
DATE: Sunday, November 9, 1997              TAG: 9711070288

SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS     PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY MELANIE L. STOKES, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:  171 lines

CARING WITH CONVICTION

For a public school principal, Darnell Johnson spends a lot of time in jail.

By day, Johnson is the principal at New Directions, Portsmouth's alternative middle and high school. By night, he is the volunteer chaplain at the City Jail.

For 17 years, Johnson has led a team of volunteers who counsel and educate inmates through the Southeast Correctional Ministry.

When Johnson looks into the eyes of a prisoner, he says he doesn't see a criminal. Rather, he says he sees a ``good person who made bad decisions.'' When he looks into the eyes of a New Directions student, Johnson says he doesn't see a child with a behavior problem; he sees a youngster who needs attention.

When Johnson looks at himself, he says he sees a man with a job; he brings hope to the hopeless, and he ``shows the love.''

The inmates call him ``the big man'' and ``the preacher'' as he walks the narrow isles between the crowded cells. He stands tall 6-foot-3 and as he greets inmates, his booming voice resonates with hearty laughter. He calls them by name and reads books with them, books with titles like ``Doing Time with Christ.'' But it isn't what he tells them that matters; it is what he shows them.

When Johnson embraces an inmate, he's often embracing a former student, a student's parent, and, sometimes, a person who has victimized one of his students or friends. He knows their stories, and he knows what they've done. He embraces them nonetheless and shows them unconditional love.

``I have to show forgiveness, and my faith gives me the strength to forgive,'' said Johnson, 46. ``When I see my students in here, I never say `I told you so.'

``You have to show Christian love. If you live it, they will see it. Our job is to share the Gospel, but most importantly we are here . . . being a friend,'' Johnson said of himself and fellow volunteers. ``We are here to give them what they need.

``Sometimes they need advice and counsel. Sometimes they need education and job skills. We have to meet those needs.''

Johnson says he does not think of himself as a man with two jobs. He works for a single purpose at school and in the jail.

``Your life and your job have to mesh into one,'' he said. ``Like Martin Luther King's message: `If I can help anyone, anywhere, I will.' ''

The ministry offers inmates the chance to complete a Bible study series. Johnson tracks their progress, tests them and awards them with Bibles when they complete the whole series. Their Bible study records are accomplishments the inmates can maintain.

``Some of them play hotel here,'' Johnson said. ``They are in and out, but they expect me to keep track of their progress, and I do. It's important to reward and encourage them. They need encouragement along the way.''

Johnson sees correlations between his students in school and his students in jail. They are all ``kids'' he said. His message to his free and imprisoned kids is the same.

``The inmate mentality has reached the children,'' Johnson said. ``So we face a real challenge in schools because the street institution never takes a break, and it's worse than we know.

``Kids aren't born with negative behavior. They learn it. Most of the time they learn it out of necessity. They think they have to be bad to stay alive. They are street-wise, and they didn't get a childhood. We have to nurture them now, at any age.''

Johnson says he sees drugs, poverty and violence every day. He knows the problems they cause, and his heart has been broken a thousand times. But what all problems have in common, Johnson said, is the hopelessness that accompanies them.

``It burdens my heart,'' he said from the first floor of the Portsmouth jail. ``I know what's going on out there. . . .

``Most of the children and inmates don't think they have a future. They can't think past today. To them there's no tomorrow. When you have a hopeless person, you have a real problem. I hate to see what happens when people get pushed up against a wall.

``But everyone has an ability and a gift. . . . I see the potential in the individual and nurture that potential. Children aren't the only ones who need role models. Adults do, too.

``I tell them what Aristotle said . . . some people were born to lead, and some people were born to labor, but everyone is important.

``I tell them that if they can become a custodian, they can be the best custodian. It's important that everyone is good at what they do. But when I tell these hurting people that they can be something . . . their eyes just fly open.''

Johnson teaches the inmates and his school students to value education. He does more than tell them education can give them a better life; he shares his own experience.

Johnson says he grew up poor in Portsmouth, where his father served in the Navy. Even so, he says he was at an advantage because his father was present in his life.

``Today, fathers are just sort of . . . absent,'' Johnson said. ``. . . You can't expect a child who grew up in some deplorable conditions to excel as much as a child with a whole family. Children get frustrated. They drop out of school. They need a family, and the gangs become their family.

``At my school we try to have as many males around the kids as females. The children need father figures in their lives, and teachers have to do more than teach. They have to love the whole child. Before you can teach them, you have to love them.''

New Directions is a school at 5555 Portsmouth Blvd. It is housed in a 1,100 square-foot office space with nearly 70 students. The teachers there, Johnson said, ``are some of the best in the district.''

Students are sent to New Directions when discipline problems keep them out of other schools.

``When a student (swears at) me or my teachers, we can't just suspend them and put them out on the street. The policy says suspend them, but we have to be tougher than the policy,'' Johnson said. ``When we hear that from a student we have to ask, `Where is that coming from?' ''

Students are like saplings, Johnson said.

``When they are coming up, they need support on both sides. When you plant a sapling you put one support on the left and one on the right. A child needs the same support, a mother on one side and a father on the other side.''

Johnson is the support at the side of many. He's a living example for all the kids he loves.

A 1969 graduate of Elizabeth City State University, Johnson was a football star and student government president. He had a chance to give pro football a try, but instead he returned to school at the University of Kentucky, where he received a Master's degree in education.

``I went there with a goal in mind,'' Johnson said. ``I became an educator.''

He became more than an educator. He is the only friend some have. Johnson is a member of Cavalry Evangelical Baptist Church. Johnson's wife of 26 years, Stephanie, is the principal of Emily Spong Elementary School. They have a daughter and twin granddaughters.

Seventeen years ago, a friend from a Bible study invited him to minister in the jail in Southampton County. Johnson has been a friend to prisoners ever since.

``I can remember as a kid, my brother was incarcerated,'' Johnson said. ``I remember riding in the car to go see him, and I didn't want to go to the jail. Now, I can't wait to get to the jail.''

The inmates respect him, as does Portsmouth Sheriff Gary Waters and his deputies.

``On the outside, Johnson is a big man,'' Waters said. ``The kind of man that no one would dare pick on. But contrary to that outside impression, Johnson is a thoughtful and gentle man with a warm smile, a kind face and a big heart. His voice has soothed many a troubled soul, both in jail and with the young people who are in his school.''

Lt. Elizabeth Aronson said of Johnson: ``The inmates really respect him. He just has such a big heart that he has room in it for everyone. If we could just clone him and have 10 more of him, the world would be a better place.''

Johnson has been a volunteer for so long that he's like one of the staff. He had an office in the jail before the medical center expanded and his materials were moved into a closet. He carries keys to the jail on a keyring shared by photographs of his granddaughters. In his heart, he just might carry the key to a new life for the inmates.

Len Harris is a 44-year-old inmate. He has been in and out of the Portsmouth jail for drug-related crimes. As Harris watched Johnson talk to other inmates, tears filled his eyes as he recalled the encouragement Johnson provided him.

``That man is beautiful,'' Harris said. ``He can make it beautiful even in here. I would be a lot worse off if he had not spoken to me.

``He is out there on the streets helping kids, and he is really making a difference. He gives 100 percent, and he won't quit. He can't save them all, but he saves some, because he loves them. He is beautiful,'' Harris said as he shook his head and held back the tears of gratitude.

As Johnson made his way down the row of cells, he stopped to put his hands between the bars. The inmates wanted to touch his hands and talk with him. At the end of the row Harris stood. Harris and Johnson embraced and shared a laugh.

Johnson turned and said, ``Before you can teach them, you have to love them.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos incluing color cover by NHAT MEYER

For 17 years, Darnell Johnson has led a team of volunteers who

counsel and educate inmates through the Southeast Correctional

Ministry program.

Minnie Alston visits a floor dedicated for women at the Portsmouth

jail. Alston volunteers as part of a prison ministry run by Darnell

Johnson..

Darnell Johnson is a Portsmouth principal and a prison minister.