Jim Cooper's Orange County; Orange County Blacks: A Dream Comes True

Very special grand marshal riding in the front car both as the leader of the parade and as the grand marshal like you land a King the daughter of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King. He also gave the keynote address at a parade celebration and then an abandoned building even a marking out all made up the seventh annual black athletes parade and then and now the biggest celebration of a kind in the south when black adorable going to organize the parade. Mary Bradley the first black mayor in the history of Los Angeles seem to participate along with visiting black legislators and athletes and performers. Black Pride was highly evident and I would have a larger black population. When you read the first black president then they have the advantage with another dignitary in the parade to become a leading tittie in Southern California in its effort to promote equal opportunity. With many Hispanic black and without the feat and that is an In and out of government. Another popular participant was Robert Bobb for the fact that he managed to get me a pen and didn't come into a job or the new created innovative new programs aimed at bringing in all

ethnic groups into the mainstream of cultural and municipal affairs than it can often be joking. Director of community relations when they can what the mistress of ceremony for the brave documentaries at the end of numerous awards for her community through with efforts in the county. I thought with Yolanda King on her visit and I asked her what is the biggest message you carry that people actually travelled about. We can't really wait for someone to come along and deliver us that indeed we then have to assume some responsibility ourselves. That everybody can do something they can assume responsibility for at least making the place in which they find themselves a little bit better. You use the arts. For your power to change lives and change attitude would you comment on that. Well I think that the power of music the power of film the power of television is unparalleled. That indeed it affects our attitudes our values it sensitizes us to convey to ideas and problems and that's what I've been trying to do is to utilize all of those

forms of the arts all of those elements to communicate some mention messages and hopefully to reach people in a different way in a way that the traditional mediums may not. How can the average person of goodwill take part in this. Perhaps he or she doesn't know what he should do what they should do. How can the average person of goodwill take part in this great movement. Well in every community I have not found one yet. There is there are organizations that are working to make that particular community better or focusing on some of the larger issues that we're facing today plug in to those organizations a single individual by themselves. Yes it's difficult to do something but plug into those various entities that are working and if you don't think they're working get in there and help make them work. Your father's great dream come true to some extent it's now a national holiday in honor of his name to focus attention. What part of the dream do you feel is yet on full field. Round there's several parts of the dream the fact is that

there are still far too many people that are locked out of the system and those people are black white brown make a big cut across all racial religious lines. It really affects all of us there 40 million people or more living in poverty today in America the richest country in the world. I thought he was still here that would be one of the primary issues that he would be working toward and then also our obsession with waging war and the nuclear buildup that has occurred over the last several years. That would be of great concern to him. One of his great dreams was that his grandchildren would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the quality of their character. Had we gotten there yet. Ron I think that the reality is that we have and I think far too often people are not judged by the color of their skin but rather by the number of degrees they hold or the size of this Stockport. Well you know I think there's a materialism that America Americans are in the grasp that we're going to have to

really look at. Color is still a factor however and the racism that we face today is more institutionalized it's not the overt racism that we found in the 60s but it's still very much there and meet our special guest today. Roberta Jenkins and her husband Matt both graduated from Tuskegee University in Alabama with the help of loans scholarship and odd jobs. Today Matt the millionaire real estate developer and they've started the educational foundation for black Americans to help black students is also passed by stamina for kids sake to help prevent child abuse. Margaret Ramsey is a community liaison a specialist for the center Unified School District. She's been nominated for a golden city award for community service as a member of the black historical commission and served on the board of the Commission on the status of women and the board of the South Orange County YWCA. Glenn Rogers is editor of the Tri-County bulletin the post he's held in the member 1985. He's a retired engineer and past president of the NAACP

for Orange County and fat chairman of the board of the nonprofit pride Development Council a day care organization located in Santa Ana. Carolyn virus is a member of the Steering Committee of the United Negro College Fund. She's also director of the minority engineering program at the California State University of Florida. Responsible for recruiting minority students for the minority engineering project counseling them and then helping them get placed within the profession. I'd like to ask you to view it from your own perspective to comment on what one of the things we were talking about with Yolanda King in which he said that the kind of discrimination that exists is more subtle now. I think she said more institutionalized. Do do any of you want to comment on that. Has the character of racism faltered. You want to start with that. Well I think what it means. Black people are faced with the fact that we. Feel bad some of us have a ride and that

we don't realize that there's a lot of work for us to do as a people and I feel it's important that we are aware of our rude and that in dealing with moving ahead that we consider where we are going and where we're coming from. What about that you have any comment on that with your ever green. Oh yeah I think education is probably one of the key factors that we have to consider in this. Because so many of our kids are getting and not having money to go to school. And so on that are in college in place of that so what they don't have enough money. Their tuitions are paid partly by their families. The federal funds are cut back for this part of the problem for us and I think without education we can't compete in the real marketplace. Excuse me I think a lot of damage that education is extremely important however I believe that it starts way before you reach the college

level of the high school level. I work in the elementary division and Santa Ana and I think that is where it should start. There are a lot of people who feel locked out of the system and. I believe due to poverty and lack of education that children just do not aspire because they feel this is not for me. I mean and I think the distance between the poor and the affluent is it's a widening gap that widening debt not getting anywhere and I think that we have to be very conscious of the fact that there is a breakdown of the extended family I think by people in the pads had mothers grandmothers and aunts and uncles as a support system. We are now in Orange County. We're isolated from our extended family and I think that that is where I think we really need to start focusing on the people.

That we have in Orange County many many highly successful achieving black people. And we have also the kind that if you work with and they care center who for whom this getting to the week of the big problem you want to talk a bit about you know I'd like to address that to my knowledge there's not another daycare center in the county that accept children from parents where in most instances a single you know we have a family member who is usually female. And they really can't afford daycare and pride has a sliding scale from zero to $40 it was when I would cure the board. Yeah and so you have to get out in and scurry around and get that that kind of money to support that. As I recall Margaret started to do the same thing I don't know what the status is of that now Margaret I don't care if you know her and I that is climbing Mount Everest. It's out of the funds available for base

insurance as you know has tripled. Sometimes as much as 300 percent. And it's almost I say almost insurmountable task and yet it is we identified two years ago. Twelve thousand children in the seven elementary school area between the ages of 5 and 11 and yet there were only 200 slots available care for those children. So this alone would have a tremendous impact on a working mother woman who desires to go back and get some training or find a job. I mean she's locked into a well facet if you like on one on one hand society is pressuring that woman to get off welfare and get back into the in the career market the job market. On the other hand there are so many barriers and awaiting the support structure the nodes upon undercutting the support that's going to lead her to do that very thing at this site is that going to do that is one of the

things that I think women across the board face and black women in particular. You mentioned a little earlier about racism has changed I think it is more akin to Colbert than it used to be a certain of the signs and that on the door any longer that says you know black or white out that kind of thing. And yet it is an invisible barrier there. And if welfare woman would like to increase my income a lot and make a hundred dollars that month just to Bath food then if she reported her grant is cut if she doesn't report it you stand to run the risk of going to jail for fraud. So a certain apathy sets and of course it affects the children and it affects them the way they perform in school and I see it but with a child will say at 11 years old he said what do you want to be when you grow up and he said nothing.

I mean you know they will describe something very menial. You know that because they don't see the prospect they don't have a high you better face you know and then they get into the very thing that you were talking about that with with your work work you tell a little bit about your effort to find. Students been ordered to put them into a very hot industry because I'm told that professionally engineering is a really a hot profession to get into and that the place to be right now. I think that with young people as you referred to they are in need of role models. And I think bad if we think in terms of that's the first successful black bettery in this community. We can use those individuals to help motivate and to inspire those young people at an early age. I really feel that we need to focus on the young people or the reading. We should really try to design and develop programs with the kindergartners the first in the second grade and it's known that. Round the third grade is when they start falling behind. They started

losing a little of that interest and doing better that they can do the drive to succeed. This drive that they can do. Is gone by the end of the third grade. And that's where we need to put some energy. Could you tell us just one. Very quick story on how you were successful to get some typical minority involved in engineering and getting into place. Can you give us one quick story a quick story. One of the things and I don't know whether back consider the quick story. I think my interest is motivation and I think I focus more on helping the student to realize that there is a world out there that he is very much a part of and that world he can actively contribute and that he has something to contribute to that world. I think often times students feel that well I can't do anything you know. So my thing is that you can do and I use individuals that are out there that have succeed and to indicate to share with them I have them come in and talk to the students I have

mentors from some of the cut bigger companies that come in and work individually with the student they take them out for perhaps just a lunch or an informal lunch where they will and then take them to their workplace where they help motivate I can't do it by myself I recruit. People from what they don't know the big part and motivation is the key the indicating that they can do it. And with the support and help we're behind them. Roberta like you know a bit more about what you're doing now with the Educational Foundation for the black students but educational foundation for black Americans with something that was started to do frost to help and to give financial and moral support you and your husband give to black students and we were able through what we've been doing a through him Grant and. Reviving long fine of $20000 that we gave to the university and $5000 that we've given to. Compton College to help these students. What kind of DNA you're looking for to give us a practical.

I'm motivated or even a little bit as to who we have with having problems in school maybe can't pay all of his tuition. Maybe can't buy the books. But at this point what we're doing is we're trying to give money to students who need the money to finish the master who's already there in the school in the in the future we hope to as our long time girl goals we hope to start from and jump into a program to get blacks into business and these kinds of things. What about the beauty of your dream or would you like it to go if you had a dream where it would you like to do the program well as a foundation I would love to see it become something that would certainly help future generations of black Americans. Your your husband earlier deserve a lot of credit for the effort you're putting in. I have to ask you Clinton you've been around I don't know how many years. How many are we talking about in Orange County broad came here with the Marines in 1850. We'll let you get be all bad if you're a Marine and I have I have a special warm place for marine.

150 That's a long time what changes have you seen that have been good or or bad you want to comment on the condition the black condition in Orange County. Remember one of the Gadfly in my concerns and my interest I'm concerned about the daycare situation. Yeah but I'm really more concerned about the lack of the support base for our kids. They from third grade while their way through high school where the need is there to gain the science of the hard times and math the physics of chemistry and it has bothered me too to get that money some time ago I put together we put together because Margaret help me. We put together an ISA grant to provide little 15 minute TV clips. OK in which you taught math chemistry physics whatever and it could be shown in the home. And in cases where we have a lot of families that are black still suffer from okay nine months in the field in three months in school as opposed to the majority

community nine months you know in school and pretty much on vacation. So the generations still suffer from from that lack of a support base and we're not going to do well in math and chemistry and physics too to fit into that into good engineering program wail until death support base if there are I'd like to share you with a little story and it is not self-aggrandizement. But but if it if it impacts on anybody I hope it does what is it here and I have four boys. And Margaret will tell you. My youngest scored in the 99 percentile on the sat nav to Achievement Test 1 he scored seven hundred sixty point of the eight hundred possible. You want me to he scored seven hundred eighty that the thing I'm proud of is the realization that I got out of that that any child normally equipped with a good support base yet can go to Harvard Stanford Yale anywhere but the

support base is a problem. And when that child has a mom and dad or the mom only who themselves suffer from that nine months in the field and three months in school though it seems like a long time it's not it hasn't been very long. We have to come to grips with that Middle East approach. I'd like to applaud you you all for money to put together those don't you don't trip they are going on there you're talking to the right person the ballet to put together those educational trip 15 minutes long because now you can play it on a VCR and that that that household the parent who in the past have had to say when the child came to how do we work this problem infraction I don't know how to do you know they wouldn't say they don't know how to do it they say why go do your homework because they're not going to embarrass themselves. But if they're got the VCR with the clip there you run it back and forth until you get it right in the privacy of your own home. Mom and Daddy can learn everybody there may know very well and I can't understand why the

people in. Then I knew for a school district did not burn that thing but they funded a brandishing of doing it. But those are the kind you're not giving up the flower you know I've never been one to the mark sometimes I deviate but I've never given up that they failed to say and I guess you feel that would beat tooting your own horn. Clinton used to come in the afternoons to manifest a school and tutor any and all students who would come to that third and get a kid from junior high school in high school and really grow up with three to four and from four to five the high school kids in math didn't care and that was at the end of a very long day when I would like to say is I feel that more black professionals a more professional period but especially black professional sense we need to role model black kid I would like to see them take up that very same not burden but labor of love that Clinton had and come into the schools. And

because the role models and I definitely need it when you talk about motivation and and you're talking about scholarships and and helping. But if we don't get them past elementary school and they kind of die in the third grade the need for all of this is you know you're going to go through that to the point I was trying to get to was that support base are used to the pretty my kids. For learning and that may sound like bribery but it's not. Nobody is right might go work for nothing. Ok gave an incentive. Yeah well I had them write poems stories I bought it I paid commercial rates up if it were a quarter if they don't want it and they were cheap they would put it out of my dock but in the open I'd like to know how to do it on my face anyway I'd have to open it and we'll be using you know other and it was great. In addition I put a blackboard on the dining room and my Howel bought Margaret stock board and when they come home from school if the teacher with too lazy to provide homework. We had homework anyway and there's one subject

not taught in school it's the one that you need throughout your whole life that self-discipline and self-discipline come from homework where you got to go home and sit down to do it but the teacher is too pressured with other things and he or she doesn't provide homework with the child at all what a wonderful teacher. But the child being ripped off and I look at it the last time September at my house the TV went off with the children to Raid Raid So what you're suggesting I reckon that you know Carolyn. The professors that university of Irvine have established a Black Saturday a cap for the student. I think this is a positive way of motivating and exposing them to the math science they bring in black professionals medical doctors engineers mathematicians for the position just Gammick a profession. Professionals and I think it's just an outstanding enrichment for our black kids in Orange County and I think this is a start and they realize that

the time to start is when they're very young and these kinds of things are beginning in Orange County. You certainly have a dynamic role model of pay for one fuel part yet. Have you seen some electricity happen because they see a black lady who was up there their president and I'm there prowling them to get on with it get on with your life act that she has the fifth visit and because they know that she's not just. Someone that knew exactly and dad she. Seemed. Fantastic she doesn't have to say anything just because they know her president her prior role model her just a little back like what used to be said that she's a very very effective educator exactly that that her dad is the only one west of the Mississippi or something that is that has the institution of the size of the Fullerton tsunami for the first. We have just the little time left but Margaret what would you say if you had to prioritize the biggest

achievement achievement that blacks need to work toward in Orange County. Well just say whether one or two we've when we talk about education we talk about self discipline what would you say your wish list would be for the black young black people coming up in Orange County one of the things and that I will make this as fast as possible. I would like them not. To depend on others as a mirror image but to believe in themselves. There's a quote that I always misquote and it says if you're thinking of a day of the year plant a seed if you're thinking of ten years plant a tree if you think in a hundred years educate the people and that's what I would like to see is for them to value education. Clinton what year we got time for a quick and if you had your way for the top priority that you'd like to see achievement for the black people in the coming 10 years what would you say would be concentration on a black male you because are black female is suffering from a lack of guy to choose from because they are being mis educated and we can lower our prison

costs if we if we educate our youth and make and make them be active and I don't and don't have a TV don't like dating right. What would be a read of a few times I do here cringe when I think I might question we should be that we we have professional black to participate more in making sure these things happen. And your special with if you have. It what economic security be involved in Mali they don't. On our program a volunteer of the many black people are extremely active and volunteer to help other than to get the marvelous achievement. But that's what you're saying more involvement. All right thank you our time is almost up now and I want to thank our guest today for them inside the Golden challenge of the Warren County black community. Please join me next week at the same time. When I look at the work being done into the fight against illiteracy I'm Jim Cooper. Thanks for being with us. Jim Cooper's Orange County is made possible by grants from the gray steel

foundation providing charitable assistance to deserving organizations in the areas of health education and culture by Disneyland Park celebrating 30 years in Orange County by signal landmark incorporated developer of Southern California real estate and builder of Landmark homes by Robert have an account.