Wassup?
Welcome to my official website!
I'm Jimmy.
A lawyer, award winning author and hemp farmer who resides in the Red Hills of Leon County Florida.
I am honored to share with you my award-winning industrial hemp farming book “Green Rush Fever”, which tells the story about how my family’s small farming operation entered the nascent Florida hemp industry in 2019.
ABOUT ME
Before I started writing stories and books, I earned my law degree from the University of Maryland, Carey Law School.
I was born and reared in the small subdivision of Pine View Park in Gifford, Florida. The predominantly black neighborhood of Gifford is located in the City of Vero Beach, on the Atlantic Ocean side of Florida’s coastline in the seaside region known colloquially as “Florida’s Treasure Coast.”
​
Before I started writing, I earned my law degree from the University of Maryland, Carey Law School. After graduating law school, I undertook a commitment to public service by becoming a criminal prosecutor for several years. Then, I went into private practice representing clients in criminal defense and family law. Subsequent to this, my father, J.C., revealed to me that he had late-stage prostate cancer. Both of my parents had already retired to my mother, Althea’s, birthplace in the Red Hills of Leon County, Florida. This ultimately guided me to return to my native state of Florida, to help care of my dad and relieve my mother from the forlorn burden of caregiving for her cancer-stricken spouse alone as she completed her own illustrious work career.
​
According to the physicians who attended to my father, mother and I’s undertaking of the myriad of care-giver duties helped prolong J.C.’s 80 plus years for a few more heartening years. This allowed my father and I to achieve a level of parent-child bonding that had eluded us earlier in our busy lives, much like that 1970s somber song by Harry Chapin titled “Cat's in the Cradle.” It was because of this melancholy life event that I decided to leave the path of working as a practicing attorney who chased the brass ring of becoming the next “hot-shot trial lawyer.” It was not as though; my legal expertise upon returning to Florida was anywhere near exemplifying the skills usually associated with a successful trial attorney. Consequently, after performing a handful of lawyering odd-jobs for a few years, I found a suitable position with a small publishing company headquartered in Leon County, Florida.
​
​
After my father passed, I found that the position with the publishing company was perfectly suited to my newly emerging non-combative persona and non-adversarial lifestyle. That career changing decision to leave the pursuit of the
​
​
I wrote Green Rush Fever because I felt a need to tell the story about how my family’s small farming operation entered the nascent Florida hemp industry in 2019. Green Rush Fever contains my analysis about growing hemp and discusses my family's tradition of having a strong conviction in our faith and a tenacious
brass ring to others, allowed me to re-engage with my aging mother as well as with my two sons, Isiah and James Malik, in a more profound and significant way. In addition, that transition prompted me to conquer my fear of
penning prose, and to begin writing full-time about enlightening topics based on my philosophic beliefs and life experiences. I still reside in the beautiful and picturesque Red Hills of Leon County with my wife and granddaughter. I hope that readers enjoy the peculiar anecdotes and stories that encompass my life experiences.
belief in the power of having the support of one's family. Green Rush Fever was selected by the 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Contest as a FINALIST in the African American Non-Fiction book category.