THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 20, 1996 TAG: 9601200283
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
Nathan McCall, whose autobiography shocked many of his parents' neighbors in middle-class Cavalier Manor, came home to explain it all to those old friends Friday night.
McCall, whose autobiography is titled ``Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America,'' spoke at the 13th annual awards banquet of the Cavalier Manor Police Community Relations Committee.
Members of the committee patrol the streets of the neighborhood where McCall was raised. His parents, Lenora and Bonnie Alvin, are participants in the crime prevention activities.
``Crime and violence are the result of social forces, not the result of genetic flaws,'' he began and got a round of applause from the mostly black audience of about 350 people at the Dry Dock Club.
Describing how he felt ``despised and limited'' because of his race, he explained that as a young black man, he ``gave up on the future because he didn't think he had one.''
``You go from childhood optimism to disillusionment, to anger, to hopelessness, to crime and violence, to prison and, in many cases, to the grave,'' McCall said.
He and his buddies fell into a life of violence, sex and drugs. At 19, McCall - now 41 - wound up in prison after getting caught robbing a fast-food store in Norfolk. In prison, he said, he learned to read and build his intellect, thus increasing his self-esteem. He returned home to attend Norfolk State University.
A former reporter for The Ledger-Star, he is on leave from the Washington Post, living in suburban Maryland and writing a book of essays on politics, race and culture.
But Friday night, he talked more like a preacher than a writer.
In the end, he challenged his old neighbors to save a generation of young black men that many have written off.
``There are scores of young Nathans running around the streets of Portsmouth and every other city,'' he said. ``But I am optimistic. Nobody can do everything but everybody can do something, and I believe we will.''
He suggested that black members of the audience remind their white friends that ``nobody can run away from social problems.''
``Remind them that aboard an ocean liner, people might be traveling in different classes at different levels, but if the boat sinks, they all go down together.'' by CNB