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RISEROURTY With Tony C. |
Michael Jordan is for real
Seventeen
months ago
when Michael ‘
Jordan an- ’
nounced his re- . e
tirement from Fae
the NBA ward, -
millions of bas- I
ketball fans, not ]
justin this coun
try, but world-wide, breathed a
collective sigh. _
Hundreds of journalists were
caught by surprise as well.
No one wanted to believe that
“MJ” was giving up the game,
including me!
After a brief stint as a margin
al prospect in the Chicago White
Sox minor league farm system,
His Airness has returned to run
up and down the hardwood with
the best all-around athletes in
the world.
On March 18, when Jordan
Alumni rally to save symbol of
black unity in North Carolina
By Yonat Shimron
The News & Observer of Raleigh
- FUQUAY-VARINA, N.C.
(AP) In a corner of the town’s
western neighborhood sits an
abandoned red brick school, its
windows sealed with wooden
planks. The lawn is yellowing
and brittle. The flagpole is bare.
The railings are rusted.
Down the block, on the other
side of the railroad tracks, are
new schools, a town hall and a
busy shoppingdistrict that serves
this Southern enclave of farmers
and suburban commuters.
The Fuquay Consolidated
School is on the wrong side of the
tracks.
Yet for generations, this school
offered its graduates a ticket toa
better life. Among its alumni are
doctors, lawyers, engineers and
school principals, a retired brig
adier general and an assistant
secretary of the state Depart
ment of Correction.
Today, a group of graduates
wants to reclaim the school and
return to the community some of
the vigor it lost after the school
was integrated in 1970.
The group, called the Fuquay-
Varina Community Develop
ment Corp., has an ambitious
program to ccenvert classroom
space into businesses, apart
ments, a theater and a gym.
Its members acknowledge that
African-Americans gained a mea
sure of equality when the Su
preme Court mandated school
integration. But they mourn the
loss of a central institution that
united their community and gave
them the power to run their own
lives.
“When they closed that school,
we felt that section of town was
being wiped off the map,” said
Alvera Butts, president of the
school’s alumni association and
a 1965 graduate. “All the life was
sucked out of it.”
In the 19605, there were 292
black high schools in North Caro
lina. Today, only five are still
being used as schools, including
Hillside High School in Durham.
Although there are many the
ories to explain the decline in
many of America’s black com
munities, theclosing of what was
perhaps the central institution
the black-run school - is begin
ning to be acknowledged as a key
cause.
When they look around and
see high unemployment, crime,
drug use and a lack of affordable
housing, many graduates long
for a time when the black com
munity took pride in running its
own institutions.
“Black people have to start tak
ing responsibility for them
selves,” said Shirley McClain, the
corporation’s executive director
and a 1962 graduate. “We can’t
expect the government to save
us.”
™.~ corporation recently
laut.css. 2sl.7million fund rais
ing drive, warmly embraced by
Artbeat
coloryourworld
eachweek
it Ay e oo
“officially” rejoined the Bulls, I,
like some professional skeptics
cautious of being sucked in by
glamorous public relations
schemes, thought that this “cele
brated comeback” was indeed
some type of marketing gimmick.
Why would an athlete who has
led his team to three consecutive
NBA titles, and in the process
gained the respect of most of his
colleagues as the best ever to
play the game, want to return to
the drudgeries of the pro ranks?
Money? No way! “MJ” is worth
in excess of SIOO million and was
set to pull down a cool S3O mil
lion in endorsements alone as a
minor league baseball player.
Last week, when questioned
about the “real reason” for com
ingback, Jordan calmly and sim
ply stated to journalists he was
returning for the “love of the
game.”
the African-American communi
ty - about 1,075 people, or 25
percent of the town’s population.
When Wake County integrat
ed its schools in 1970, Fuquay-
Varina’s black community felt
no immediate changes.
Students still poured through
the school’s doors each morning
and the school bell could still be
heard ringing in the afternoons.
But for those teachers and prin
cipals who worked inside the
schools, the power shift was tan
gible.
Decisions on everything from
discipline to hiring were no long
er made at the site.
A year before the school closed,
the change became painfully ap
parenttothe alumni association.
In 1986, its members wanted to
host a basketball game as part of
a biannual reunion.
But when they asked for keys
totheirold gym, the Wake Coun
ty Board of Education presented
them with a set of regulations
and costly rental fees.
In the end, it was cheaper to go
across town and rent the gym at
the new middle school.
Many graduates of Fuquay’s
segregated school attribute their
success to the caring and devo
tion of their teachers and school
administrators.
Alumni like Robert Griffin, a
1959 graduate and a lawyer, say
teachers then were full of opti
mism and saw promise in each
child.
In 1957, after the Soviet Union
launched its first Sputnik satel
lite, Griffin, a sophomore at the
segregated school, was chosen to
erroll in a summer-school pro
gram for high school students at
St. Augustine’s College. The aim
of the program was to encourage
young black men to become nu
clear physicists.
When the program ended, he
felt he needed a break from the
hard sciences. And when the high
school offered two new classes -
Algebra II and typing - Griffin
chose typing.
But no sooner had he sat be
hind a typewriter when a teach
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Saturday night in Atlanta, I
learned first-hand that Jordan is
still a man of his word.
With 5.9 seconds left in the
game against the Hawks, Jor
dan hit a 16-foot jumper in the
face of Atlanta’s Steve Smith to
give Chicago the one-point win!
Jordan calmly knocked three
times on the Omni hardwood for
luck after the shot as thousands
of Hawks fans cheered wildly
even though the “home team”
had lost.
The magic of Jordan-mania
had indeed hit Atlanta as it has
the rest of the NBA cities across
the country.
The look in Michael’s eyes as
he ran off the court in the cele
bration told the story.
You could see the passion and
the excitement.
Most notably though, you could
see the love.
er walked over and plucked him
out of his chair.
“You don’t need typing,” she
said. “You need algebra. You're
going to college.”
“I don’t think that kind of thing
would happen in today’s school,”
said Griffin, 54. “I’'m grateful for
that.”
From the early 1920 s when it
was a one-room schoolhouse and
until itintegrated, the school was
an intrinsic part of the commu
nity’s daily life. It was the place
where food rations were handed
out in World War 11, where agri
culture was taught, where
Christmas concerts were held.
Its employees were considered
extended family.
The school started out humbly,
offering a primary education to
children oftenant farmers, many
of whom barely knew how to read
or write. Textbooks arrived from
the white schools, used and
dogeared.
Students often missed school
to help on the farm. Sometimes
they arrived late, having put in
several early morning hours pick
ing beans or curing tobacco.
By 1941, when Leroy Burton
returned to his hometown to
teach agriculture, the school was
educating studentsin gradesone
through 12, in the first of three
red-brick buildings to be built at
the site.
Burton, who saw the school
grow into a more modern institu
tion, said there was one quality
that never changed: Parentsand
teachers supported each other
when it came to discipliningchil
dren. Students who misbehaved
at school were often asked to go
out and find dogwood switches
when they arrived home. Corpo
ral punishment was the order of
the day, and a teacher’s word
was considered gospel.
The school gained a countywide
reputation for excellence after
1953, when W.M. McLean was
recruited from Sampson County
to be principal.
McLean found a school with
more dropouts than graduates, a
school with no guiding philoso-
No amou t of money in the
world cov’ nake Michael feel
the way | that night.
Micha: lan grew up lov
ing base " basketball, and
has now it his dream of
playing fessionally.
Mike, 'ou an apology.
You do lc game.
The mil: of dollars in con
tract dough, ..ong with the quick
endorsement cash you pick up
from Nike, Gatorade, and
McDonald’s, just to name a few,
hasn’t changed your zeal and
excitement for competing, and in
this time and age of young “pro”
millionaires acting like thugs,
and rejected rap artists, it’s truly
refreshing to see a pro, acting
like a pro!
By the way, “MJ,” before I for
get, it’s good to have you back!
—By Tony Cornish, Jr.
phy and no push to excel. The
year he arrived, there were 18
graduates out of a class of 197.
McLean took to the road with
determination and a soft voice.
He visited churches and farms,
urging parents to send their stu
dents to his school.
Tobacco is important, cotton is
important, he told the parents,
but so is education. “If you don’t
take advantage of it, you lose an
opportunity.”
He skimped on high school
yearbooks but guaranteed stu
dents with perfect attendance a
free class photo and a printed
certificate.
During his tenure, hallways
were quiet. Students hugged one
side of the hallway if they were
headed in one direction and the
other side if they were headed
the opposite way. Bulletin boards
were neat and attractive and in
cluded names of students and
their achievements.
Today, at the very intersection
where students once exchanged
homework assignments or a first
kiss, drug dealers now hustle
crack cocaine and unemployed
men guzzle beer and cheap wine.
Last year, about 41 percent of
the students who dropped out of
the new Fuquay-Varina High
School were black. That’s a high
percentage, considering African-
Americans make up about 24 per
cent of the 930-student body.
The corporation is trying to en
ergize the old neighborhood and
its people. A few months ago, the
group enlisted community mem
bers to put on Lorraine
Hansberry’s “Raisin in the Sun.”
The weekend performances sold
out, and the corporation raised
$5,000.
It’s a long way from the $1.7
million the corporation will need
to renovate the school buildings
and pay Wake County for the
property. But it has already se
cured donations from the Z.
Smith Reynolds Foundation and
private individuals. It plans to
apply to the Farmers Home Ad
ministration and other public
and private funding resources.
BILL PINKNEY AND THE
ORIGINAL DRIFTERS
Fort NCO Club
Open to the Public
April 12, 1995
8 p.m.-lam.
Advanced Tickets: sll Door: sl4
More Information: (706) 793-0220
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