Derrick Bell proposed, back in the days when he was celebrated, an organization called the Quad A. I forget the particulars, but I remember the flavor, having read about it in his 'Faces At The Bottom of the Well'. The flavor was mighty, and I must confess to have wanted and wished there to be such an institution. There might be.
In this case my highschool's African American Alumni Association may end up filling the bill. It is basically a who's who of the brothers in LA who did well from our exclusive little prep school. I say it casually, but make no mistake, these men are an impressive bunch. They called a picnic and plenty of people came. I'm expecting good things.
Now this picture was taken back in 1977 when we first formed the Prospective Black Businessmen's Association. It was the first black organization on the Loyola Campus, and as you might expect, we took a lot of heat for starting it. I don't know how many years have gone by with kids finding that picture in the yearbook, but you can bet that it has been inspirational to another generation, afros and all. There are more PBBA pictures, I'll post them to the new Quad A website after that's set up.
There aren't many black kids in LA who went to Catholic School, but those of us who did were fairly well networked back in the day. Especially when I talk about the People of the Dons, a list of names comes up on the regular. These folks are two degrees of separation from everything that's happening of consequence in African American history being made today, and that's why a bunch of slightly overweight middled-aged black men eating hamburgers on a Saturday was pretty exciting. So today a few of us are taking the initiative to communicate and do what we ought to be doing for ourselves and the next generation.
The core of this is that at Loyola, the number of black kids had fallen to something like 18. Now I'm not sure if that was just within one class or the entire school of 1000 students. Probably the former, but that was still unacceptable. Furthermore, all of the weight had been born on the shoulders of a few usual suspects. So those few decided to turn things around. They plowed through a bunch of yearbooks, put together a mailing list and got the ball rolling. It's up to the rest of us to do our share.
The day was sweet. It was great to see Glenn, Marlon, Steve, Gabriel, Bruce, Craig, Jerome, Darryl and a gang of others show up with their families. I met a lot of old and new friends, we talked about the usual good old days, the prospects for this year's football squad and the state of our businesses and families. The jazz combo was tight and the brats were juicy. The bouncer was full of kids and the sun was shining. Somebody had the videocam and I snapped a few jpgs for posterity and the new website that I couldn't help but volunteer for.
The agenda is coming. Stay tuned.
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