Carl R. Boyd is a career educator with experience teaching and coaching teenagers from the south side of Chicago in the 1960s to training educators on the positive teaching approach – his first (1991) book is titled, Plain Teaching; 49 Lessons on Becoming a Positive Teacher – in the United States and Countries Around the World. His STOOTS for Boots organizACTION seeks to motivate American students to strive for excellence in honor of their troops. His Saturday afternoon radio broadcast, on the kuaw.org internet station from the W.E.B. DuBois Learning Center features students and veterans.
Mr. Boyd is quick to say that the youth with whom he has worked, and with whom he currently works, are great young people who need to be convinced of their greatness by adults whose opinions and guidance they trust. His greatest motivation is his wife of 33 years, (“Wonderful”) Wanda.
I met Carl Boyd eight years ago when I was asked to discuss Kwanzaa, an African American holiday, on his radio show, “The Last Mile of the Way”, on Kansas City’s oldest Black radio station, KPRT AM. That conversation was lively and engaging and we quickly became friends. Our subsequent discussions have become important intergenerational learning opportunities. We’re both from Chicago and like to discuss what it means to have grown up in the same place, but at different times. He was an adolescent during the 1950s, and I was one during the 1970s. I recently reached out to him to connect the dots between community and mental health over several decades.
Joanna: Can you describe where, and how, you grew up?
Carl: I was born in 1942 and lived in the Ida B. Wells Housing Projects on the south side of Chicago until 1955. Ida B. Wells was a place of community for families who looked out for each other every day.
Not only did adults and children of different families cooperate, we were also optimistic. Beginning with the fact that for many Black families in the early 1940s, moving into the projects was a move upward, into tiled floor apartments with hot and cold running water, radiators for heat in the winter and flower gardens in front of each unit, it was also true that most families had children living with both parents and different families displayed general agreement that all adults were to be respected by all children.
Our families were not poor, but many families were “broke.” There is a difference. Poor was thought to be permanent. “Broke” was temporary; and, never was “broke” interpreted to mean broken.
Our family resided on the first floor in one of a row of four-story brick buildings. My mother might send me to the fourth floor to borrow a cup of sugar from Mrs. Sykes. I’d stop on the third floor to ask Mrs. Sanders for a cup of flour. With a cup of milk from Mrs. Elders, who lived on the second floor, by the time I got back to the first floor, we had the ingredients for my mother to prepare dinner. Then, on Friday, when my father got paid, there might be three knocks on our door.
The children were reared by all of the adults in the community. It was a matter of fact. It was the truth. Example: If young friends were playing all day, in all manner of unclean attractions (jumping in sand, rolling in the dirt, wrestling near puddles, etc.), a mother of one could command that they all “Come in here, and take a bath, while I call your mommas for some clean clothes; and, I mean right now!”
As far as we knew, as children, all adults agreed as to our appropriate roles. Children went to school, church and the playground. Adults took care of the home and the children. The distinctive roles helped children to understand who was in charge, and who played children’s games. The imperative, at the time, was to give children enough years to mature. Children felt safe; they were able to have a childhood. Few children were responsible for taking care of their parents and younger siblings.
When I began teaching, in 1964, six city blocks from where I grew up, I began to work with teens who were referred to as gangs – except when we were together as softball teams. Based upon their upbringing, and the mores of our subculture, even the toughest among our youth respected adults, especially teachers. They deferred to my directions, not because they were afraid of me, but, because “That’s Mr. Boyd.” Their parents taught them to respect adults. They did not use profanity in our presence. They did not hesitate to put away their weapons. They were not going to “bring any heat” on the playground. They allowed me to intervene if there was conflict with another gang (softball team).
Joanna: That’s why this interview, this dialogue with you is so important because we might be missing these oral histories about the community as it was and how it can be again. Have things changed since you were young?
Carl: Black families of the 1940s and 1950s were primarily intact (and, if that was not the case, the expectation, indeed, the perception was that they were). When we “fast forward” to the 1960s and 1970s, we began to see some of the strong, structural, elements of Black culture erode. Two adverse phenomena seemed to be visited upon Black culture, simultaneously.
One eventuality causing the erosion of Black culture (and, therefore, the erosion of the Black community) was the erosion of the Black family. Social programs, ostensibly, designed to “help” underserved (meaning, primarily, Black) communities seemed to legitimize single parenting, based upon (so-called) economic “benefits.” There was, actually, a mandate in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) that was so strict against two-parent households that there were “man in the house” penalties.
Even as we decry the unfairness of “poverty programs,” let us never forget that the great majority of our people have only availed ourselves of what is available based upon need. In fact, in 2020, myriad communities of all racial and cultural backgrounds are now understanding the dire plight of those who have gone before them. The problem was less about behavior than perception. The caricature of the “Welfare Queen,” depicted as a Black female unwilling to work for a living, though fewer Blacks were on welfare than whites, and the image of the absentee Black father, distorts the tradition of Blackness in America, which has always been a tradition of working since the building of this nation. Going back to the 1960s, when only 9% of Black households were fatherless, through years of redefining family in our community, we have seen a negative impact on Black economics as family security and unity are key to economic stability.
The second factor that I witnessed adversely impacting Black unity was the “advertisement” and “buying” of the desirability of leaving the Black neighborhood. Desegregation was seen as desirable because we were told – even taught – that communities outside of our own were better communities. What we were not taught – except by conditions – was that majority communities were more properly cared for than our own. Infrastructure in white communities was addressed with attention to upkeep. Services were delivered more regularly and more professionally than where we were living. Higher quality items were available for less, and access to those items was more convenient. Additionally, as a higher standard of living outside of our community was flaunted, we were shown that access was limited to totally unavailable – in a peculiar psychological way, making integration more desirable. Even today, there is neighborhood discrimination. My point is that I think it would have been well for us to improve our own environs rather than “chase” communities where we were not wanted. Certainly, if we can secure jobs cleaning up and caring for communities where we are not wanted, we can do more for the neighborhoods and the neighbors we know.
Ushering in the late sixties and seventies, the ethos of the Black community changed. There was a proliferation of high-powered guns and the introduction of more drugs. Black neighborhoods saw young gang members go from turf battles based upon reputation to territorial battles based upon claiming locations to sell drugs. Much brain power has been lost to gun powder. I believe we have the collective power to reclaim our culture, our children and our community.
The reduction of social benefit spending and changes described by Mr. Boyd, among other factors, have contributed to declining mental health in the Black community, especially among Black youth. My research on this topic has found that the National Institute of Mental Health recently requested information and guidance on the issue of Black youth’s rate of suicide and suicidal ideation. The rate increases between 2001 to 2015 revealed that Black youth were twice as likely to die by suicide when compared to their White peers. In addition, the suicide death rate among Black youth is increasing faster than any other racial or ethnic group.
Black youth suicide is a crisis of the 21st century and will require multi-faceted solutions and holistic approaches. The strengths of the Black community are its focus on family, spirituality, and activism. The environment described by Mr. Boyd is still intact in some Black communities, and many organizations are attempting to increase community resilience. For example, in Kansas City, Missouri, there are resources dedicated to economic and political reinvestment in disenfranchised Black communities, the church still plays a pivotal role in demonstrating compassion and care, and grassroots activism is focused on quality education, affordable housing, and equitable access to healthcare. There is also an invaluable new resource called GreenLight that provides mental health services for youth.
Mr. Boyd has invested in Black youth because he knows the potential they hold. As a country, we must prioritize mental health services to ensure that these kids live to fulfill their potential and help us build a better, more equitable America for all.