Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 8, 1992 TAG: 9202080289
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PANEL: BLACK YOUTH'S HOPE BEGINS AT HOME
Educating black youth must not be restricted to the classroom but must extend to the community and more importantly, the family, a panel of black community leaders urged Friday."Young people are starving for communication," Earl Reynolds, Roanoke's assistant city manager, told an audience of about 135 people at a Virginia Western Community College auditorium. "Yet we've developed a fear of young people. We don't communicate. We don't listen to them."
Laying the blame solely on young people for toting guns, abusing drugs and neglecting their education is inappropriate, Reynolds said. Look instead, to the home environment.
Reynolds credits his success to a grandmother who "haunted me and pushed me so that I was able to make up my mind about formal education," he said.
Gardner Smith, director of general services for Roanoke County, looks to his father, a minister, whose books Smith used as a child to build castles.
Forest Jones, Salem's assistant city manager, thanks his mother. He said that when his grades started slipping in college, his mother showed up at his door and told him the loud music, the partying and other frills had to go.
The panelists said the strong family influences that helped them seem to be lacking now in many households.
"We've forgotten about bringing up a child," Smith said. "And when children go wrong, it's probably our fault."
Part of the solution lies in demanding that those who have "made it" put themselves back in the community, Jones said.
"We've got to get back and touch young people's lives," he said. "We can't sit back. You don't ever know if what you do touches on someone else's life."
The panel discussion, titled "Education: A Pathway to Leadership," was the kick-off event for Virginia Western's black history observance. Other panelists included Marilyn Curtis, a member of the Roanoke City School Board, and Roanoke Fire Chief Rawleigh Quarles.