Timothy Dwayne Thomas, Jr. Cincinnati, Ohio 1981 - 2001 Timothy Dwayne Thomas Jr was born July 25, 1981 in Arkansas. He passed away on April 8, 2001 in Over the Rhine, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio. Funeral Services were held at New Prospect Baptist Church. Thomas was the father of one child and son of Timothy Thomas, Sr. and Angela Leisure. "Stand up!" the Rev. Damon Lynch III shouted from the pulpit. "And stand up for something! Stand up! And we've got to keep on standing until everyone is free." More than 500 people crowded into New Prospect Baptist Church across from Findlay Market. An estimated 1,500 more, most of them young African-Americans, filed through. They passed the open silver casket that held the body of the man shot to death in a dark alley early April 7 by Officer Steven Roach. Evangelist Jan Houseton read Timothy Dewayne Thomas' obituary. He told of how Mr. Thomas moved from Chicago in 1997 with his mother, two brothers and three sisters. He dreamed of a career in electronics after getting his general equivalency diploma from Nativity Learning Center in Price Hill. Somebody tucked a bouquet of red roses under the casket lid. On the card: "To Souljah Tim." Mr. Thomas' face, in the now-familiar picture of him in a tuxedo, smiled out from T-shirts worn by some of the mourners. Tears fell down their faces. Some broke down in sobs as they passed in front of Mr. Thomas' mother, Angela Leisure, who was helped to her seat in the front row. Mr. Taft called her brave and courageous for, in the midst of her grief, begging rioters to stop. The governor's wife, Hope, wiped her eyes. Mr. King, recalling the assassination of his father, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when he was only 10, told Mr. Thomas' mother she'll never get over the pain. But he likened Mr. Thomas' death to his father's — because they were violent, they hold more promise for bringing about change. If his father had been hit by a bus, he said, it wouldn't have brought the same reaction. "Cincinnati can become a great city," Mr. King said. "But it's not a great city today." Mr. Luken hadn't planned to speak. But called to the podium, he apologized again to Mrs. Leisure and her family. The crowd came to its feet. "Words cannot express our sorrow," said the mayor, who proclaimed todaya day of prayer and called for a Cincinnati that seriously embraces economic and social justice. "I pledge to you the city will be better one day." Councilman Chris Monzel, a father himself, sat thinking about Mr. Thomas' 3-month-old son, Tywon. The baby's mother, Monique Wilcox, held the boy throughout his father's funeral. "I never hope I have to come to another one of these again," Mr. Monzel said. "That's our job: to make sure it doesn't happen again." The Rev. Dr. Osborne Richards, pastor of Newlife Outreach Church, where Mrs. Leisure sings in the choir, delivered Mr. Thomas' eulogy. He called for today, the day Christians celebrate Jesus' resurrection, to also be the start of the resurrection — in Mr. Thomas' name — of Cincinnati. "Whether you are white or black, he made you the way he wanted you to be in order to fit into this life," the Rev. Dr. Richards said. "Because God has a plan." He emphasized that everyone, black and white, has to work together to keep Mr. Thomas' death from being in vain. Everyone turn to each other, he said, and say to your neighbor: "Everything's gonna be all right. Everything's gonna be all right."

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