THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608210543
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover story
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 270 lines
A MAN WHO has worked quietly but steadily to advance human understanding in Portsmouth has made history again.
Horace Savage Jr. is starting his second year as the first African American to head the Portsmouth Community Concert Association in the organization's 58-year history.
As with many other ground-breaking jobs he has had, Savage is a moving force and articulate spokesman for the association.
Savage took the reins of the Community Concert group at a time when its clientele is aging and diminishing.
The Portsmouth association is the second-oldest in the United States and this year will be presenting its 58th season.
``It has had a wonderful and glorious past in bringing cultural enlightenment to the community,'' Savage said. ``It has been supported by a very faithful clientele, a clientele that is declining.''
The ``faithful'' in many cases have been members of the association since the days when it was considered a white, somewhat social group.
For some, it is still a small shock to see the tall, self-assured Savage step out on the stage to make announcements before the concerts. But his eloquent speeches have impressed them.
One older member was overheard in the lobby during intermission saying, ``He's a wonderful speaker!''
As with many African Americans of his generation, 71-year-old Horace Savage Jr. seems determined to be the best at whatever he does.
``I am interested in this,'' he said of Community Concerts. ``I had a musical background.''
His parents both were musical, he said. Both were in the old Truxtun Choral Group, and his father also was a member of the famed Hiram Simmons Glee Club.
His father worked at the shipyard and played the violin. His mother, Bessie Tucker Savage, who played the piano, taught at I.C. Norcom High School, then switched careers to become a pediatric nurse.
``I had two sisters and all three of us took piano lessons,'' Savage said. ``I also learned to play the violin and the trumpet.''
But Savage, leaving music for his leisure time, studied science - biology and chemistry - at Hampton Institute, where he received a bachelor's and a master's degree. He also has studied at the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, and Old Dominion University.
He was drafted out of college into the Army.
``That was an experience I would not take anything for,'' he says now. ``Even with all the liabilities and dangers, it was a broadening experience for me.
``It was exposure to a variety of people, and you had to learn to get along with them.''
The travels in Europe, even during wartime, provided cultural exposure valued by Savage.
During his three years in the Army, Savage was in Scotland and England before landing on Normandy Beach a few weeks after D-Day and moving all the way to the Austrian border, where Savage was when World War II ended.
``It was a learning experience,'' he said. ``It was very humanizing as well as educational.''
His duty done, Savage returned his alma mater, I.C. Norcom High, to begin his 37-year career with the Portsmouth Public Schools. For 19 years, he taught social studies, history, chemistry, physics and driver education. He also coached the football and track teams.
In 1959, he coached the track team to a state championship. The next year, his football team won the state championship. In 1967, the Norcom football team was the district champion and runner-up for the state title.
In 1967, when previously separate white and black teachers' organizations merged to form the Portsmouth Education Association, the teachers elected Savage the organization's first president. It was the first integrated group of its type in the state and included leaders from both of the formerly segregated organizations.
He continued to blaze trails when he became one of the first in the city schools to work with student bodies made up predominantly of a different race.
In 1969, Savage moved into administration with his appointment as assistant principal at Harry Hunt Junior High School, a predominantly white school.
Two years later, he was assigned to Woodrow Wilson High, also predominantly white, as assistant principal. Systematic integration of all the city's schools was implemented in 1972.
In 1976, when Savage was named assistant superintendent for general services, school officials praised him ``for diplomatic handling'' of student infractions and misunderstandings between students, teachers and parents. In his new post at school headquarters, he was responsible for busing, attendance and adult education programs.
Savage became assistant superintendent for staff development and personnel in 1980. He also became clerk of the School Board.
Over the years, Savage has been intimately involved with community activities and frequently surfaced as the first or only black person to hold a given position.
``I have done things because somebody had to do it,'' Savage said.
Savage admits he has been ``accused of being an `Oreo' - black inside and white outside.''
But that hasn't bothered him because of his belief that blacks must contribute to the well-being of the community.
His contributions are numerous.
He led the Effingham YMCA through a difficult time from a struggling all-black facility to a refurbished and enlarged facility aimed at the total community.
``During my tenure, the Effingham Y joined with the YMCA of South Hampton Roads,'' he said. ``There were some who thought it should remain independent, but it just wasn't making it financially. If we were going to survive, we had to make the move to join with others.''
He was the first African American to serve as president of the Torch Club, a local group that meets for intellectual exchanges.
He was the first black to serve as president of the Kiwanis Club of Portsmouth, in 1991-92.
Until June, he was president of Places and Programs for Children, the Olde Towne day-care facility that is the descendant of the Tidewater Child Care Association of Portsmouth and Early Works of Norfolk, both nonprofit organizations.
He serves on the allocations panel of the United Way and on the board of the Salvation Army.
He is on the boards of the Tidewater Scholarship Foundation and the Portsmouth Schools Foundation.
Until 1992, he was adjunct professor at Norfolk State University in multicultural education, and he currently is chairman of the advisory board of the School of Social Work at Norfolk State.
A former senior warden at St. James Episcopal Church, Savage is a member of the choir and is a licensed lay reader and chalicer. At the diocesan level of his church, he is chairman of the Compensation Committee and serves on the board of the Diocese of Southern Virginia.
And, at 71, he's not about to slow down.
In a 1989 interview for a Black History Month story, Savage talked about his youth in the 1930s when track star Jesse Owens, a black man, triumphed at the Olympics and boxer Joe Louis, also black, was beating everybody in the ring.
Both men later came to Portsmouth, and Savage became personally acquainted with them. Later, Savage was stationed at the same Army base with Jackie Robinson, the first black to play major league baseball.
When he spoke of his youth, Savage said he deliberately used the term Negro instead of black, noting that for the first 40 years of his life, ``I was a Negro.''
The emergence of black athletes was important, he said, to young people who felt great exhilaration and pride in the triumphs of black men.
Back in the 1930s, in the all-black Truxtun neighborhood, Savage and the other kids would gather around a radio to listen to Joe Louis fights. When Louis won, Savage remembers, the kids would parade around the neighborhood beating on lard tins to celebrate the victory.
Savage was a Jackie Robinson fan, so much so that he had a ``heavy-as-lead'' portable radio he carried around with him on the Hampton Institute campus on days Robinson was playing.
But even the end of World War II, during which many changes came to the community, there was not a surge of desegregation.
Savage married his college sweetheart, Adeline West of Richmond, who taught first grade for 35 years in the Portsmouth Public Schools. They have a daughter, Alexis, 32, who also attended Hampton University and is an administrator at the Norfolk Naval Base.
The Savages, like many other prominent Portsmouth blacks, live in Cedar Grove Acres, just over the line in Chesapeake. They moved there when the area was Norfolk County.
``We moved there because the pickings were so slim in Portsmouth,'' Savage said. ``The blacks were displaced in Portsmouth.''
While his Chesapeake residency keeps him from serving on city boards and commissions, it does not deter him from giving himself to his hometown.
Although Savage was born to a substantial Portsmouth family, he was not immune to the hurts and slights of a segregated world.
He had to take a literacy test to register to vote while his white contemporaries didn't. In the era of segregated schools, when he started teaching, the white schools got new furniture and the black schools got hand-me-downs. He nearly died at age 16 after a motorcycle accident, when a Suffolk hospital refused to treat him. A highway patrolman brought him to the old Kings Daughters Hospital in Portsmouth, where they did treat him. He recalls walking into a restaurant and seeing white patrons leave because he was black. He has been passed over by a clerk who went to the next person, who was white.
But he is not a bitter man. In the 1989 interview, he explained that he was ``so busy trying to survive and develop attitudes of self-worth'' that he didn't have time for bitterness.
Today, he seems disappointed that the racial animosities have continued and sometimes seem to grow stronger, that communities have not allowed desegregation to evolve into something better for the community.
He concedes that his dreams of mutual respect among the races may not be achieved in his lifetime.
Meanwhile, Savage is using his expertise and energy to work for the community.
His primary concern now is getting the Community Concert Association on solid ground.
``We need a base membership of 1,200 to really break even,'' he said. ``At one time, that was virtually assured. Now it's a struggle.''
He said the association's board has ``a hard time ascertaining what people want. They say they don't like the series. But they don't define anything for us.''
For a number of years, the board has attempted to satisfy everybody by choosing a variety of entertainment for its four-program seasons.
``We try to cover all bases, but we always try to bring good musicians and quality entertainment,'' he said. ``We operate on the premise that if people really are music lovers, they can appreciate all good musicians. If they are music lovers, I don't see how they can renounce our choices.''
The association has learned the hard way that people in Portsmouth don't respond well to concerts by single artists, apparently feeling they are getting more for their money in a performance by a group.
Several disappointing instances in recent years include a special benefit concert by pianist Roger Williams that wound up losing money for the association. Critically acclaimed Metropolitan Opera soprano June Anderson appeared in a concert co-sponsored by the city but failed to fill Willett Hall.
Metropolitan Opera tenor Philip Creech, who happens to be black, drew a pitifully small audience, Savage said.
``I have a problem with lack of black response to the concerts,'' Savage said. ``People say we don't have black artists, but we do. We're not trying to promote any particular genre, but we're trying to be diversified.''
In addition to Creech, who received very little black support in Portsmouth, the series one year featured the Harlem Boys Choir. But that didn't seem to draw black members, either.
As president, Savage personally has invited some of his black friends to participate in the concert organizations.
``But I have been disappointed,'' he said.
While the association has a white past, it has changed with the years and over the past decade, with a number of blacks having served on the board. Audrey Orton, mother of former City Manager Wayne Orton, was the first. Savage was the second.
Color is not an issue with Savage. He simply goes about his business working for his city.
He's not about to let the Community Concert Association go down the tubes without a fight.
``We intend to continue to be more aggressive and use our resources in the most practical way we can,'' he said. ``A major approach will be more personalized direct mail.''
The association has exchanged mailing lists with other arts agencies in the region and has sent 1,000 letters to potential subscribers on those lists.
``We will continue to provide as appealing a series as we can,'' Savage said. ``We could drop down a notch and spend less on concerts, but I think that would be unfair to the public. We want to have quality.''
Savage marvels that people find excuses not to buy a $35 membership even if they don't like one or two concerts on a series of four.
``If you went to see any of these concerts somewhere else, a single ticket for any one of them would cost almost that much, maybe more in some cases,'' he said.
Although he is always the optimist, Savage realistically asks: ``How much more of a future does this concept have?''
People pay big bucks to go to an outdoor concert or to concerts brought by commercial promoters in other cities, he said, but are unwilling to pay $35 for a good series of entertainment at Willett Hall.
``Community Concerts is a grass-roots thing,'' he said. ``For a long time, it depended on word of mouth, not paid advertising. The original concept was a group of subscribers/supporters who had a mutual interest in the arts and came together to bring the concerts to the city.''
Alas, it is no longer true that advertising isn't needed, he said.
``This says something about our society,'' he added.
So far this year, the association has sold more than 850 memberships for the coming season. Savage expects several hundred more sales in September after Labor Day, once vacations are over.
``That usually happens,'' he said.
The association has received grants from the Portsmouth Museum and Fine Arts Commission, the Consortium for the Arts and the state Department of Cultural Resources. Several local banks and other businesses have made cash donations. About 30 businesses advertise in the programs.
Because the association is a nonprofit group, it also accepts tax-deductible contributions from individuals.
As good as it is to have the grants and contributions, Savage said he would prefer to fill the 2,000 seats in Willett Hall with people enjoying good music. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
Horace Savage Jr. is a member of the choir and is a licensed lay
reader and chalicer at St. James Episcopal Church. At the diocesan
level of his church, he is chairman of the Compensation Committee
and serves on the board of the Diocese of Southern Virginia.
Staff photo, including the cover, by MARK MITCHELL
This dance sculpture graces the front of Willett Hall in Portsmouth.
The lower half of the dancers is seen on the cover, near Horace
Savage, chair of the Community Concert Association.
Color is not an issue with Savage. He simply goes about his business
working for his city.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY by CNB