Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 8, 1995 TAG: 9506080052
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The boxer who was once planning to duke it out with Sugar Ray Leonard is now a Pulaski minister leading a battle to save young people in the black community from dangers still not clearly understood.
But danger exists, as reflected by five suicide attempts among black and biracial youths within a recent two-week period.
"I think it speaks to the difficulty of the times that they encounter," Daniels said. "The teacher doesn't understand them, the system doesn't understand them, even the law doesn't understand them. However misguided some of those [ideas] may be, to them, they are real."
Daniels, pastor at the First Baptist Church, is chairman of the 17-member Cultural Awareness Redemptive Education board, which is planning an eight-week summer program for young people.
The three-day-a-week program starts Monday with orientation from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. for participants and their parents.
Co-directors for the program are Timora "Tammy" Boyers, a 1992 Radford University graduate with a psychology major, and the Rev. Oliver Lewis, youth and music minister at First Baptist.
Boyers, a volunteer at the church's Sunday school and Vacation Bible School programs, will direct the program's Genesis Group for ages 5-11.
Lewis, who will complete requirements for a degree in music education at Radford in December, will lead the Exodus Group for ages 12-17.
The summer program will offer activities for participants ages 5-17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with additional teen activities from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday.
Seventeen years ago, Daniels was a welterweight boxer, won 21 of his 24 matches and was ranked sixth in the United States. A fight between him and Sugar Ray Leonard was planned but never scheduled.
Daniels found similar requirements for the ring and the ministry. "The discipline required to be a good athlete makes you a prime candidate for discipleship training, I think," he said.
Among the other CARE board members are Jim Wallis, Pulaski County social services director, and Karen Klymer, pupil personnel services coordinator for the county school system.
Two of the children who attempted suicide are biracial, Daniels said.
"That in itself has some complexities that perhaps no one has taken the time to consider. They're almost like a new minority," he said. They need to become aware of people like Chelsi Smith, a college sophomore from Texas crowned as the 1995 Miss Universe last month and who expressed pride in her biracial heritage, he said.
Daniels and others became concerned over such statistics as dropout rates at Pulaski County High School. The 14 percent dropout rate for minority students compares to a 7.3 percent for all students. He is also concerned about the disproportionate percentage of black youths involved in juvenile and domestic relations court cases.
"This is the thing that's so alarming," Daniels said. "I think we are just now beginning to experience some of the repercussions of integration."
At all-black schools, he noted, young people saw positive black role models among their teachers and principals. That happens less often in integrated schools. For instance, there are no black principals in Pulaski County.
The county had no specific program in any existing organization to meet the cultural and sociological needs of its black youths, many of whom are subjected to negative pressures affecting their sense of self-esteem. Many are being raised in dysfunctional single-parent homes and are at risk of becoming tomorrow's dysfunctional parents, Wallis noted in a proposal seeking a grant for the CARE program.
The grant was not funded, and Pulaski Town Council decided against contributing a requested $10,000 to CARE because of a financial crunch leading to a ban on new contributions. The lack of available funding has shelved plans for after-school mentoring and a yearlong CARE program, but the board decided it could handle the eight-week summer program.
Originally planned for 40 participants, it was expanded to 47 by the board Tuesday night. It had some 60 applications for participation, which has encouraged its supporters to try to expand it next year.
CARE will include some black history, health education, anti-drug information, self-help and financial management skills, sexuality and self-esteem, communications skills, and black art, music, dance and literature. It will also include educational field trips.
"It's an African concept that a lot of the African-American churches are employing," Daniels said of the program. Early African society had social structures that included a "rites of passage" concept that equipped a youth with the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to become a responsible member of the community.
One requirement of the program is involvement of parents as well as youth.
"That enhances our rapport with parent and child," Daniels said. "It empowers us to do what the school system can't do, what the other community and civic organizations would not be able to do."
by CNB