(WNY News Now) – Jamestown, N.Y. – On Wednesday, September 11 at 6 p.m., St. Luke’s Undercroft will host a community conversation, featuring local author Bill Burk, who chronicles the extraordinary journey of Jehuu Caulcrick from Liberia to the Buffalo Bills.
On Wednesday, September 11 at 6 pm, the community is invited to the St. Luke’s Undercroft (410 N. Main St and accessible via the 4th and Main St doors) for a New Neighbors Coalition led conversation with local author, Bill Burk, featuring the story of his book profiling Jehuu Caulcrick and his journey from his home in Liberia to the Buffalo Bills, via Chautauqua County. Refreshments will be served. After the discussion, we will make our way over to the Chautauqua Hall of Fame. Burk’s book will be available for purchase with an opportunity to get them signed by the author.
Bill Burk frames the story simply, “When he was seven years old Jehuu Caulcrick (Jay-you Call-crick) walked the Liberian coast with his family, passing through checkpoints armed with child soldiers not much older than him, blank faces, teeth yellowed by jungle-juice and heroin, AK-47s hanging off gaunt bodies. It was 1990, the middle of country’s second civil war in ten years. He walked for nearly seven-hundred miles, until he was nine years old. When he was twenty-seven years old Jehuu carried a football for the Buffalo Bills in the NFL for one yard and a first down, his only carry in a five-year nomadic career as a professional football player. In between, a lot happened.”
We often think of the United States as the land brimming with opportunity, and the luck of displaced people to come here, but we are incredibly fortunate to have had Jehuu end up in our little corner of the state, Come and join the New Neighbors Coalition, in partnership with Bill Burk and the Chautauqua Hall of Fame to learn more about how he got here!
Leave a Reply