Suffolk millionaire has street-smart advice for teens in trouble
SUFFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — A man is dead from a gunshot wound and police are on the lookout for 19-year-old Amar Skinner.
That was the headline on May 1, 1997.
Skinner was arrested the next day on numerous charges. After 10 years behind bars, Amar Skinner is now a 45-year-old millionaire who owns three businesses and is the author of four self-help books.
“I had to educate myself in learning that I could be educated enough to live a wholesome lifestyle,” Skinner said. “I started to apply the things I used to educate myself and to educate others so that they could see those same visions and those footsteps that would keep them free in society.”
The building he owns on Main Street in Suffolk houses his Ex-Felon Entrepreneurship Retail Museum.
Inside the museum, visitors experience the criminal justice system in a room-to-room tour that simulates the various stages of conviction and incarceration.
His new outreach is a documentary entitled Why Anger Management Matters. In a promotional video shot in New York City, Skinner offers street-smart advice that is critical in settings where guns are easy to get.
“Get proactive and not reactive,” said Skinner in the video. His motto is: Pay for their education now or pay for their lawyers later.
“So I tell you, watch the information that’s been posted and move into it,” Skinner said. “It is better to pay for education now than to pay for their lives later. … Don’t let your child become an American prisoner and don’t let your child experience premature death by being in the wrong place at the wrong time around the wrong people. Parents pay for some of his services while Skinner is working on plans to secure funding for families who need assistance.
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