There's a gift Ben Vereen gives to students across the country in his lectures. He calls it "keys to overcoming adversity."
Last night, he delivered that gift to an audience at Anne Arundel Community College in "Life Is Good," his traveling lecture series on triumph over trouble.
"It's about empowering people," the singer, actor and dancer said in a telephone interview from Chicago before last night's appearance.
"Tomorrow belongs to [youths]. I just try to empower them to accomplish their dreams."
His lecture is one of several activities scheduled for the community college in celebration of Black History Month.
Others include a dramatic performance called "Free at Last: Images of Emancipation" Feb. 20 at the Pascal Center for the Performing Arts, and a black business expo during that week.
Mr. Vereen is known to many as Chicken George, the character he played in the television miniseries "Roots" in 1977.
He also won a Tony award for his performance in "Pippin" on Broadway and seven Emmy awards for his own network special, "Ben Vereen: His Roots."
In his lectures, Mr. Vereen talks about overcoming adversity in the black experience and in his own life.
He has struggled with alcohol and drug abuse. In 1987, his 16-year-old daughter, Naja, was killed in a car accident. He was nearly killed in 1992 when he was struck by a van while walking near his Malibu, Calif., apartment.
After undergoing several months of physical therapy, he returned to the Broadway stage in April 1993 to co-star as the Chimney Man with Gregory Hines in "Jelly's Last Jam."
He said the struggle for his life taught him a valuable lesson that he wants to share with others.
"It taught me the value of inner strength and that you can overcome," he said. "I was dead, and now I'm back."
Since then, he has lectured at schools and colleges around the nation, and last summer in Chicago he opened the Ben Vereen School for the Performing Arts, which includes the physically challenged and hearing impaired among its students.
Mr. Vereen also appears occasionally as Will Smith's father in the television series "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," and he appeared in last year's Halloween episode of "The Nanny."
Despite his busy schedule, Mr. Vereen said, his lecture series always will be important.
"If I can help someone in my life, then my living is not in vain," he said.