on and make Wakanda forever, was different.

They would have to mourn Chad

while telling a story which had been defined by him.

...