That’s actually why Mr T adopted his moniker.

I think about my father being called “boy”, my uncle being called “boy”, my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called “boy”. So I questioned myself: “What does a black man have to do before he’s given respect as a man?” So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I self-ordained myself Mr. T, so the first word out of everybody’s mouth is “Mr.”