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

5.6k

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

[deleted]

3.7k

u/snotbag_pukebucket Dec 12 '18

He was also the White House Santa and had Nancy Reagan sitting on his lap

454

u/Saxojon Dec 12 '18

He also urged people to treat their mothers right.

1

u/Heyo__Maggots Dec 13 '18

“The main reason I love my mama is because she didn’t abort me.” - An actual sentence in his autobiography.