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The line of black boys, most of them wearing their too-big shorts or jeans, filed into rows of auditorium seats Wednesday at Creighton University. The line of black men, all of them in crisp suits and ties, strode to the front.
In that second line: the first black man elected in Nebraska in a countywide race. The second black chief of police. The recruiter who could put his hands on $10 million in scholarships. The accountant who employed 25 people. And judges, writers, lawyers, bankers, college educators.
Invoking a saying of the 100 Black Men, Thomas Warren stared at this mostly ninth-grade audience and told them:
“What you see is what you will be.”
Warren, the city’s first black police chief, is now president and CEO of the Urban League of Nebraska, one of four community agencies that sponsored what organizers hope to repeat: a summit aimed at this highly at-risk population of young black males.
Called Strive for Success, the daylong summit featured how-I-did-it sessions, in which the men told their stories of obstacles and success, offered their help and urged the boys to follow their dreams. The boys were treated to lunch and an address from Steve Perry, who founded and runs a Hartford, Conn., high school where all graduates go to four-year colleges. Perry also is a CNN contributor and an author.
The nearly 150 participants were asked what they wanted to be — professional football did not count as a career choice. And they got to vote in a high-tech survey that underscored the problems young black males face.
When asked if black men had made a positive impact on the world, fewer than half of the boys gave a strong yes. When asked if their father had been a positive influence in their life, 39 percent gave a strong no.
If the boys didn’t already know what they were up against statistically, Warren told them: 40 percent of Nebraska blacks who started high school in 2004 graduated on time in 2008; 83 percent of white Nebraskans in that cohort did.
Three out of four black children are born to unwed mothers, he said.
And more black men populate jails than colleges.
“We don’t want you to be one of these statistics,” Warren said. “We want you to be successful.”
The degree of challenge was reflected in one small group discussion when Douglas County Judge Darryl Lowe asked the boys whether they could find a gun if they wanted to settle a score. Half the hands in the room went up.
When he asked how many knew someone who had a gun, nearly every kid raised his hand.
“We’re losing people who look like you each week,” Lowe said.
Yet the formula for success isn’t complicated, he said.
“Read a book. Go to class. Dream,” he told them. “What you need is yourself.”
The Rev. Dwight Ford, head of the anti-poverty Eastern Nebraska Community Action Partnership, told the boys his unlikely road to a full ride at Harvard University.
It took the Marine Corps, community college, a state college and pushing through English courses as a 25-year-old surrounded by teenagers.
“Get comfortable being uncomfortable,” he said.
The messages seemed to be sinking in.
“I thought it was going to be boring,” said Jamal Robinson, a 15-year-old Benson High sophomore who wants to be an artist. “But it’s not.”
Benson High freshman Anthony Kubat slouched in the back row for the first session. For the second, he sat up straight, listened keenly and smiled.
“What they have to say means something,” he said.
Another Benson freshman, 14-year-old Ja’hwon Payne, took notes.
“Greatness is beyond your comfort zone,” he wrote in careful pencil script, after hearing Douglas County Commissioner Chris Rodgers quote the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Payne wants to play football but has a backup plan: being a lawyer like his mom.
None of the boys knew there were this many successful black men in Omaha, something that Paul Bryant had suspected.
Bryant, executive director of the Wesley House, which offers leadership programs for black youths in north Omaha, said black men need to be a visible force for change.
“We have to reach back,” he said. “We’ve got to show them you can make it.”
Wesley House, 100 Black Men of Omaha Inc. and the Empowerment Network joined the Urban League in sponsoring the youth summit.
Contact the writer:
444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com
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