The Life Preparatory Academy in Albany GA seeks to change the black community by educating 300 boys.
The internet feeds us a steady stream of content, often negative, which then shapes our perception of various groups and their members. Viewers see the worst representations of themselves and of other groups and formulate opinions on the state of society and the youth. However, hidden in plain sight are people who are change agents, people who are steadily working to reprogram the youth and actively attack the areas that most need help.
King Randall, head of the Life Preparatory Academy in Albany, Georgia, is someone actively embracing his purpose. Through a mix of hard work, determination, and clarity, he’s created a school that will equip black boys with a mix of vocational and educational skills necessary to change their communities.
Before King Randall became known for his rhetoric and social media clips, he was simply a young boy balancing chores and school in his hometown of Albany, Georgia. Raised by his mother primarily, King’s life changed drastically when his mother married his stepfather when he was in fourth grade. His stepfather’s instruction in vocational skills like farming, hunting, camping, bricklaying and car maintenance provided the foundation for King’s life and coincidentally the lives of his future students.
“We learned what a family was supposed to look like as well growing our own food, ride horses, skin animals, fix cars and everything. I learned how to do all of this growing up. These are the skills that pay the bills, says King Randall.
King Randall’s familial structure helped solidify his skill base, which included the handy skills of his former stepfather combined with the soft skills he garnered from his current stepfather whom he met in high school.
“He’s taught me the more corporate side. He taught me how to do interviews and wear suits. There’s the country King and the corporate King.”
Raised with a solid foundation, King Randall spent much of his youth focusing on excelling in the classroom, leading his peers as the captain of the culinary team while also completing dual enrollment classes at Albany Technical College. Because of his positive image, the principal even allowed him to leave school to pursue his love of public speaking in the area.
King’s choice to wear a suit and carry a briefcase daily, combined with his commitment to marching to the beat of his own drum, helped him cultivate a reputation as someone who’d be a leader in the community.
“I had an interesting time in high school, especially in my last two years. Everybody looked at me as someone who would be somebody. I was expected to do something, says King Randall.
King became a professional chef while in high school, and although it was lucrative, the pressure of maintaining catering orders and more caused his love to fade. After graduation, King served his country differently, enlisting in the Marine Corps, where he helped deliver supplies to his team as a forklift operator.
The experience helped provide King with the knowledge on disciplining young boys and added to his array of soft and technical skills. King’s background provided him with the proper foundation to mentor kids, and in 2019, at the age of twenty, he started his own mentoring group that targeted black boys.
“It started with field trips then a summer camp at my house in the living room. Once I realized that almost all the kids couldn’t read, I started a book club following the summer camp. Then Covid happened and I had to slow everything down.”
King Randall saw the plight of black children in the community and felt as if the only way to affect change was to create his own program separate from the confines of the public education system. Drawing on the rich history of educators like Booker T Washington, King felt as if the answer to success would come from the creation of a school like Tuskegee University, which was patterned from the vocational blueprint of the Hampton Institute. Despite how controversial this concept was to many of his peers, it didn’t stop him from wanting to create a school that came from their efforts.
The success of King’s camp, which boasted impressive stats for reading comprehension and behavioral gains, gave credence to King’s talent and in his mind solidified the notion that black boys change when they are in a controlled environment similar to a boarding school.
During the pandemic, he launched a social media campaign to build what would soon become the Life Preparatory Academy.
“We raised money on social media after a couple of our videos went viral, including one on showing the boys how to lay sheetrock.”
$25,000 later, King Randall was able to purchase the facility for Life Prepatory, which recently opened just last month in September 2022.
Just this past week, King Randall and his school received a visit from Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp.
For King Randall, his goal and belief are very simple: Take a group of boys and mold them into the leaders the world needs.
“My main goal is to fix my hometown. It can be fixed, but it won’t be fixed until 300 men do that. This is what the scripture tells us. 300 men that have the same goal and vision. That’s why our school team name is the 300.”
Wright World 