Lessons from being a first

Before Barack Obama, there were Howard N. Lee, Blenda Wilson and Maurice Ashley.

Lee became the first black mayor in modern times of a predominantly white Southern town. Wilson was the first black president of Cal State Northridge, Ashley the first black to attain the rank of grandmaster in chess.

With Obama set to become the nation’s 44th president, Lee, Wilson, Ashley and other pioneering African Americans were asked to reflect on the challenges and lessons of being a “first.”

For some, race played a large role in their careers; for others, it was incidental. Many said they felt a sense of obligation to the larger black community to succeed.

Their remarks, based on interviews with Times reporters, have been condensed for brevity.

Howard N. Lee

Chapel Hill, N.C., mayor

In 1969, Lee made international headlines when he defeated a white opponent and was elected mayor of Chapel Hill, a college town of 12,500 people with a population that was 10% black.

Lee, who as a boy was beaten by Klansmen, wasn’t prepared for the attention his election generated. Now 74, he recalls that some black activists accused him of being too accommodating of white interests -- an Uncle Tom.

I wasn’t intending to send a message. I was simply trying to influence decision-making in Chapel Hill.

It was strange. I began to get all these accolades from around the country. People were asking: “How in the world did you do that? And how about coming to consult with us and telling us how we can do it?” . . . I was mayor of Chapel Hill, but I was treated like I was the mayor of every other town by black folk. . . .

People in the power structure, particularly in the state Legislature, now perceived me as a threat -- a stalking horse for the radical element, which would feel they now had permission to just run all over the place.

I thought that every right-thinking black person would see this as an opportunity to not have to continue to fight from outside the system, but gain some hope for coming inside the system. But there was this throwback to slavery days, and they were making the comparison between the house slaves and the field slaves, and I became the house slave. That was tough.

On his first election:

There were [white] people in Chapel Hill who were absolutely devastated. I made a point, as Barack has done, to go to the people who didn’t have confidence in me and reach out to them. That paid off for me by my final campaign, when I won with over 85% of the vote.

Some [white residents] would not talk to me at all. They never came around and I had to write them off. But many people did. It’s amazing. I play golf with a [white] fellow now who refused to vote for me back then, and we’re very close friends.

Blenda Wilson

Cal State Northridge president

By the time she became CSUN’s first black and first female president in 1992, Wilson had already blazed a path in academia. In 1988, she’d become the first woman to head a University of Michigan campus, at Dearborn. At CSUN, she earned high praise for her leadership after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Now 67, she is retired and lives with her husband in Savannah, Ga.

I remember at Michigan someone saying how wonderful it was that African Americans and women could see me as a role model. And a colleague said [that] what’s more important is for white young men and women to see an African American in these positions and be successful. It changes the way that everyone looks at opportunity.

But how can being first be more important than being good?

Being first opens a conversation about our culture, our history, and in that sense it’s not an annoying question. If it never got to accomplishment or vision, though, I suppose I would be annoyed by it. You saw so much in the Obama campaign -- the bedrock goodness of this country and our people. You assume there is going to be a second and a third and fifth and tenth, this is just the beginning.

My father worked in a cleaning establishment; he was a presser -- blue-collar hard work. My mother did a variety of white-collar jobs -- elevator operator, she worked at Sears, she ended up being a supervisor in a juvenile facility. She was a very smart woman who didn’t have the benefit of college.

My mother never said, “Somebody’s going to be a teacher or go to college.” She always said, “Blenda’s going to be a professional.” Not white collar or blue collar. Not menial, a professional -- that was the dream.

I was thinking about Barack Obama’s grandmother having lived to vote for him. In those circumstances where I knew I was a pioneer or a trailblazer, what always seemed to be prominent in my mind was my ancestors who couldn’t have dreamed that their granddaughter or great-granddaughter would be in that kind of position.

If there is anything you carry with you, it’s the sense that we stand on the shoulders of giants, but we made it to places that our ancestors could not have, and that’s a very rewarding feeling.

In retrospect, what I learned about people from the Northridge earthquake -- and I see it in the way Barack Obama casts his vision -- leadership is about giving people a way of thinking about the future. I don’t want to be corny -- that leadership is about hope and the audacity of hope -- but it truly is.

James T. Reynolds

Superintendent of Death Valley National Monument

Reynolds, 62, forged a career in the National Park Service, most recently serving as the first black superintendent of Death Valley National Monument. Reynolds, who retires this month after four decades, grew up in east Texas.

We learned at a very early age what it meant to be black in the South. We would often hear about boys or young men disappearing and being discovered later killed, sometimes by hanging. My mother, who passed away a few years ago at the age of 96, taught us how to survive and when to fight. To this day, whenever I’m facing a difficult situation, or about to do something stupid, I hear her words in my mind.

For example, over the years I’ve run into a park visitor here and there who needed my help, but once we were introduced, didn’t want to be near me. Well, my mother used to say, “Son, never let someone else make you happy or sad.” So instead of saying, “Hey, man, I’m human too. I’m not going to eat you or snatch your purse,” I tend to have a lot of fun with that kind of nonsense.

I recall an older lady in Yosemite Valley who was having some serious medical problems. I went out to take her and her daughter to the clinic. The only place for them to sit was in the front seat with me. These weren’t small people, so that front seat was pretty full and I could tell that little old lady didn’t want to sit next to me. So I scooted over a little closer to her. At one point, I was driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other arm draped around her shoulder, all the while asking questions for my report.

Even today, when I am introduced at a chamber of commerce gathering or a county board of supervisors meeting, there’s always some people in the audience who pause and make that facial expression that says, “Oh my. So you’re the superintendent of Death Valley.”

Regardless, I have a job to do. My mother liked to say, “Son, did Uncle Sam get his money’s worth out of you today?” When we’re recruiting candidates for various positions, I’ll ask, “Are there any folks of color out there we should be looking at?” That question has triggered some uncomfortable dialogue. I’ve had staffers say things like, “Well, yes, but I’m not sure a black or Chicano will like working here because it’s too hot” -- or too cold or some such thing.

This is an area where the whole National Park Service is remiss. It has never done an adequate job of marketing when it comes to people of color. We should pounce on that demographic. It’s ripe, and it’s important. We’re making progress, but my goodness sakes, it’s frustratingly slow.

Maurice Ashley

Chess grandmaster

Ashley, 42, became in 1999 the first black grandmaster -- the highest international title in the chess world. Born in Jamaica, he was initially surprised by the racial divisions he encountered when his family moved to Brooklyn when he was 12.

Initially, I had not thought about becoming the first black grandmaster in chess history. I had not seen a lot of black faces, but it didn’t really concern me so much. It wasn’t until I got closer and closer to the title, as I got a bit older, that I really became a bit more preoccupied by the idea. Not really because of myself but because of fellow black chess players who knew that I had a shot at doing it.

They’d say, “Moe, when are you going to do it, man? C’mon, you’ve got to do it for us.” Of course, I wanted to do it for myself, but having this extra pressure was just almost a little too much, you know? Because you’re disappointing a whole race, it felt like, if you don’t do it.

There were other black players who were pretty good, but still hadn’t attained that international title. . . . We all felt some sort of, I don’t know, I guess, inadequacy in us. Why hadn’t we become grandmasters?

We were great basketball players and entertainers and, obviously, great athletes, and the like. But we hadn’t done this, and we sort of saw it as our mission to accomplish that goal. Once I became the likely candidate, then it was all on my shoulders to pull it off. There was a nagging feeling that, by not having a grandmaster of chess, it might have said something about the intellectual capabilities of African Americans.

I was here at home when Barack Obama became president, and it was one of those moments when you hold your breath until the last moment. You know as a chess player that the game is not over until it’s absolutely over, so you try not to hope too much because you’re getting ahead of yourself.

The moment of the announcement was this tremendous relief and release, very similar to the moment when I became a grandmaster myself. It was finally done and now you can move forward, now you can move on.

Karen Bennett-Haron

Nevada jurist

Bennett-Haron, 47, became the first black female jurist in Nevada’s court system in 2002. She grew up in Las Vegas and worked as a federal public defender and for the Las Vegas Housing Authority.

Las Vegas in particular has always had that reputation of being the Mississippi of the West. There are some who are going to tell you that it no longer has that reputation. I’m not so certain about that. You’re reminded regularly there’s a double standard. There’s no question about it.

How did it impact me? I think it probably made me better, quite frankly, especially as a young lawyer. There was concern expressed by members of the county commission after my appointment that the selection process needed to be revamped. [I was] being scrutinized at a level that I don’t think other people have been.

I’m not real big on “firsts.” I think it’s sad: “2002, first black female in the state judiciary.” That’s a sad commentary.

I’d like to see less focus on the first and more focus on more diversity. Sometimes I think people tend to see one person of color in a position and say, “OK, job done, we’ve got diversity achieved.”

Sylvia Rousseau

Santa Monica High School principal

In 1993, Rousseau became the first black and first female principal of Santa Monica High School, where she reduced the dropout rate, helped raise test scores and increased the college entrance rate for blacks and Latinos. She is now a professor in USC’s Rossier School of Education.

I come from a family of firsts. At the University of Cincinnati, an uncle was the first African American to graduate from the school of pharmacy, and an aunt was the first African American to head a local branch of the library. It’s like that African proverb: We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors.

I think Obama has an edge that many of us don’t have. He has not inherited the slave experience. Those of us whose ancestors were part of the whole slave institution, we have built a resilience. But we also carry a baggage. It’s as if he didn’t get the memo: that I am inferior, as some people portray African Americans.

Our struggle has been external and internal. It’s impossible to come through some of the experiences our people have had without having an effect on who we see ourselves to be.

I was reared in a home where my father would say to us, “You are one of the more fortunate ones.” And when I went to college, he said, “I am not sending you off to become an educated fool. Your role is to serve those who are not as fortunate as you.” I was always conscious that my being in a certain position is an opportunity to make it easier and to give access to those who don’t have it.

I felt in many instances, even by well-meaning people, that I was being tested: Is she really as smart as she might appear to be? There was always a sense in which I felt I was having to prove something about myself.

Phyllis Currie

General manager,

Pasadena Water and Power

In 30 years with the city of Los Angeles, Currie held various jobs, including chief financial officer for the Department of Water and Power. Currie, 61, is now general manager of the Pasadena Water and Power Department, the first black woman to run the agency.

Looking back, I’ve come to think that perseverance can be more valuable than sheer brilliance. People who don’t give up learn to lead, and succeed, in small steps. One after another.

When I was growing up in South-Central Los Angeles, the mantra repeated by my parents, grandmother and church members was this: “Get educated and be prepared.”

Today, it’s a message I convey to staffers when we go before the City Council with a proposal that gets shot down, and to Girl Scouts launching a new project, and everyone else.

Racism? It’s always taken a back seat. Oh sure, there were racist attitudes manifested by some teachers who had low expectations of black students.

But I graduated from Manual Arts High School, where I was privileged to have had Mr. Gann as an English teacher. I don’t know where he is today, but he will always be my hero.

On the first day of class, he said, “Students, when you finish this course, you will be able to pass the English placement exam for freshmen at UCLA, and you will not take dumbbell English.”

It worked! I did that. And I earned a master’s degree in business administration at UCLA. There weren’t many black students there at the time.

I went on to become the first African American in many different positions. I still get phone calls or e-mails from people congratulating me for being the African American this or that.

“We’re proud of you,” they say. But I don’t think too much about that. Being first is not as important as just doing a good job.

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Contributors

This story was reported by Times staff writers Robin Abcarian, Erika Hayasaki, Ashley Powers, Louis Sahagun and David Zucchino.