"At one time he owned as many as three buildings divided up into rental units. It was as a landlord and as a black man who had overcome so much on his own that he came to hate the welfare system that grew so fast in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. "It just killed ambition," according to Holmes. "I had all of these tenants who in their late twenties had never worked a day in their life. They just waited around for that government check. No incentive."