Legacy of slain A.C. 10-year-old lives on five years later

First off, long live Dew.

That is the mantra Angela Tennant has focused on for the past five years, since her younger son was shot at a football game in Pleasantville on Nov. 15, 2019.

Five days later, 10-year-old Micah "Dew" Tennant succumbed to his injuries, never having regained consciousness.

But his mother has kept her promise. Dew's name lives on.

This week, a video she posted of her son reciting a famous line from the movie "Friday" garnered more than 487,000 views. 

@nudynu87 5 ago years today the whole tri state area was praying so hard you’d make it through!  5 years Later we still stepping for you 💙🕊️ 5 years later Forever Holding Ya Name High Like A Muthafuckin Gang Sign 💙👼🏾🪽 1st off Long Live Dew 💙🫶🏾  It’s Friday ya’ll ain’t got no jobs and ya’ll ain’t nothing to do! #viral #LongLiveDew #griefjourney #griefandloss #grievingmom ♬ original sound - Nudynu87

Commenters noted how the little boy got every word. How his sweet voice with a face to match made them smile.

It's how Tennant wants her son remembered. It's how the little boy who dreamed of becoming a DJ lives on.

Last month, the Noyes Arts Garage of Stockton University in Atlantic City had its first display of ofrendas, the altars that are the centerpiece of the Day of the Dead celebration, when it's believed the souls of the deceased return to visit their families.

    The ofrenda that honored Micah Tennant.
  

The one honoring Dew won the Community Favorite Award. 

Tennant was touched by the honor, as she is by those who keep her son's memory alive.

"Thank you to the community for their continuous love and support," she told BreakingAC on the anniversary of his death. "Thank you to everyone who reached out to honor Dew within these five years to help me keep his name alive."

But she has a special request.

"If there is anyone in the community that writes grants and could help me get my nonprofit off the ground, I would greatly appreciate the help," Tennant said.

She has been working to start Dew Better Mental Health, which would give black and brown boys and young men ages 10 to 20 a place to come for help and mentorship. 

“It’s a stigma in the black and brown community, not getting mental help, not getting therapy and things like that,” Tennant has said in explaining her targeted demographic. “My son was a black boy. Whether people like to admit it or not, black and brown boys have the hardest time in America. So, yeah, that’s what I want to focus on.”

Even the man who killed her son talked of how violence impacted the path that led him to bring a gun to a high school football game.

"My life come from gunfire," Alvin Wyatt said at his sentencing last year. "I grew up around this stuff my whole life. You all don’t think I suffer from PTSD? I don’t know what you all think."

He came to the game because he found out Ibn Abdullah was there. 

Abdullah was shot several times, but survived and is in a wheelchair. He is also in state prison, serving a sentence in another shooting.

When the gunfire began, his sister ran. His mother turned to get him out of harm's way, but he already had been struck.

That is why Tennant wants to help others.

She worries for her surviving son, Malachi. He and his twin sister, Machiah, are preparing to graduate from Egg Harbor Township High School this year. 

Both have been touched by violence, first losing their father when they were 4 years old. Then their little brother.

"I don’t want my son to be angry and feel like he’s got to go out and kill somebody because his brother got killed, or because his father got killed,” Tennant has said. “I want my son to be a productive citizen.”