Jackson, Miss.: the reality of race

February 8 is Mable Thomas’ 18^th birthday.  Her mother, her real mother, not Fameika comes to visit at Lanier.  It’s an awkward meeting.

Mable, Famieka and Alexandra's mother: I am their sister. Meika’s their mother.   Quit.  I can’t stand that.

Mable’s mom is a recovering crack addict.  The daughters have created their own family—with Fameika in charge.

Tom Brokaw, NBC News: If you could wave a magic wand in your community, when it comes to the African-American family—what would you change?

Fameika Thomas: I think the one thing that we need to work on is accountability. We just allow people to get off too easy.  That’s why we have grandparents who are raising, you know, grandchildren, and we have sisters who are raising sisters. Because our parents, they’re not stepping up to the plate.

Personal responsibility: It’s a theme that comes up again and again.

Consider Alicia Ruffin.  The Lanier senior and new mother—returned to school in January, full of optimism. 

But now, in March, counselor Nancy Sylvester tells us of a startling turnabout—Alicia no longer is in school.

Nancy Sylvester: Her mother came in and made a decision that Alicia would have to withdraw.  That Alicia would have to take more responsibility for her baby.

But Alicia rebels, and disappears from home.

When we arrived, Alicia had just walked in the door.  Her mother Ruth had called the police.

Police: You have a responsibility to your son. But you’re gonna kick it off on mom until she gets upset with you and puts both of you out of the house.

Ruth hopes the police officer made an impression.

Ruth Ruffin, mother:  She doesn’t understand that that’s what she have, responsibility. This baby is a responsibility.

Alicia threatens to leave home, but there’s nowhere to go.

Ruth Ruffin: If she stays here…. Alicia, I’m gonna beat you!

Alicia Ruffin: Stupid! Everything’s just stupid! Ain’t got no help. His daddy’s in jail...

The crisis eventually passes, but the problems remain.

In March, Lanier won its seventh state basketball championship without Manuel.  The coach cut him because he kept missing practice.  But that just caused Manuel to fail even more, failing academically. And now he’s a discipline problem.

Sylvester: If some of the male teachers will approach him and talk with him, or require certain things of him, he becomes very defensive.

So Manuel spends his time on the streets instead of in school.

One recent study found that nationwide, only about 45 percent of black ninth grade boys go on to graduate, compared with 70 percent of whites.

Jorel Washington: I don’t think that most of the students don’t care about school.  I think that people in the community say that school is not important, so they wanna fit in with them.

These Lanier honor students say some of their friends hassle them for getting good grades.

Chanel Williams: "Oh, she not down with us. Oh, she not ghetto enough." I’m trying to get an education. I’m not here to sit on my butt and do nothing.

Charles Norton has taught history here for 36 years. 

Charles Norton: I think that today’s society has produced children that have a lack of respect for themselves, for their peers, for any kind of authority.  And you didn’t see that ten years or 15 or 20 years ago.

Brokaw: What brought all that on?Norton: The hip hop generation?

Over the last three decades, hip hop has grown to dominate pop culture. Many rap videos and lyrics paint a very specific picture of black urban life. It is hustling glorified; fast money, fast women, fast living.

Kids of all races buy into hip hop to the tune of 10 billion dollars a year.  For some, hip-hop is an art form like any other.

Jonathan Priester: They’ll say, “Oh, that thug culture.” And really, they’re trying to sort of tie hip-hop in with subtle racism.

Melvin Priester Jr.: There’s a willingness to blame hip-hop for all the ills of Black American today which is simply false. 

But for black kids with limited options the hip-hop influence may be much stronger.  When we gave Manuel a camera and asked him to chronicle his life, he went to a night club and shot what looks a lot like some of the rap videos.  Manuel says he relates to hip hop as an expression of the realities of his neighborhood.

Manuel Sturghill: It’s about living out here in the real world—money, dope trouble, jail all that.

It’s real to Manuel. But to some of his schoolmates, it is a negative stereotype.

Amanda Furge: It offends me because that’s what other people listen to, and they’re like “Well, that’s what she is.”

Brokaw: Do you think it helps form perceptions about the black community?

Furge: It does.

Brokaw: So is that harmful then?

Furge: Yes.

Even Alexandria Thomas, an honor student who wants to go to medical school, tries the role of a gangsta rapper.  She records a CD slamming a group of girls from Lanier.

Alexandria Thomas (rapping):  I hate those stupid hoes that be trying to ball. They all full of sh*t, playin’ me a like a bitch.

The rap gets Alexandria in trouble at school.  Her older sister Fameika is not happy.

Fameika Thomas: Trece, you were on the CD with them. And if anybody ever take that in the court of law, you are going down. What is wrong with you why don’t you see that?

Lanier’s prom— set to rap music— takes place on April 29^th.  The storm caused by Alexandria’s rap CD has blown over. And at prom, she wins a prize – “wittiest female.”

Alicia Ruffin, who wanted so much to attend her senior prom is back at home, with baby Jamerie.

Alicia Ruffin: If I had of went to the prom, I wouldn’t have stayed that long anyway.

Suddenly Jamerie throws a fit, and all of Alicia’s frustrations bubble up again.

This was not how Alicia Ruffin expected to be spending prom night of her senior year.  And there are more unexpected events to come.

In 1962, when James Meredith became the first black to enroll at the University of Mississippi, all hell broke loose.  Federal marshals were pinned down by gunfire and rioting whites. 

Mississippi governor Ross Barnett, an outspoken segregationist, didn’t try to stop it.  Federal troops were called in.

Barnett’s daughter Ouida remembers those dark nights well.

Ouida Atkins: I was at the mansion and people were calling. “What do you think about us going and blowing up the bridges between Memphis and Oxford, or Jackson and Oxford?”

Ouida moved away for a while but now she’s a prominent member of Jackson society, who made a decision that stunned her family and friends.

Tom Brokaw, NBC News: What do you think your father would think about you teaching at Lanier high school?

Atkins: I can’t decide if he would laugh or if—or if he would be horrified. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Oh, he’s turning over in his grave.”

She stayed at all-black Lanier for five years.  Now retired, she still volunteers there. In some ways, it’s as much a learning experience for her as it has been for the students she’s taught.

Atkins: I really I didn’t know the other culture at all.  And I was really kind of shy, I guess.  And finally some of the students said, “You better speak up if you want to be heard here.”  And I did.  And I found out that made all the difference in the world with them.

Brokaw: And would you find young Lanier men or women that you’d kind of take a special interest in?

Atkins: I tried to reinforce that you can go to college.  And so many are not getting that at home.

Brokaw: Do you think there’s more consciousness on the part of the white community about obligations to try to make conditions better there?

Atkins: I do. I think about my own family.  And my great-grandfather coming here  with his slaves and then my daddy blocked James Meredith. And then you have me—teaching at Lanier.  So we’ve come pretty far.

Ouida Atkins is a living symbol of how much racial attitudes have changed in Mississippi and across America.  But some things have not changed much at all.

In Jackson, one intersection is known as Freedom Corner.  It’s a tribute to two martyred leaders of the civil rights movement — Dr. Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers.  But almost 40 years after the death of Dr. King, conditions in this all black neighborhood are worse in many ways.

There’s been no economic progress. There’s no integration.  Across the country, in other neighborhoods like this, how much of that is result of racism?

We gathered three generations of the Priester family to talk about race.  Their roots are in inner city Jackson, in the days when segregation was often violently enforced.  Seated in one room for an interview were four lawyers—one is also a judge—graduates of Harvard, Stanford, Boston University. 

Brokaw: 30 years ago, when you were going to law school at Harvard, and that was unheard of in many of the neighborhoods in which you grew up, did you think we would be a much different society at this point?

Pernilla Priester: Oh, certainly. I thought all the problems would long since have been solved.  The ones we’re dealing with now would not be here.  Because these are the same ones that we grew up for the most part.

Brokaw: Do you think there’s still as much racism now as there was then?

Pernilla Priester: Different kind, different form, different levels.  But it still exists.

Jonathan Priester: When my parents were younger, they always tell me the stories of not being able to go to a white only water fountain or not being able to go to certain restaurants. You could see that form of racism. Where today, it could be more subtle.

The older generation says frank discussions about race are all too rare these days.

Charlene Priester: To me, I can almost see the curtain pulling down that, you know, “Here we go again.  I don’t wanna hear it.”  You know, it’s just—

Pernilla Priester: Laying the race card.

Charlene Priester: Playing the race card.

But the younger generation also says that blacks today have opportunities unparalleled in American history.

Melvin Priester Jr.: The amazing thing about switching from an industrial to an information economy is that people with brains and with education can create billion dollar empires. If we could produce a group of radically educated individuals, the jobs will follow.

Brokaw: But do we pay enough attention to the strides that have been made, and celebrate  that enough?  Or are we still spending most of our time worrying about those who are not getting out?

Pernilla Priester: I think it’s some of both. 

Charlene Priester: One of the things I think is very difficult is trying to determine what part of what we see going on now is race based, and what part of it is economics, what part of it is education.                                  

Melvin Priester Sr.: I personally just don’t think it’s good enough to say, “We don’t know what the cause is.  We don’t know, therefore we can’t come up with a solution.”  I think we’ve got to come up with a solution, because otherwise more African Americans are gonna be lost to prison and/or drugs.  More families are going to be continuously be broken.  More young black children are going to continue to fail in school.

Brokaw: Do you think that the problems of black America have gone off the white agenda?

Vince Gordon: It’s off the white agenda until it affects white America.  When it affects white America, then it comes back on the radar, “Okay, what can we do about it?” What can white America do to help? Bring businesses back.  Believe, invest in the black community.  Invest in our inner-city children.  Investment does make a difference.

The school year is winding down at Lanier high, and Manuel Sturghill has failed the 10^th grade.  He finally seems to realize the jeopardy that he’s in.  One of his friends just got arrested, and Manuel knows he could be headed for trouble too.

Manuel Sturgill: If I don’t get no job, that is what is going to happen to me, right there in the news in the newspaper.

Manuel is looking into vocational training.  And for the first time since he was five years old, he has received a call from his father, who says he might come to visit.

They’re reasons for hope.

Sturghill: I pray every night to the Lord.  My grandma don’t know I do, my mama don’t know, but I do pray that I get a good education. And get a good job. That nothing happens to nobody in my family or to me. 

On May 31, 2006, Mable Thomas graduated from Lanier.  She’ll attend college in the fall. Her sister Fameika, who pushed her every step of the way, was there. So was their mother, a recovering crack addict. So was the memory of their late father.

Fameika Thomas: It was kind of bitter sweet.  Because she wanted my daddy to be there, and I wanted him to be there as well.  But I was glad that she was able to reach this milestone.                          

Brokaw: Was that emotional for you?

Fameika Thomas: It was.

Brokaw: And did she come down and thank you afterwards or not?

Fameika Thomas:         No. (LAUGHTER)

Brokaw: She’s a sister.

Fameika Thomas:         Yeah.

In all, 141 Lanier seniors beat the odds and graduated. 116 are taking the next step, enrolling in two or four year colleges.

In May, Alicia Ruffin took her GED exams. She failed the math test by two points but plans to re-test.  For Alicia and her son Jamerie, the future remains an open question.   

Brokaw: Five years I come back.  Five years from now.

Alicia Ruffin: Five years.

Brokaw: Where’s Alicia gonna be then?

Ruffin: She won’t be here.  She will not be here. She probably be back in school.

Brokaw: Alicia everybody wants everyone to have a happy ending to their story.

Ruffin: Yeah.

Brokaw: It’s been not a happy year for you, right?

Ruffin: No, it’s gonna get better.

Brokaw: You still have the big plans?

Ruffin:  I still got the big plans.  I still have the big plans.  I just can’t mess up like I did with the last plan.  This plan gotta be better than that one.

I said at the beginning of this report we could have chosen any number of American cities to document the problems of the black underclass in this country — north and south, east and west. The sad tales — and the stories of hope and achievement — are not unique to Jackson.

More than 40 years after the passage of the civil rights bill — more than 40 years after Dr. Martin Luther King's stirring "I have a dream" speech in Washington, D.C. — the hard truths of race remain in America: in too many communities the poor black neighborhoods are separate and unequal, hostage to discrimination, poverty and, yes, self-inflicted wounds.

That will change only when those hard truths are confronted, from the top down and the ground up.