Most people have heard the slogan “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”But for the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant, who
spoke at Friday night’s NAACP 1999 Biennial Harvest Banquet, that phrase is more than
just words.
“ ‘A mind is a terrible
thing to waste’ is not just a slogan but a way of life,”Bryant said. “Many
children don’t even understand the sacrifices made to even be guests in a Holiday
Inn.”
It was at the Holiday Inn on Jake
Alexander Boulevard that Bryant spoke to more than 250 guests. The event was sponsored by
the Salisbury Post, Food Lion, Kosa and other companies.
Bryant is national youth and
college director of the NAACP. He has been listed in Ebony Magazine as one of
America’s future leaders, and has appeared in USA Today and on BET, CNN and C-Span
cable television channels.
A distinguished graduate of
Morehouse College in Atlanta, he also has an honorary doctorate of divinity degree from
Barber Scotia College in Concord.
Despite the fact that he failed
the 11th grade, he believes his success comes from knowing the sacrifices his forefathers
made for him and for future generations.
It’s those sacrifices that
Bryant feels the current generation of young African-Americans has forgotten.
“Children today know how to
spend and not invest,”Bryant said. “They carry cellular phones and wear $150
shoes. They have gold teeth, but nickel-plated brains. They need to invest in integrity
and spirituality.”
Bryant talked about how
today’s young people have forgotten their forefathers and how people like the
generation of Bryant’s great-grandparents thought about the future. Paraphrasing what
he thought his forefathers might have said, Bryant explained it this way: “Even if I
can’t read and write, there will be a generation after me that will not be butlers
and maids, but engineers and doctors.”
That future generation of today
has succeeded on the sacrifices of African-Americans who were pushed to the back of the
bus and who had to fight against segregation. Bryant wants the current generation to be
reminded of those sacrifices.
One guest, Saundra Martin, agrees.
“We have to always teach black history. We have to do it as a community because
it’s not handled well in the school system,” she said.
William Peoples, who won the NAACP
Presidential Award Friday night agrees that today’s youth need to be reminded of the
past.
“Let them know that we
didn’t get this far by our graces,” he said. “ People made sacrifices for
us. One thing that would help is to expose our kids to the sacrifices that were made. They
need to know about the history and what it’s going to take to strive and succeed in
this world.”
One thing he suggested for
teaching the youth about those sacrifices are books by Martin Luther King Jr., Daniell
Hale Williams and W.E.B. Debouse.
Salisbury-Rowan President Norman
Bryant Jr. believes that by teaching the youth about the past it will help them handle
today’s problems.
“Kids nowadays have lost a
lot of coping skills and as the speaker said we’ve taught kids to appreciate the
wrong things such as material things instead of spirituality and character,” Bryant
said.
Peoples added, “Teach them
that once you have received a good education, that’s something no one can take away
from you.”
It’s that education that
Peoples said will help African-American youth in the future.
“We need to invest in our
children because they are the future.” |
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