While at Dunbar he became the citywide wrestling champion two years in a row. Tureaud attended Dunbar Vocational High School, where he played football, wrestled, and studied martial arts. Tureaud as a senior in high school (1970) T, so the first word out of everybody's mouth is 'Mr.' So I questioned myself: 'What does a black man have to do before he's given respect as a man?' So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I think about my father being called 'boy', my uncle being called 'boy', my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called 'boy'. T., was based upon his childhood impressions regarding the lack of respect from white people for his family: In 1970, he legally changed his last name to T. After his father left when he was five, he shortened his name to Lawrence Tero. His father, Nathaniel Tureaud, was a minister. Tureaud, with his four sisters and seven brothers, grew up in a three-room apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes. T was born Laurence Tureaud in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest son in a family with twelve children.
