When 32-year-old Markel Eskridge departed the plane with a tattered copy of “French Quarter: History of New Orleans Underworld,” he turned a few heads. A few of the passengers even stopped to ask what he was reading.

“They wanted to know what was holding a black man’s attention,” said the Memphis, Tenn., native, who was on his way to attend the New York Times Student Journalism Institute in New Orleans.

Since age 4, Eskridge bounced between his mother’s home in Memphis and his grandmother’s home in Flint, Mich. Using “colorful” to describe his scattered upbringing, he spent the last 16 years of his life wasting time.

It wasn’t until he turned 30 that Eskridge decided to enroll in LeMoyne-Owen College in South Memphis.

“I walked into the financial aid office and said, ‘I want to go to school, but I don’t have any money,’” said Eskridge, who is now a junior in print journalism.

The financial aid officer looked past his four gold fronts, baggy clothes and Memphis slang and helped him get admitted to LeMoyne.

“When I walked through the college doors, I didn’t even know how to cut on a computer or type a paper,” Eskridge said. “But at the end of the first semester I had a 3.0.”

He has not stopped achieving since. As managing editor of the Magician, LeMoyne’s campus newspaper, Eskridge used his connections to the president of the college to get a recommendation to apply for the institute.

He said he hopes to use his experiences to further the voice of the urban black male.

“I want to put a twist and another voice in the newsroom,’’ Eskridge said. “I want to be the kind of journalist who gives somebody hope.”

ROBBYN MITCHELL