1976-2006: 30 YEARS OF TRIUMPH AND STRUGGLE

Native Son Sites a Workable Blueprint for the Future

By JARRETTE FELLOWS JR.

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

LOS ANGELES-Johnie Harold Scott was one of the bright ones emerging from the Class of 1964 at David Starr Jordan High School in Watts.

He was one of 96 graduating seniors, which as a sophomore class was more than twice as large at 205 students. But by 1964, more than half had dropped out of school.

Like his fellow graduates, Scott found a way to avoid the academic pitfall of high school dropout and went on to stellar accomplishment. He earned academic scholarships to Harvard and Stanford universities, an Emmy Award at age 19 for his scripting role in a documentary titled, "The Angry Voices of Watts," and a White House Fellowship. He is currently a professor at California State University, Northridge, in the Black Studies Department, where he chairs the Pan African Studies Writing Program.

"Old school" values like the "Village" concept of neighbors and friends pitching in to steer a child on the straight and narrow road, academic devotion, hard work and sacrifice-even corporal punishment at home and at school-helped mold Scott for the challenges ahead. A single mother on welfare in the Jordan Downs Housing Project raised him with six other siblings, but growing up without a father didn't resign him to a back road of self-destruction.

But what was the stuff that infused 1960s and 1970s Black America with a driving will to win, to overcome racism and bigotry, before the "n-word" among its young became a commonplace reference of self-disgrace?

"James Brown would say it loud, 'I'm Black and I'm Proud'-that meant something [to us] then," Scott said. "Obviously, there's going to be a new black politic. Forty years ago this community was 90 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic. Today, it is 65 percent Hispanic, 30 percent black, and 5 to 10 percent other-and it's still swinging. And you've got that black flight outward to the high desert or the Moreno Valley."

Scott said the numbers translate to shrinking black elected officials, where the days of black representation in elective seats like the Eighth, Ninth, and 10th council districts may soon become a past reality.

"[Soon] there aren't going to be any more predominantly black districts. That's just a reality," Scott said. "Any new black politicians are going to have to forge new alliances that are cross-cultural. That's part of our challenge."

Creating new political alliances is one thing, but developing new black political leaders of tomorrow is another challenge for the African American community. The family stock of today is not the stock of old, which produced stellar black leaders in every field, with the grit and resolve to stand up to racism and other impediments that stood in their way. Good homes produced that, whether one with a father and mother, or just a single mom, good homes helped shaped the role models of success 30 years ago.

Another major contributing factor was excellence in school, an area of concern for Scott, a scholar who knows well what a solid education will do for a person's career.

"Education has always been a constant," Scott said, "But I'm very much afraid that our kids are coming up way short. That's what the numbers show-the academic performance index, or whatever.

"Our kids are being out-performed by the immigrants at exactly the wrong time in history. This is the age of technology. If at any time in the history of man, where education or skills were at a premium, this would be the time period."

But instead, Scott noted, African American students are the leaders in school dropouts and suspensions.

Endurance was also a large part of Johnie Scott's success. His road may have appeared to some to be shimmering with gold lining, but Scott will tell you that the gold wasn't very thick along some portions of his timeline. After leaving Jordan High, Scott enjoyed the distinction of becoming the first student from Watts to win a full academic scholarship to Harvard University. But he also shared the dubious distinction of becoming the first student from Watts to flunk out after one year.

Scott returned to Watts, angry and disheveled in 1965, the year the infamous civil upheaval exploded. He had learned a very important lesson at Harvard-that the quality of education at Jordan High in Watts didn't adequately prepare him the way schools in the suburbs prepared middle class white students. But he survived the period and clawed his way back up the academic mountain to Stanford University, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English and creative writing, respectively. Later, he earned a master's in fine arts from Antioch University.

As a mentor to numerous students under his watch at Northridge, Scott shared one of his strictures-"Mine don't quit. I don't care how tough it gets, mine don't quit," he said. "I'm like the coach that says, 'we're going up against a team that's taller than us, faster than us, that's averaging 100 points a game, but I only ask one thing from you guys, that after the game, you left it all on the court.

"Don't let it be said that they out-hustled you. If you gave it your best, that's all that I can ask,'" Scott said.

Scott said he believes today's African American students give up too quickly in school, something he attributes to poor home rearing. "We weren't raised that way."

Today's black kids, Scott said, are not even being raised to aspire to college. Education is the key-something, he said, that can't be taken away.

A return to "moral values is very important [too]," Scott noted. "So many black kids are spiritually lost" adhering to a street culture that preaches, "Get [Rich] or Die Tryin','" or "It's Hard Out Here [for a] Pimp," references to popular film and music titles targeted to an urban demographic.

"[Our] kids have adopted it," Scott said.

Social scientists are quick to blame poor child rearing in the African American community on the wholesale absence of fathers. Scott refutes the notion.

"That's not an excuse. The black woman has done a remarkable job, all things considered," he declared.

But the old values are really being tried and tested in the 21st century, Scott said glumly. "We need people of conviction. No matter how marginalized or entrenched we might seem to be, there's something to be said for hope holding fast.

"We come from strong stock [and] have survived a lot of challenges, but face a very critical one now. If I had the answer, believe me, I'd put it in a can and sell it," Scott said with a laugh.