Advice – actually an order, truth be told – that still rings in my ears after nearly 25 years in daily journalism is Vernon Jarrett stating, “black journalists must be scholars” much more than recorders of news.
Jarrett, who died at age 85 last May in Chicago, walked that talk as an outstanding journalist/historian for 60 years.
He also lent that vision to his passion outside of journalism -- the NAACP ACT-SO program for youth.
ACT-SO stands for Academic, Cultural, Technological and Science Olympics. Jarrett created this program in 1978 and it flourishes today. In July, 76 students received medals, scholarship dollars and laptop computers after competing in a national competition that had 25 categories.
They were: Sciences (architecture, biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics/electronics, physics/energy and physics/general); Humanities (music composition, original essay, poetry and play writing); Performing Arts (dance, music instrumental/classical, music instrumental/contemporary, music vocal/classical, music vocal/contemporary and oratory); Visual Arts (drawing, filmmaking/video, painting, photography and sculpture), and Business (entrepreneurship).
It is no accident that Jarrett created a program so varied in intellectual, scientific and cultural pursuits for youth. The old man reminded us younger journalists that he learned at the knee of the great W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963), co-founder of the NAACP, prolific author, firebrand editor and the personification of the term Renaissance Man.
What is especially appealing about ACT-SO is the way the program nurtures and challenges young people to excel in a wide range of fields outside of sports.
I love sports, and I especially love it that in this new century, black folk are not only tearing it up in basketball, football and baseball; they are also dominating in former exclusive sports like golf, tennis and swimming.
That hunger and determination to excel with our bodies should be matched by the determination to exercise our minds.
Jarrett was determined for more young blacks to “bring it,” like Shaq in the paint, Bonds and the plate or Vick in the red zone.
“Vernon Jarrett was ACT-SO,” Bobbye Alexander, coordinator of the local NAACP on the Virginia Peninsula, told me shortly after Jarrett’s death. “Jarrett had so much faith in young people. When there were competitions, he was everywhere.”
You betcha. Circa 1990 at the black-tie National Association of Black Journalists awards program, Jarrett stepped to the stage with two black teenagers in tow. They were ACT-SO winners in science. I recall Jarrett saying that one of the young men conducted an experiment that was adopted by NASA.
Then, Jarrett scolded us. He said while we honored the year’s best work in journalism – which oftentimes reported on blacks behaving badly – we should also strive to support young blacks who could grow up to be contributors to our society.
On Monday, I will attend a Martin Luther King Jr. Day memorial breakfast at Colonial Williamsburg that will recognize two dozen ACT-SO students from high schools in Williamsburg, James City and York counties.
Will any on these teenagers grow up to be the next Tananarive Due (bestselling author of “The Between,” and “My Soul to Keep”); Roy Hargrove (jazz trumpeter and band leader); or Mike Phillips (sax man for Prince, Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight and Babyface) -- all former ACT-SO national winners when they were teens?
Vernon Jarrett, who I assume is smiling down on these students from heaven, must be curious.
Web site: www.naacp.org/programs/actso/actso_facts.html
