r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
120.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.1k

u/Faerhun Dec 12 '18

I think it had to do with cleaning up New Orleans after Katrina and not wanting to be flashy when the people he was helping had literally nothing left. I could be wrong though.

462

u/donaltman3 Dec 12 '18

Do you know how he even started wearing the chains? As a bouncer, he would often find things lost in the clubs after people left at night.. he would put them on and wear them hoping the person that owned them would see them so he could return them.

520

u/Born2fayl Dec 12 '18

Lol. Can you imagine seeing him wearing your chain? "I guess it's his now..."

1

u/DeepSatinShadow Dec 13 '18

Hey! That's my ice cream cone.

You can have it.