Nikko's mom, Margretha Pinkney, will go to her son's school and have lunch with his class, like she does every year on Feb. 3. She'll buy balloons and sing "Happy Birthday." And she'll follow through on her promised 10th birthday present to Nikko.
Trouble is, her only son won't be there. Nikko died Oct. 9, 2011, in an early morning fire at his Huntersville home.
"He was so looking forward to his 10th birthday," Pinkney says. "He wanted to go to Great Wolf Lodge (in Concord). That was one of his favorite places, so I promised him an overnight stay."
He deserved it, Pinkney adds. Nikko rose well before dawn every morning to catch a bus to Smith Language Academy, a magnet school on Tyvola Road in south Charlotte. He was in the Chinese immersion program, which means he learned every subject — except English — by communicating in Chinese. And he loved it.
"I strived to provide the best life for Nikko and teach him that it doesn't matter one bit where you come from but where you will go in life," says Pinkney.
Where Nikko and his mom are from is what was once known as Pottstown, a historically African-American section of Huntersville off Holbrooks Road, east of the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks that parallel N.C. 115.
An Oct. 14 story in the Citizen about Nikko's death asked, "Who'll mourn the boy from across the tracks?" While the story focused on the contrast between how the community might respond to such a tragedy in a more well-to-do neighborhood versus the reaction to Nikko's death, several readers bristled at the "across the tracks" reference.
"The angels weep at (Nikko's) passing and at the pain his death leaves behind," one reader wrote in a letter to the editor. "They also weep at the thought of the insensitive words highlighted in your column at a time when mourning and solace for those left behind should take precedence over divisive comments about which 'side of the tracks' someone is from."
But Nikko's mom — the only person whose opinion really matters, after all — saw it differently.
"I understood exactly what you were saying," Pinkney says. "Your words showed what your heart felt and your eyes saw. There is a history in that neighborhood (that) others who come into that area do not know, and they really don't care to know."
Pinkney's grandfather, Randolph Grier, bought the first acres of land for the family's homestead and built the house that she and Nikko lived in, and where her mother and 12 siblings were raised. The family went to school across Holbrooks Road, at the "Huntersville Colored High School" in the era of Jim Crow. That building would eventually become the Waymer Center, where thousands of children have played sports through the Huntersville Youth Athletic Association.
"I used to sit on my porch and watch the parents coming and leaving (Waymer Center) with their children and they (seldom) acknowledged us," Pinkney recalls. "My baby would wave and speak. Sometimes they would speak, but more often than not, they didn't. The tears in my heart would say it's a shame we look at the color of a person and not the content of their character."
She adds that there were no such issues with the Town of Huntersville.
"The blessing of Nikko being able to go to the summer camp (through a Town of Huntersville scholarship program) changed not only the children's attitude about the people on that side of the tracks, but made their parents look at us differently and acknowledge the neighborhood and the people who live there," she says.
Now, Pinkney wants to make sure other kids have the same kind of support structure that Nikko had. She hopes to create a non-profit foundation to reach male children between the ages of 5 and 10 who are being raised in single-parent homes and are at risk for problem behavior.
"Too often, young boys are labeled early and believe the label they have been given," she explains. "They are pushed aside and forgotten. They are not taught how to tap into their potential and their gifts and to use those talents."
Pinkney says she wants to give those boys a glimpse of the life that Nikko had. She wants to support them and their parents the way Nikko was supported. She wants to teach them and guide them and nurture a love for learning new things the way Nikko did.
"I want to show them that it doesn't matter what their circumstances are, because they can do anything and be anything they want to if they believe it and are given the opportunity to see there is something else out there in the world," she says.
For now, though, Pinkney plans to follow through on her promise of a birthday stay at Great Wolf Lodge — for a homeless child who shares a 10th birthday on Feb. 3 with Nikko. A Child's Place, which serves homeless children in the Charlotte area, identified a child for the gift after the Citizen contacted United Way of the Central Carolinas with Nikko's story and his mom's promise.
And that — promise — is the operative word. It's what the world lost when it lost Nikko.
"Nikko learned early that he could do anything he wanted to do," the proud mom says. "In fact, he was destined for greatness."
Given what he'd already done in less than 10 years, who could argue?
"I shared with Nikko every day how much he was loved by telling him, 'I love you from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, for you are my gift from God,'" Pinkney says. "I believe it's true what they say: If you tell someone they are stupid enough, they will believe they are stupid. So I made sure that I told Nikko all the time that he was loved and could do anything. And he did."
