Hello all,

I’m looking for a movie about a young (pre-teen?) black kid that befriends an older white man. The setting is in an urban area. The boy has a mother, who dies part way through the movie. He stays with the older man for a time and then then old mad dies as wells.

One of the scenes that stick in my head is that the kid is in the city and then gets lost. He asks for directions and then older kids in an alley offer to sell him a map. The older kids then mug the young boy once he is the alley.

I saw the movie on TV around 1985-1986.
It was on a premium cable channel (HBO, Showtime).
The movie is in color and in English.