Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 5, 1990 TAG: 9003052230
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Each is single, each is raising a child, and each is black.
They are heroes by default.
The 1980 census showed that only 256,000 black men in the entire country were raising children - 6 percent of single-parent black households. By comparison, some 1.4 million white men raised their children alone - about 16 percent of single-parent white households.
There is, experts say, no reason to expect a major shift in that trend in the census that gets under way this month.
James and Kenneth understand why men flee the pressures of family life and how poverty can strain the bonds of kinship.
Kenneth is the oldest of seven children. He grew up in Lincoln Terrace.
"Back then, families were strong. They didn't make a whole lot of money, but they hung together. The whole neighborhood was together, like family. You never went hungry. If you didn't have food, you went blocks away and somebody fed you."
Kenneth is 39; James is 36. Each dropped out of high school. Each has since earned an equivalency diploma.
When James' daughter was born 13 years ago in New Jersey, he wasn't ready to be a parent.
"I truly, truly had it made. In '76, I had a brand new Cadillac, plenty of money, ladies . . . "
He ran, back to Roanoke, where he grew up.
And then he ran back.
His daughter had been in a foster home, and James spent nine days tracking her down. She was 19 months old by then, and James brought her home to Roanoke.
"In my own little way, I wanted to be her hero. I haven't given up anything. This child changed my life. I'm a better man. Without her, I'd probably be doped out or dead."
Kenneth joined the Army and served in Panama. He fell from a mountain during a training maneuver and was disabled.
Kenneth returned to Roanoke in 1976 and 12 days later his son was born. The boy lived with his mother, but his schoolwork lagged and he ended up in trouble with the law.
At a court hearing three years ago, a judge asked Kenneth if he ever thought about gaining custody. Kenneth applied, and it was granted.
By then, Kenneth's son had been held back two years in school. His classwork has since improved dramatically.
"I'm always on him. I want him to be aware of things," Kenneth says.
He mentions peer pressure and drugs, materialism and unemployment.
"You see so much wrong being done and you can't do nothing about it," James adds. "The best you can do is not do it yourself."
Hardly heroic words.
And ordinarily, raising children could hardly be considered a heroic deed - just the right thing to do.
But black men take a statistical flogging in every way imaginable, emerging atop the least enviable lists - crime and poverty, murder and prisons.
That makes James and Kenneth, just ordinary guys doing what they ought to, heroes in a way.
Heroes by default.
by CNB