Bishop T.D. Franklin emphasizes treating karate students like family. “I train with love, not fear,” he says.
John Tucker, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio – If you walk into Vineyard Center Ministries on Cleveland’s East Side, the first thing you see isn’t a pulpit but a martial arts gym.
Bishop T.D. Franklin, the church’s minister and a native son of the surrounding Mount Pleasant neighborhood, doubles as a karate instructor. His bunker-like office overflows with items showcasing a diverse life. There are certificates boasting his martial arts career; a library of religious texts; photos of his SWAT team during 27 years in law enforcement; and an assortment of weapons that include blowguns and a sweeping katana sword.
But asked which item elicits most pride, the burly bishop dismisses the keepsakes and points past the door, toward a mat on which GI-clad children limber up before a training session.
“I owe everything to my babies,” says Franklin.
His gym is a refuge for at-risk kids in need of discipline and, yes, love. Franklin’s thrice-weekly classes offer haven for oft-troubled youth in the form of roundhouse kicks, hi-yahs and hugs. Some families pay a monthly fee; others pay nothing. For 17 years, he has never lost a student to prison or death in this crime-heavy part of the city, he says.
As he speaks, a young girl in braids bounds into the office, pausing to bow to her sensei, then wraps her arms around him.
“Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee — how you doing, precious?” Franklin effuses, lifting the girl’s feet off the ground. A requirement for each student, he will explain, is a pre-class embrace.
“Some of these kids, this is the only time they get hugs,” says the 66-year-old.
The bishop sometimes feels like a parent to his pupils, attending ball games and dances. Some confide to him about trauma or fallen family members.
“He’s another daddy,” says May Pope, an assistant instructor who has steered seven grandchildren into the program — a way to keep them out of trouble.
Franklin launched the program serendipitously, in 2006, during a year when he recounted seven murders within a half mile of the church. Traveling to work one day, he saw a commotion among kids on a corner. Two boys — one whose brother was recently murdered — were preparing to fight.
The bishop intervened with a challenge: “If you want to fight, you can fight me.”
Franklin escorted the boys to his gym and taught them how to jab and uppercut. After a month of training, something paradoxical occurred. Once the boys were equipped to fight properly, they lost the desire to do so. Seventeen years later, they are college graduates and best friends.
“Kids on the street don’t want to be in gangs,” argues Franklin, clad in a red tracksuit and T-shirt reading REAL MEN PRAY EVERY DAY. They merely want to feel protected from threats and intimidation.
After a short military career, Franklin competed for several years in the American Karate Black Belt Association before his body began wearing down. Ordained in 2004, he opened his Vineyard Center the same year; “vineyard” connotes “reaching people,” while “center” invokes a hospital-like harbor for spiritual healing. In 2007, he retired from the Warrensville Heights Police Department and shifted more focus on Sunday sermons and martial arts classes.
During a recent session, Franklin strides into the gym like a drill sergeant, though the tough-guy demeanor eventually melts into a wide grin as he pokes fun at his young charges.
“Really?” he challenges a boy who is light on straight-arm punch speed. Franklin squats down to the boy’s level and dares him to strike with all his might. “You can hit harder than that!” he coaxes.
Over the years, Franklin has guided students into championship careers, he boasts. “Two of my girls can drop any man I know.”
But such successes are trivial compared to his greater goal of keeping local kids off the streets.
As a bishop, Franklin is no stranger to funerals, and he is able to envision his own.
“At my funeral, I want people to say, ‘That guy changed my life,’ ” he says. “And he’s the reason I’m not in jail.”
