Lest you think this muscular man with the 18 inch arms and 32 inch waist and outgoing personality is a loafer who idles his time away sitting on park benches listening to birds sing or lying on the beach watching waves break, forget it.

Chuckie Miller long has been a prominent music promoter in the Southern California area, long has been a gym owner who has trained hundreds of athletes and hundreds of non-athletes, long has been a nightclub owner with the most successful being in St. Louis across the street from where the Rams once played, long has been heavily involved in real estate, long has been a person with a Midas touch for earning money, long has been a familiar presence in the established hotspots in these environs in his customary black skull cap, Ray-Ban sunglasses, form-fitting tee-shirts and fashionable Nike sneakers.

Chuckie Miller resides in a luxurious hilltop home in Signal Hill, owns six cars including a Maserati, a H2 Hummer and a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sport, owns several houses, owns four apartment buildings, owns a bar he just bought on Anaheim St. between Junipero and Raymond that will be called Long Beach Unified, and even is setting his sights on eventually owning a cannabis dispensary since he has joined the board of directors of one of the biggest outfits in town.

"Chuckie Miller is a very rich man," says his pal Phil Trani, the famous restaurateur. "He doesn't act the part, but he certainly lives the part."

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As you might ascertain, Chuckie Miller is the quintessential Renaissance Man, but he's a lot more than that with his entrepreneurial savvy, his affability and his charismatic aura that has resulted in his seemingly knowing everybody who's anybody in Long Beach.

He has maintained friendships with an eclectic group of cronies going back to his childhood days growing up at 20th and Orange and attending College Intermediate School, Rogers Middle School and Poly High School where he was a stout football player, to his UCLA days where he became a three-year cornerback starter who played on two Rose Bowl-winning teams, to his three seasons with the Indianapolis Colts where his career came to a premature end because of congenital hamstring miseries, to the countless athletes from around the area he has mentored across the decades.

"I guess you can say I have an awful lot of friends and know an awful lot of people," says Mr. Miller with a smile.

I have known Chuckie Miller for more than 30 years, and I thought he would be the perfect go-to person to find out his thoughts about Long Beach's leadership releasing its Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative and its City Council on June 23rd unanimously adopting a resolution acknowledging that racism has become a public health crisis in Long Beach.

"I'm in total agreement with it," he says. "Now don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who obsesses over race. When you were on all the football teams I was on, you develop a special camaraderie with your teammates, a brotherhood that exists to this day when I come across any of my old teammates.

"I have many friends of all cultures and nationalities, and always treat everyone with respect and dignity. But believe me, I felt the string of racism on occasion in Long Beach over the years. And it's a lot more than the funny looks you might get when you're shopping for clothes, or just being treated differently when you're at certain restaurants. That you become accustomed to. But there are other things that happen that stays with you forever. I'll never forget the time I was walking with a friend down PCH near Redondo and was wearing my 1984 Rose Bowl jersey when a cop pulled over and commanded us to get to the ground where we were handcuffed.

"We were doing nothing bad. Just two guys walking down the street, and yet we found ourselves on the ground. And then a white woman suddenly walked over and told the cop, 'That's not their face.' Apparently, someone had stolen something from the lady, although I don't know for sure because the policeman gruffly told us to move on. The same thing happened in my pre-teen days when a bunch of us kids were walking down the street, and a couple of cop cars pulled over and stopped us. A few moments later, a person came up and looked at us and said, 'It's not them.'

"You just don't forget stuff like that. It stays with you the rest of your life. I'll never forget another time I was driving my Porsche down PCH near Cedar and 20th, and a cop pulled me over, and said to me, `What are you doing?' And I asked him back, `What are you doing?' I finally gave him my driver's license, and he let me go. Why did he stop me in the first place. I know why, of course. Because I was black and driving an expensive car. Is there any sense of fairness in what that cop did to me? Of course not. Stuff like that has got to stop."

Chuckie Miller is an advocate of the Black Lives Matter movement.

"People oftentimes say to me, 'Chuckie, all lives matter,' and of course I'm in agreement with them," says Mr. Miller. "All lives of all nationalities do matter. But Black Lives Matter was formed to stop the police from killing black people indiscriminately, as has been the case too many times over the years. Black Lives Matter is different from other black groups like the NAACP. Its major aim is to change the way police treat black people."

When Mr. Miller looks back at his eventful life, he admits the turning point came one early morning at his old gym at 903 Wardlow Road -- he had it for 20 years -- when a client gave him a copy of Robert Kiyosaki's best-selling book, Rich Dad Poor Dad.

"It caused me to have an epiphany after I read it -- and I immediately started buying up as many properties as I could afford,: he says. "It taught me to see how everything you buy from an asset/liability point of view. It totally shaped my thoughts about money -- and how to invest it. I've given the books to so many of my clients -- and everyone swears by it."

A confirmed bachelor whose lifestyle is quite anathema to such marital tropes as time constraints, prenuptials, freedom of movement and monogamy -- "I'm way too independent for such a fine institution" -- Chuckie Miller long has been involved in local charity fund-raising events for underprivileged kids and even has his own non-profit called Kids Fitness Say Yes To Life, which assists children with obesity problems.

"I've always tried to give back to the community where I was raised and have so many great memories," he says. "Some, like I said were a little disappointing, and at this moment our country seems so polarized. I hope we eventually come together and sort out our differences in a peaceful, productive manner..."

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