By Chrisleen Herard,
Special to the AFRO
Anwar “The Silent Assassin” Wingate stood at 160 pounds in a Baltimore boxing ring against Malik Chapman on Sept. 30 for what would be his last fight and second knockout victory in his transient pro boxing career. The next match was scheduled in just a few weeks, however, on Nov. 19, Anwar was found with a fatal gunshot wound in a parking garage in Northwest, D.C.
“His life was destined to be great and it was,” Anwar’s mother, Dalphina Wingate, told the AFRO. “It was just short-lived.”
When Anwar was 12 years old, he got into many fights that resulted in his father and coach, Rafael Board, introducing him to a pair of latex rubber gloves and a boxing ring. Not many knew, however, that Anwar was facing a different battle beyond the ring as well.
“He was fighting with his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),” Dalphina said. “Eventually, by the time he got to middle school, we had to kind of channel his energy, so that is how he started boxing. He was very good with his hands. He was an artist.”
Though Anwar was initially resistant, eventually, at 17, he had his first amateur fight, which was the start of his amateur career that concluded with 40 wins and 10 losses.
“AJ was a promising, undefeated pro, smart, handsome and all-around great young man,” U.S.A. and professional boxing trainer Bruce Babashan wrote in a Facebook post. “He had a bright future ahead.”
“We are truly saddened to hear of the loss of our guy, Anwar Wingate (AJ),” Lucius Peterson wrote. “He was such a humble young man with a bright future and always showed genuine love to everyone. We send our condolences and prayers to his family and friends. Rest in peace, young king, you will truly be missed.”
In 2021, Anwar’s career showed more promise after he fought on the Elite Male’s U.S.A. Boxing team and, despite the doubt of others, defeated Antonio Garcia, the number one seed in the 2020 USA Boxing National Championships. In the following year, Anwar competed in the 2022 U.S. Eastern Elite Qualifier and was on his way to his pro debut when he suffered a gunshot wound to his leg and discovered that his cousin had been murdered.
“(The injury) was almost an answer to my prayer,” Dalphina said. “It actually gave him time to sit down, reflect on life, get it together (and) stay out the way. It gave him time to grieve so that he could come back and be great. He did that. He came back and he survived it.”
“You know, it takes a long time for somebody to get pro debut, (but) I got it,” Anwar said in an interview with Peterson. “It really got to me. I felt happy. I’m not going to lie. I felt proud of myself that I had the strength to move past the bullet wound and keep working and keep working and grinding to get to where I needed to be. I’m proud of myself.”
Anwar made a triumphant return to boxing following his injury and loss. He wanted to avoid following his cousin’s footsteps in the streets and revive his passion for being in the ring in an attempt to escape the fates of murder or jail.
“When [my cousin] died, I was still on crutches,” Anwar said. “My father, he told me, ‘If you want to quit, quit. But if you want to get in this ring, I’m here for you.”
“I didn’t want to be like my cousin. I didn’t want to be dead or in jail,” Anwar continued. “So I took the way that I (thought) was going to get me off these streets (and) out of a bad outcome.”
Anwar vowed to fight until, and long after, he won his first championship belt, but he vowed to do so while living in Md. and rejected his mother’s move to Texas, her own attempt to keep him off the streets.
“A.J. didn’t want to come and looking back at it, that’s my one regret,” Dalphina said. “But then I was thinking, you know, if I hadn’t made him come, would he have become a pro? Would he have fulfilled his dreams? I mean, he may have still been alive, but would he have fulfilled his dreams? Would he have lived his life with no regrets?”
Dalphina added, “He loved the DMV. He loved being here and he refused to leave. He said, ‘Mommy, I can’t go nowhere. This is my destiny.’”
Up until his death, Anwar’s mother and father were able to witness Anwar’s growth both as a man and as a boxer as he fought his way from amateur to professional. In his last few games, from just behind the ropes, his father continued to advise him on his next moves in the ring while his mother supported him and cheered, helping lead him to victory after victory.
But his career ended, along with his life, during the early hours of Nov. 19. Around 3:00 a.m., officers from the Third District Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) were responding to a report of an unconscious man lying inside a parking garage in the 2100 block of Eighth Street NW.
When they arrived at the garage, authorities found the 24-year-old athlete suffering from a gunshot wound before he succumbed to his injuries at the scene.
“The same morning he died, he called me,” Dalphina painfully recalled. “I fussed at him because he had a fight coming. So I said, ‘You shouldn’t be out. You should not be out.’ And I could tell he wanted to party a little bit.”
Dalphina continued, “He said, ‘I’m not gonna bother you no more, Mommy. I want you to have a great birthday. Enjoy your trip, and I love you.’ That’s the last thing he said to me at 1:30 in the morning before he died.”
According to Dalphina, Anwar was robbed and murdered in the city that he loved and she is now among a community that loves her son and is desperately seeking justice while calling for a change.
“Unless the whole world changes, nothing will be done,” Dalphina said. “It’s a mindset. It’s social media. It’s racism. It’s the self-hatred that we live with every day in our communities and the system isn’t set up for them. It’s not set up to get them out of it and, as long as they’re all out of it, cramped in this little sardine can, they’re all gonna try to get out of that sardine can by any means necessary.”
“Completely broken-hearted over the senseless loss of a young man that I had a ton of love and respect for,” Jamaal Brown, a U.S.A. boxing coach, wrote. “This senseless violence must stop, and the only way to stop it is to come together as a community and show our young people a better way.”
Anwar leaves behind his mother, two brothers, his sister and a new legacy that will now live on alongside his pro boxing career.
“Nobody could tell anybody anything about Anwar. He didn’t let them. He spoke for himself,” Dalphina said. “He embodied who he was, and he was an artist, a comedian, a brother, a friend, a son and recently, he became a father.”
Anwar’s son was born on July 4th, which was Anwar’s original due date before he was welcomed into the world two days earlier on July 2, 1999. Before his death, Anwar was getting ready to take on and step into fatherhood despite his fears, as he did with boxing.
“He didn’t want to fail and that was the same way (he felt) about his son,” Dalphina said. “But even after having a child, he had fears that he wouldn’t be a good father, …It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be great or that he didn’t want to be a boxer, he (had) fears of inadequacy, and he conquered those to get in the ring. He conquered all of the adversity that he was facing. He got in there and he used it all and channeled it to become great.”
“I’ve been in a lot of tough fights. I’ve been in a lot of tough spawns,” Anwar said. “I went through it all. I’ve been in them wars, them real wars. I got my ass beat a lot of times to get to where I needed to be, you know, and I appreciate all the ass whoopings because that made me the man I am today.”
In efforts to find the suspects involved in Anwar’s death, the MPD is offering a reward of up to $25,000 and urging the public to contact authorities with information that leads to the suspect(s) arrest at 202-727-9099 or utilize the department’s tip line by sending a message to 50411 to remain anonymous.