THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 14, 1996 TAG: 9603140510
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
National Urban League President Hugh B. Price came to town Tuesday and got all in folks' business. Told them what kind of cars they ought to drive. ``Regular hubcaps instead of alloy. Two speakers instead of four.''
When he said it at the annual Urban League of Hampton Roads fund-raising dinner, there was dead silence in the huge chandeliered hall. The only thing you could hear was the Cadillac-Lincoln-Town-Car crowd shifting in their seats.
At first, I couldn't believe it myself - a civil rights leader telling folks how to spend their money. But Price made a lot of sense.
Normally, blacks who've made it ``rushed out and bought a $25,000 car,'' he said. Instead, he recommends a lean $20,000 model and a five-grand donation to the Urban League or other educational program for black youth. You know, like Friends of Hampton Roads.
``It is time that we African Americans who have made it step up to the plate to assume personal financial responsibility,'' said Price. ``I know that we have the money.''
It's all part of the civil rights frontier for the 21st century, he said. The movement focus has shifted from ending segregation to ensuring that young people are enabled to succeed in an uncertain future of cyberspace, corporate layoffs and global marketing.
And Price said blacks must do so with the ``civil rights verve of old. We must take the same energy that charged our protest campaigns and turn that energy toward our children.''
The man does not mince words.
He's got that Colin Powell solidness about him. No flab and no prevarications about the state of black America. He's bold, but tempered by integrity and a touch of Ivy League gentility (Yale Law School).
He spoke in a spirit of unity evident in the diverse audience of corporate contributors that Mary Redd Nelson, local league president, pulled together to put on the dinner. And he spoke in the spirit of generosity that helped dinner chairman William Foster of Central Fidelity Bank raise a record $105,000 for Urban League programs.
Price doesn't just talk about youth. He's in touch. Earlier in the day, he visited Young Park Elementary School, where students are in an Urban League after-school tutorial program.
Fourth-graders Leander DeLoatch, Roxanne Jones, Natasha Thornton, Gloriadine Rouse, Melissa Simmons and Tiara King showed off their reading and essay-writing skills. Price spoke gently to the big eyes, braids and bows.
And he spoke sternly to parents.
Watch out for ``peak time,'' he warned. That's between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. when parents are working and kids are out of school.
That's when juvenile crime hits the streets. And that's when hormones roam, which too often leads to teenage pregnancies that ``undermine the economic viability of black communities.''
``We've simply got to persuade our young people that they ought not bring their own flesh and blood into this world unless they are fully prepared to love, nurture and provide for them.''
Money and time are musts - to get that message across.
Which brings us back to the kinds of cars black folks ought to drive.
Price isn't saying that African Americans aren't entitled to the finer things in life.
We've worked so hard for so long, putting in much of the back-breaking labor that literally built this country. Yet, only in the last 30 years have we reaped even a few crumbs of luxury.
But having amenities doesn't preclude guided and generous altruism for one's own people.
``We must,'' Price said, ``summon our leadership from within ourselves.'' by CNB