In Appreciation of Excellence : Urban League Luncheon Will Honor Black Students Who Made the Grades

Wayne Brown, a newly minted graduate of Morse High School,is off to UC Davis in August, where he plans to major in business or pre-law.

With a grade point average hovering between an A and B, participation on the county’s top high school football team and community service in tutoring elementary-age children, Brown has parlayed a strong secondary education into a firm foundation for his future.

In many ways, Brown’s background and academic success mirrors that of hundreds, if not thousands, of other recent graduates headed off to college.

But in one important respect, it differs greatly, which is why Brown and 200 other of his teen-age male peers will be recognized for their academic accomplishments at a special luncheon Saturday.

Brown is an African-American male, and black males in San Diego city schools--indeed, throughout the nation--have a track record for doing poorly educationally.

In San Diego city high schools, district studies show that 95% of all black males have grade point averages of C or lower, and that they are suspended three times as often as students in other ethnic groups. Only 3.5% of African-American males in city schools qualify for admission to the University of California system.

Yet the picture is not one of unrelieved failure.

Students such as Brown--and Darryl White and Hollis Gentry and Medhanie Ephrem and Damion Victor and Christopher Blanks--do well in school, with B averages or higher. Jacqueline Jackson of the Urban League of San Diego has decided that such students need to be singled out for congratulations and encouraged to serve as positive role models for other black males still struggling in school.

The Golden Pyramid Awards, to be given at a luncheon banquet Saturday, are meant, as Board of Education President Shirley Weber put it, to “counter the idea that it’s not cool to do well in school.”

Weber, a professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University, sees the awards as symbolic of the effort to renew among young blacks an academic heritage exemplified both by black colleges and universities throughout the South and the institutions of higher learning found as part of the historical record of ancient African kingdoms.

The students are more reticent about placing themselves on a pedestal, especially because, as Weber points out, there is still peer pressure among black males at many schools to not excel academically.

Many clearly were uncomfortable when called before the school board Tuesday to meet trustees and Supt. Tom Payzant. They have grown accustomed over the years to downplaying or, in some cases, trying to mask their academic achievements from students who tease or hassle them. A few declined to talk with a reporter about their success and what advice they could offer others.

But all of the students, in Brown’s view, do appreciate the recognition, however quietly they acknowledge it.

“I feel real good about it, to tell you the truth,” he said the other day as he and other honorees talked about their education. “If others see me as a role model, I want it to be because of all the things that I do, that my actions speak louder than my words.”

The students credit their parents for developing and sustaining the discipline necessary for school success, as well as at least one teacher who took a special interest in seeing that they were pushed to the limit academically.

They also say that experimental programs under way in a few schools to pair up black males with adult role models, or “advocates,” should be encouraged, particularly for those students who do not have strong support from home.

“My parents made a whole lot of difference,” said Darryl White, whose father is a teacher and vice principal. White, a June graduate of Crawford High School, will attend UCLA beginning this fall.

“They were constantly on me about my studies. . . . My dad told me that I had a responsibility to show that African-American males aren’t only the bad statistics always out there in the newspaper.”

White was also shepherded at times by Walter Fairley, a Crawford social studies teacher and the school’s adviser to members of the student government organization.

“Mr. Fairley, he kept an eye on me, he would pull me aside at times, he would help me when at times I knew I was screwing around and not working hard enough, and knowing that my family expected more from me,” White said.

Brown’s parents were “always telling me what needs to be done before I could do what I wanted to do” in terms of leisure activity.

“I give them a tremendous amount of credit for always pushing me, for making me see that, while a lot of times I could have done something else, that having decided to study pays off in the long run.”

Brown also noted the help of his counselor, Rudy Anderson, who “was always looking over my transcripts” with the goal of making sure that Brown took the needed courses for college.

“I remember one time when I wanted to (drop) advanced history, but he kept telling me don’t get out, hang tough--and I got back into it,” Brown said.

“He would say, ‘I’ll change the class for you if you want,’ but he would always go over things” to make sure that Brown really wanted a move.

Hollis Gentry, who will begin his senior year in September at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, said competition with his older sister for academic excellence has helped keep him be “very consistent” throughout his high school years.

In addition, the school’s EBM (Empowering Black Males) program, under district teacher of the year Donald Robinson, gave Gentry extra encouragement when racial taunts or low teacher expectations threatened to affect his performance.

“Mr. Robinson showed that society (often) sees us two steps below, so, for us to be above average, we have to take two extra steps in addition to everything else. We’ve got to show society that its image of us, that its idea of ‘don’t let us in’ isn’t correct,” Gentry said.

“I can be a role model, through the program, because it shows me how to be a good person, not just a black person, but to be a really good black person, so that we’re not just seen as persons of color.”

White agreed that programs to help black males with self-esteem and discipline “really can help those who don’t have the support at home, because, at least, they will be getting it from school, in part.”

Brown said black males would have to be naive not to realize there are still “negative feelings” toward them, that some teachers still stereotype them and show low expectations.

“It can be real discouraging, that there are certain put-downs because I am an African-American male,” Brown said.

“But it’s not like it’s such a shock when it happens, because you get used to it. . . . You can sense when someone doesn’t want you around.”

Hollis cited as an example a teacher who talks to black students as “you people,” and Brown recalled another who, at the beginning of an academic year, muttered, “Oh, boy” when she saw Brown and a friend first come into the class.

“That was before she knew our capability and found out how well” we did, Brown said.

“Society has got to stop always (assuming) the negative, that African-American males can’t do something good,” he said.