The becomings of life obviously changed the fate of Bruce Franks Jr., who had an astounding trajectory from underground battle rapper to the Missouri State House of Representatives as a state legislature.
This “Superman” as being dubbed by his St. Louis constituents, for the successful sponsorship of his bill that got a state law passed that deemed youth violence a public health emergency. Ironically, as poetic as the story sounds, his life has not always had such a rhythmic flow.
Most of his 34 years of life have been crippled with gun violence. Franks’ older brother, Christopher Harris was shot dead in Franks’ presence at age 6, while his brother was just 9.
On August 9, 2014, as he was planning for a birth party for his son, who was turning one, tragedy struck his city in the life of Michael Brown. The unarmed Black teenager was shot and killed by a police officer, with the incidence sparking so much outrage from Franks.
In 2016, two years after the killing of Brown, Franks got sworn into office as a State Representative where he held the office until 2019. In that year, his best friend, Sylvester Hamilton, and his godson, Gerrian Green, were both killed by gun violence in St. Louis. This got him restless that he gave his abrupt resignation from office with his reasons on mental health concerns.
Perhaps his time in the legislature was short, but Franks admits that his time in office and the trauma he has experienced growing up have indeed taken played a fateful part, and is leading him to have thoughts of suicide. What stopped him was the understanding of how he could use his platform in other ways to remedy the numerous wrongs of injustice pitched on people of color.
This bright initiative from Franks has enabled him to make his way to this year’s Academy Awards. He was invited along with the filmmakers behind the St. Louis Superman, an MTV short documentary (directed and produced by Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan) about his journey from battle rapper to politician and his quest to save his city still staggering with gun violence. The film received a nomination for Best Documentary Short.
