Eyes on the Prize II; Interview with Karriema Jordan

Why did you first begin to think of yourself as an American of African ancestry, your first sort of consciousness of being an African American? When I was in 5th grade and I had my first black teacher that was Mr. Sore's. Okay, could you just make sure you were phrased it as that? Okay, the first time I really realized that I was an African American, just not a Negro American, was when I was in a 5th grade, I had a black teacher named John Sore's and he would tell us that we were not Indians, we were not Negroes, we were African Americans. It caused a lot of controversy with my grandmother who went up to school and told him I was not an African American, I was an Indian, but he convinced me I was African American. Okay, please stop for a second.

Okay, once again, when did you first begin to think of yourself as an American of African ancestry? When did you first think of yourself as an African American? First time I thought of myself as an African American was when I was in a 5th grade and I had my first black teacher, John Sore's, who told us we were not Negroes because Negroes didn't come from anywhere. We were not Indians because our cheekbones weren't die enough and he told us we were African Americans. It caused a lot of controversy between him and my grandmother, but he convinced me I was an African American. How did you get your name if you could tell the whole story about your first name and your first name you chose yourself and then you have the name of that now? Well, summer at Pratt, when we were learning about African culture, there was a book on Molly Songay and another ancient African civilization and it had a story about Nabooia, a black woman prophet and my name was really Nabooia where you see and where you see just meant black.

I met a Muslim brother one day who told me I was not a black woman prophet because I couldn't prophesize anything so he called me Kareema. So my name went from Nabooia to Kareema because no one said Nabooia, everybody called me Naboo. Could you tell the story of wearing your first Afro Halloween party or just start from the beginning? Well, we had a Halloween party and I wanted to come as an African American or African really and my mother really opposed that because that meant I had to wear an Afro. So in order for me to wear an Afro, I had to have shorter hair. So I took the straightening comb and fired it up to as hot as it can get and just brushed it all over my head and it all fell off and I washed it and had instant Afro. It didn't look great but it was an Afro and I didn't care.

And then what happened after that? Well she was a little upset and I had to wear it like that until my aunt had a beautician just cut it short and made it an Afro and it's been like that since. Okay. When did you first become aware that there was a struggle going on at your school but there was an effort to have more control by a community? When the teachers went out on strike. Okay. And make sure you rephrase the question. Okay. I remembered my first awareness that there was a controversy or that there was community control or anything was when the teachers went out on strike and the black teachers decided to keep the schools open. When I saw the police outside the school, when they turned, I'll play ground into a police precinct. When I saw the police across the street on the row houses, on top, they were on top of the roofs and the helicopters and that's when it comes pretty fast that there's something

going on. Was there any time before the strike that you became aware of the struggle going on at your school? Not really. It wasn't really a struggle that was brought out to the students. It wasn't until the teachers decided that their security and their pay meant more than whether I passed the Regents exams or not that it started affecting me and then I became aware of it. Okay. Could you describe the events at junior high school 271 around the death of Martin Luther King? Just sort of talking through that. Well, the assembly, what happened is, I think, previous to that we had had a teacher's strike and at that point, you're more aware of your black leaders and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X was one of them. One of the things that I got a chance to listen to was Malcolm X, a ballot and a bullet. To me, that differentiated, well, that was the difference between Malcolm X and Martin

Luther King was the ballot and the bullet. When they killed Martin Luther King, they killed the ballot. They left no other thing for us to do but to go for the bullet. That day, we had a big riot in school and I remember less Campbell in the assembly. Everyone was angry. We rode on the wall, avenged King, killed Whitey. Teachers got upset. The White teachers claimed that they were being beat up. Some of them and some of them was hit by flying debris. I'd never saw anyone throw anything but maybe it did happen. I remember less Campbell telling us, if you're going to riot this time, don't steal toothpaste because that won't stop a bullet. I'm sure that's the most famous thing from that whole assembly. Okay.

Actually, we'll make it back to that again. Yeah, he'll kill me. Okay. A form of 68, that's one of the big strikes we're going on. What was it like going to school and could you talk about how your day began and, you know, was it wrong? Okay. I was totally amazed to know, to get up in the morning, you walk, meet my friend, Sia. We get to school and first thing, on the block of the school on Howard, we came in from the Howard side, Howard Avenue side and we had to go through barricades to get to the school and you look up and on the rooftops across the street from the school, the cops were with the helmet gear and the riot helmets and the night sticks and helicopters and the playground was converted into a precinct and walking up to the school, you have just

mass confusion. You have the community people out there, you have the UFT and you have the black teachers on the inside. It was, you would just amaze, you couldn't believe this was happening, you know, and you just went to school. And are there any particular scenes or incidents that you remember seeing outside the school? The scene that I remember is in front of the school, the main entrance. The police keeping out the community people, me standing on the stairs looking down into this crowd and just seeing all the police and the helicopters, I mean, they had their guns ready to fire, it was just, you just couldn't believe it, it was just amazement, it was like someone was filming a movie or something. Who do you have the police were protecting? The UFT teachers.

The police were protecting the UFT teachers, that's who they were protecting, they definitely were not protecting me, were the community people, we belong there, UFT teachers decided to be the outsiders. Okay. What was the difference between the new teachers coming in, the teachers from the African American Teachers Association and the old teachers? What was the difference in what they taught their attitudes? We have to understand the difference between the new teachers and the old teachers. Number one, you had very few black teachers in the school at that time. Number two, this was the end of the second strike. There was a lot of activity going around. So basically, as a student, you were more curious as to why this was happening than you really, your curiosity was more to why it was happening rather than who discovered America in Christopher

Columbus. So the teachers were addressing more and more those questions. And also, you, as a student, were willing to believe them more than the UFT teachers, because they were the ones who were the black teachers were the ones who were concerned as to whether you pass your regents exams or your classes and not the UFT teachers at that point. They were very hostile towards the students too. All of them, they were very hostile and they acted like automatically, we were hostile towards them. But they made their choice, not the black teachers. So again, further, what was it like having so many more black teachers inside of junior high school to 71? Well, you learned a lot more. It was a lot more. You learned a lot more. You identified more.

You learned that teachers were human beings, not some abstract something. They stayed after school at three o'clock, they didn't run downstairs and punch out. They gave you more time. I mean, it was more of, you felt more accepted. You weren't the outsider in your own school. They were part of your environment. I mean, they were black. You can identify with them and they can identify with you. This is simple as that. There's no big mystery, you know? Could you talk about the bulletin board that you and Cia created, describe that? Oh, the bulletin board was a very graphic, very nice. It had a black uncle Sam, saying that the liberation army once you had a lot of emery from the Panther Party, a lot of his, it was a collage of emery's work, poetry from Cia. She had her poem about, hey, Mr. Juman, with that Yamako on your head, had guns, baby

guns. And everything that was there, that was the thing that was opposed, that we had clipped out the words, guns, baby guns from the black Panther Party. And that was a whole controversy behind that bulletin board. Okay. What were some of the other extracurricular activities that you were involved in? I mean, mainly as a member of the African American Students Association? Well, we did a lot of things, like we got out a lot of mailings about meetings and the community. We were really assisting mailings, clerical things, things of that sort. My activities as African Students Association, student, didn't really start manifesting itself until I went to high school at Franklin K. Lane. Then we started organizing demonstrations and things of that sort. Okay. Could you talk about some of your memories of any classes you were talking before, how

in math class and science class and shop class, there was an African consciousness and a consciousness generally. So what are some of your memories of classes during the strike? Some of my memories of the classes during the strike were you try to have science, you know, but this, you just can't have a science, biology class with all the political science going out. So you basically have a political science because as a student, you have to know why these things are happening. So everything became more a political thing no matter what it was. If it was Miss McNair's English class, either she, part of the class is talking about that. The other part now is focusing on Langston Hughes. If it was Miss McNair's shop class, you know, even while you're constructing whatever you're constructing a shop, you're still talking about what's going on outside, why is

it happening? No debate is just discussion, history class without then became more of a political science. And it was healthy, this information was needed, you know, we, you know, I don't think the white teachers, and matter of fact, with the white teachers you didn't discuss these things, you didn't bother to even ask, they didn't volunteer any information either. How was the strike, you know, you were an eighth grader, I guess you were an eighth grader by then. Eighth and ninth grader. How was the strike affecting your plans, you know, how was that affecting your studies? Well, we miss the strike affected our studies because we missed a lot of school. We did take, we still were responsible for the region's exams, but you didn't see any further than what was happening then because what was happening right then during the teacher

strike was telling you that no matter what you did as a black kid, it really didn't matter. So I really don't remember any aspirations from that point to the next point. I knew I had to go to high school, I remember getting my final report card home in the mail. Very few classes that I go to really, there weren't any, there really wasn't a formal school. So we really didn't have, it was just too many interruptions to have school. Your school was what's happening in the community. Every single day was a new day, it's a new thing, you didn't know what to expect and that happened every day. Okay, you were born to recent Jordan, how did you, how did you get your name? I was born to recent Jordan, that's true, but slave names were out, you know, you remember

Jordan was the slave master's name and Teresa was some, I don't know, so everybody adopted African names, I adopted minds from a book that I, in a summer program, I read a book on African civilizations and one of the women in that book was Nabooia. And so I thought Nabooia was a great name and it was a woman prophet. And where you see, my name was Nabooia, where you see where you see meant black. So I adopted that name, everybody called me Nabby, but I met an African brother who said to me that I was not an African prophet, a woman prophet, and that was sacrilege, you know, so he decided to name me Karima, which is a person in a Quran who did good deeds for the prophet Muhammad. So I didn't oppose to it, one name to me was better, just as good as the other, as long as it was African. So I kept the name Karima.

What happened when Martin Luther King died was pretty devastating to us. I knew the moment I got into school something was going to happen, and I think right after home-room period was when all hell broke loose and we just threw chairs around, wrote on the walls of Bench King, Kil Whitey, and they, a big assembly was called, and I do remember Roy Ennis being there, Les Campbell, I'm not sure, but think Rudy McCoy was there. It was a lot of, we all gathered in the assembly, and of course everybody is devastated from the news, and we were told not to riot. We were told, if we were going to riot, not to still toothpaste, because toothpaste don't stop bullets, and that's what I remember from that.

Okay. Let's roll out to roll out. Okay. Once we're inside the auditorium, could you describe, this is the day after Martin Luther King has been assassinated, could you tell us what happened? Oh, there was a lot of screams about black power, and what happened inside the assembly was electricity, it's a lot of screams of black power and Kil Whitey, just a lot of hurt and being expressed, Les Campbell gave a long speech, I can't remember everything that was said in the speech, I remember Roy Ennis was there, he said a few words, and I think Rudy McCoy was there, a lot of sunny Carson was there, just a lot of people were there, and one of the things I do remember from that assembly is that if you're going to riot,

don't still toothpaste, because it doesn't stop bullets, and I think afterwards we disperse, I don't remember going into the community and breaking windows or anything, but I'm sure we just went home from there, I can't remember any other activity. Okay. Could you tell me about some of the activities that you and Cia did in the school, I want you to tell her both in fourth grade? Okay, C&I had a very unique situation, we were two students who had access to the school when all of the students could not have that access, one of the things we did was we put up a bulletin board, the bulletin board was a collage of different poetry, different clippings from the Black Panther Party, we had a picture of a Black Uncle Sam that says the Black Liberation Army wants you, we had a little clippings from the Black Panther

Party paper that said guns, baby guns, and something by H. Rep Brown, it was just a collage of poetry and art and things of that sort, that out of everything that was on that bulletin board, the guns, baby guns, was the part that made the newspaper and they wanted us to take that down, we took it down because if we didn't take that down the whole bulletin board would have to be dismantled, but we did things like that, we had access and no one questioned our access, we kind of ran the school. You had a number of new African American teachers in the schools that some people have said that these teachers were teaching hate, was that true? Did these teachers teach hate? They didn't teach hate, they didn't have to teach hate. The police, the UFT teachers, the media, how they reported what was going on, they taught

us that, not to hate, but they taught us that we weren't worth anything. What the Black teachers did do was to broaden us, our perspective of looking at things. We were no longer members of a small community called Ocean Hill Brownsville, we were broadened to W.E.B. Du Bois, his readings, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, H.R. Brown, Mousetown, the red book, I mean we became international and it was a good thing because Black people are the third world, the third world is much larger than the European history. They brought us back to ancient African history, I mean ancient world history which didn't any longer start at Rome, it started with the Benin society and smelting of or and silver and gold and things of that sort.

We became much larger than just the community and until today when I look at things, I look at it from an international perspective. And that was what those teachers taught us, they'd hate was like, that was the least. I mean why worry about hate, wasn't wonderful, once again, you could just tell the Afro story again, just start, when did you first decide that you wanted to wear your hair? Well we had a party, a Halloween party and I had bought some African material, well it was a really African material, it was just some material, I was going to wrap it up and I needed to have my hair on an Afro and my mother would not let me wear an Afro, absolutely not. So I decided that the only way I could wear an Afro is if my hair was shorter. So I took the straightening comb and fired it up till it was real red and I just burnt all the hair around to about ear length, washed it and I had instant Afro except that it

was not really well kept at all but it was my first Afro and I wore it with pride. And my aunt who was a little hipper than my mother and her beautician really saw and felt sorry for me and cut it down to a real nice Afro. But my mother today still has not forgiven me for burning out my hair but I still wear my Afro with pride.