I grew up in a small town in Ohio. Very few of the blacks from that town went on to college. I’m from a family where education was valued. My parents basically said, this is what you’re going to do. Forty years ago, if you valued education and wanted to excel, people would consider that you wanted to be white, or that you thought you were better than everybody else. Forty years later, I think our children are experiencing the same thing. It’s like we’re not going to get away from it.
It’s almost as if we have two identities within the black world. Our son, who is twenty, articulates it very well, the growing up here. He experienced things differently from our daughters. We took them out of public school earlier. Brandon went through the public school system up through eleventh grade, and then he finished in an independent school.
This sounds terrible, but even though the private school our children are in is much smaller and the number of black children is smaller, they have more in common with the children there than they did with the children in the public school. It has to do with motivation. In the private school, you’re not teased because you want to do better. We’re dealing with that in the Summit public school system. I’m involved with an advocacy group that is trying to eliminate the gap between the performance of black children in the school system and the majority of children in the school system. So it’s an issue that’s recognized within the community, and that’s why Summit is a good place to live. We are dealing with it. It just takes a long time to do the right thing.
I look at other communities, like South Orange and Maplewood and Montclair, that have larger populations of middle- and higher-income blacks, and I think there’s a better networking opportunity. Even though a lot of the parents of means there might send their children to private schools, it’s a better environment for the children than a community like Summit. There are more support networks for African Americans, and I think more commonality. Summit is not quite there yet.
A lot of our friends have seen their children bring home someone white that they’re dating, and some of us have been talking about how we want to respond. If my daughter brings home a white boy and says, Mama, this is the one, I’m not going to refuse to support her. I value what’s inside, and if that is the choice of my daughter, I know it will be the right choice for her, because it’s what’s inside, not outside, that matters. My preference would be that she marry someone of our own color. I think there’s a comfort level in that; there’s more support. We have a great history, and I want that to be built on and continued. Not that marrying white would change that. We have interracial marriages in my family and they’re great. I think it just depends. I think if my daughter married someone of a different race, he would be very sensitive to being fair and equal and giving, and all those good qualities, because my daughter was well raised.
I think being successful has always been equated with being white. It’s hard to change what’s always been. It’s important that we have more people working on Wall Street. Things are different for some of the young people that Milton has brought into the industry. But things are also still the same.
I work on the other end. I’m dealing with the low-income population in the nonprofit world. The community development corporations that I work with have fiduciary education courses. In some of these communities, people have the Lexus and the Mercedes in the backyard, but they don’t own a house. This is where the education process comes in. We’re encouraging home ownership, so people need to know how to qualify for a home and how to save for one. The changes have to take place both on Wall Street and on Main Street.
Viola Irvin
I’m sixteen years old, and I’m in the eleventh grade. I’ve been going to an all girls’ school ever since sixth grade. I’m interested in applying to Morgan State, American University, and Sarah Lawrence. I love the Sarah Lawrence campus. I like the atmosphere. I think I read in 100 Best Colleges for African-American Students that Alice Walker went to Sarah Lawrence. The only thing deterring me from Sarah Lawrence is its size. It’s a small school. So I need to look at Morgan State, a Historically Black College, and American University to see which one I like better.
I’m considering Morgan State because I want to get that sense of black community again. I’m also interested in Howard, but I think I’m going to look at Morgan before Howard. I’m not going to Spelman or any all girls’ school, because I don’t like that all-girl classroom anymore. I need that male-in-the-classroom experience for college, I think, so I can get that male’s point of view.
Summit is nice. I haven’t felt cut off from black people living in a mostly white town, because I’m in a Black Achievers Program at the Summit YMCA. It’s a good way to stay involved with my black community. It’s for kids in sixth to twelfth grade from private and public schools. Kids in the same grade level meet once a week just to be together and focus on our schoolwork. We do lots of reading and writing. We get time to talk about racial issues and what it feels like to be discriminated against. Sometimes we watch a movie. We just kind of hang out as kids and friends. It’s real fun, a nice group of people.
Some of the African-American kids in Summit make fun of me because I drive a Mercedes. It does make me feel bad, but I have a nice group of black friends too. It isn’t my fault that my parents are successful. I’m proud of that. Do I have to go hiding the fact that I’m rich? No. It’s not fair. Being black doesn’t mean you have to be poor.
My best friend, Kim, is black. She lives in Maplewood and goes to Columbia High School. Her family is middle class and she hangs out with the white kids. The poor black kids don’t like her because they think she’s not black enough. I guess you just find that anywhere. Is it jealousy maybe? I don’t understand why they would be jealous instead of proud of the fact that we are a well-to-do black community. Don’t you want that for your community if you’re black? Shouldn’t you be happy for us because we are well-to-do and we’re going somewhere?
The black kids who criticize the middle- and upper-middle-class blacks could make it somewhere. The kids at the Achievers Program are very smart people. The ones who aren’t middle class have very strong opinions about blacks who are. They have the intelligence to succeed; it’s just that they may not have the money to go to college. One of the things the Achievers Program does for us is provide a scholarship fund. They want us all to get into college so we have a future, and then other black kids will want to do the same. Someone will look at me and say, oh, why don’t I follow in Viola Irvin’s footsteps and become well-to-do? Not that I’m well-to-do on my own now, but someday I’ll have a good career.
At my school I sit with the white kids more often, but I also like the black kids. I went to a prom yesterday and my table was black, because I hang out with most of them and I need to talk to them. I remember in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade, all the black kids sat together. I used to sit with them sometimes and then sit with my white friends sometimes. A couple of the black kids sat with the white kids. But now in sophomore and junior year, I’m finding that black and white sit at the same table more and more. There’s a group of five white kids, and there were five black girls sitting at the same table. We need that. It’s good, because we have to break that racial line. I’m not saying I’m going to marry a white boy. I mean, it might happen. I think it’s okay, but I don’t understand why there’s all this racial tension.
Maybe I’m young and I’m growing up in a different time period. I’m growing up in the white suburbs. I guess I must be a very sheltered girl, compared to most black kids or at least black teenagers. I don’t understand what they’re saying sometimes, and then I use some words they don’t understand. It makes me feel sheltered, but it doesn’t make me feel bad. It doesn’t make me feel not black. It doesn’t make me feel white. Black is black. You have a history of slavery in your blood. You share in the history of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
It’s not your money, and it’s not your Ebonics, it’s you that makes you black. It’s the hist
ory, the blood that’s in you from the past. If you’re a rich black person, it’s just as bad, because you’ve got the same racial profile. Our brother has been pulled over because he’s a nice black kid driving a nice car. It’s weird.
Sometimes you wonder, should I play the race card in school? Is it because I’m black, or is it because I’m me? I was getting a B minus in one of my classes and the teacher said I was doing fine, that there was nothing I could do to improve on my performance. But if I have a B minus, I can always do something to improve. Did he say that because I’m black? Or is it him? You never know. Is it a question of racism, or is it a question of me? Or him? Or her? Or is it being a woman as well, because sometimes women face discrimination in the classroom? It used to be that a woman’s place was in the home.
You don’t always want to play the race card, but sometimes you’ve got to. Personally, I don’t think I find much racism, because lots of the kids are open about things. We have a very open atmosphere. Sure, there’s those few people who are racist maybe, or maybe it’s more the parents. I remember hearing girls say, oh yeah, I can’t come to this place ’cause my parents said it’s too horrible. Like the Newark area. I can’t go to Newark ’cause it’s bad. That is racism. There are white towns with problems too, but you don’t stay out of the whole town.
One year there was a minor incident. A white girl I know was saying get out of the Black Achievers Group; you don’t want to be part of that kind. But then a couple of years later something more serious happened. A certain black girl got a very specific note, and the bottom line was like, get back to Africa with the animals, where you belong. It was something along those lines. At that time we had a black headmistress at the school and we had an assembly to talk about racism. I’m not sure what else could be done, but maybe that’s because I was in eighth grade at the time and it was a high school incident.
Then when I got into high school, we wanted a black teacher. As black students, we felt we needed a black teacher. We got a couple of notes saying we already had two incompetent black teachers at this school. If you don’t want a black teacher, it’s okay; we understand that. But you don’t have to be mean about it. They called them incompetent people, so there is racism in there. So there have been direct incidents of racism, but never to me, and I hope I never have to play the race card.
THE PEARSONS
Living the Life
Investment manager Walt Pearson told me, “The two pillars of family and education must be in place if African Americans are to make further progress. If we can stabilize those two structures, then I think we can bring up most of our people. I’m optimistic. I see the glass half full.” Donna Pearson expressed the concern that “we’re losing a generation, because there’s such a disparity between the black underclass and then people like our children in the black middle class. We have to do something to educate the children. Otherwise, I think there are going to be two classes of African Americans permanently.”
Walt Pearson
We were comfortable in Summit, New Jersey. Our friend Milton Irvin was a big influence on us, because he was already living in Summit and he told us quite a bit about the area. My wife, Donna, is from Montclair, so she was also familiar with the area. Donna and I had a list of thirty indices for the community we wanted to reside in at the time. Ridgewood and Montclair were our second and third choices, but Summit was the only town that met all of our criteria. Summit has proximity to New York City, on the Midtown Direct, and it has good public schools and a diverse community. People are beginning to realize there’s a significant African-American community there. There are four African-American churches in town. Baptist churches. A lot of people don’t realize that, because when they hear the name Summit, they think of Wall Street affluence, white affluence. A long time ago, before they discovered the Jersey Shore, affluent whites from Wall Street used to have summer homes there.
I’m very happy with my new job in Boston, and with our home in a western suburb of the city. We’ve just begun to settle in, and someday we’ll have a story to tell about our life here. But our thoughts are often with our friends in Summit, and our memories of our life there will always be vivid. I remember, for example, our introduction to our Summit neighborhood, which one could say was rather humorous. Our house had been built by a member of the Rockefeller family in 1972. They lived in it for a year and then sold it to the family we bought it from in 1999. On the second day we were there, I had the moving company come. But on the first day, a couple of buddies helped me out. Across the street were the Hubbards. I had a truck outside, and as I was moving some things into the house, Mr. Hubbard’s housekeeper, who was Latino, came across the street and said to me, I’d like to meet the family that’s moving into this house. I laughed and said, you’ve just met him. I was in dirty jeans and a beat-up T-shirt and my buddies and I were all looking terrible, and she didn’t believe that I had bought this house. So that was the first day. After that, we were very welcomed by the neighbors here except for one next door, who chose to be unfriendly.
The person we bought our house from used to be chairman of the nominating committee at Canoe Brook Country Club, and he told us a great story. He said he was one of the first Irish members of Canoe Brook. He and his wife had been there for a few months, and he invited the president of Canoe Brook over to his house and said to him, well, how are things going at the club? I really enjoy it, but I’m new. And the president said, the club’s going downhill because we are admitting a lot of big Irish families. Little did he know that his new club member was Irish, with six kids.
I don’t think racism will ever disappear. The playing field still isn’t level, and I don’t think it will ever be, at least not in my generation or my kids’ generation or my grandkids’ generation. On Wall Street what happens now is they let us in the door, but instead of blatant racism, you come across subtle things. For example, it seemed like they never wanted me to get too big an assignment, too big a client. When I went after those guys, I was always told I had enough clients, I had enough capacity, whereas my colleague could have even more clients than I did but yet he wasn’t at capacity. It was things like that.
In most of my jobs, I’ve been the only African American, or the highest-ranked African American, particularly on the Street. At Alliance Capital, I had to work hard to be as successful as possible, but I knew that my being successful was a way to help bring in other African Americans. As long as I’m successful in my work, and I keep bringing in more people and they’re successful, that opens a door for more of us to get in there.
I do feel that by integrating the workplaces, the neighborhoods, and the country clubs, we are an extension of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Judge Ernest Booker, my brother-in-law, was the first black member of the Essex County Country Club, in West Orange, New Jersey, and Milton Irvin was the first African-American member of the Baltusrol Golf Club, which by the way will host its first PGA Championship in 2005. I felt comfortable at the Canoe Brook Country Club because I was out playing golf, but we didn’t become members. I think the rest of my family would have been uncomfortable at Canoe Brook.
My kids are eight, six, and three years old. Two girls and a boy. When we chose to live in Summit, we weren’t particularly worried about our kids’ identity in a white environment. We knew there was another African-American family a few doors down, and Milton and his family were close by. We were active in Jack & Jill, an African-American social and cultural organization. We belonged to a black Baptist church in Montclair but visited Fountain Baptist in Summit, which we liked. And we had a network of like-minded friends, many of them my buddies from Harvard Business School, who live either in Summit or in South Orange and Montclair. I would have liked to see more of them move to Summit when we were living there, but it costs a nice piece of change to do that.
There’s no question that my kids, as blessed as they are, will be criticized by economically disadvantaged African-American kids. They will have to learn to
handle being called white. I went to a private school, and I would come home to a housing project every day and was called “schoolboy” a couple of times. I had to knock a few heads. Fortunately, I was a good athlete, which always helped me. A lot of people left me alone. But I tell my kids now, you’re going to encounter a different kind of racism. You’re going to confront the class system from your African-American peers, some of whom are going to call you “whitey” or “Oreo” because you talk a certain way, or because your daddy works in a firm that is identified mainly with middle- and upper-class white people. In addition, you will have racism from white people. It’s going to be arduous. The kids need to have a strong foundation here at home. They have to come home and be able to tell us everything. They have to realize they’re blessed, but they must give back. It’s nonstop. You have to keep after them, keep warning them. It’s not an easy thing.
We are trying to give our children a strong sense of identity as African Americans in a predominantly white environment. If my children decided to marry a white person, I would be a little disappointed. I’m open to it, and I would definitely support them. But I would prefer them to marry someone African American.
We thought about going back to the inner city and perhaps renovating a brownstone while living around more middle-class African Americans. But once we started having children, we wanted green grass and we wanted a sizable lot. I sit on the board of two nonprofit organizations because I’m very involved in the community, and that helps me a lot. The kids I work with are touched by the fact that I’m willing to keep up with them and keep track of them, that I come from the same situation they do, and I speak their language if I want to. Most of them don’t have a father figure at home, so they’re looking for a role model. As my own kids get older, I will get them more involved in community work.
America Behind the Color Line Page 14