LAFAYETTE PARISH — Mark Gee still repeats the words his parents told him as a child.
“My mother always told me, never let your disability become an inability, my father always told me, you got two things working against you: you’re Black and you’re handicapped.”
Gee was born with polio in his right leg. As a boy, he remembers struggling to do what other children did naturally.
“I was crawling around the house when I should have been standing trying to walk.”
He grew up noticing the difference, but he refused to let it define him.
“I didn’t let it bother me, everybody had two legs, I had maybe a leg and three quarters but I hung in there.”
Hanging in there meant long days at the barn. His father loved horse racing, and Gee did too. Over time, the barn became more than a hobby. It became a place where he poured his energy and discipline. When his nephew, Marlon St. Julian, told him he wanted a chance to ride, Gee gave it to him and began teaching him what he knew.
He remembers the moment he realized his nephew had something special.
“He passed the first time and he was in the crotch position you know, doing good, the next time he came around he was standing straight up and I said that’s all I need.”
Gee says his nephew absorbed the lessons quickly.
“Learned all that on his own man like I said he was at the barn with me and for those two years he learned how to hold his horses.”
That work paid off. St. Julian went on to become the first African American jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby in 79 years, a milestone that connected the hours in a local barn to one of the biggest stages in horse racing.
Inside Gee’s home, newspapers and memorabilia document that chapter of history. He points to the clippings but says he does not dwell there.
“Think of the future and not the past, the past is this here, you know I always watch this.”
His life has also included deep loss. Gee lost his son in 1999 after a serious illness at a young age. Years later, his grandson Tyshawn died after being hit by a car. Gee says that grief tested him in ways few things have.
“I don’t let too much of anything get me down man, that was my biggest loss was my Grandson, I cried for weeks, I know one thing, If my day of reckoning comes, I have a few band leaders in there that’ll show me the way.”
Despite the hardships, Gee says he keeps moving forward. When asked what keeps the fire burning, his answer comes without hesitation.
“My grandkids…man my grandkids.”
Through physical challenges, historic milestones and personal heartbreak, Gee continues to take life as it comes — holding on to the lessons he was taught early and the family that still surrounds him.
