I am from the generation that was
greatly influenced by Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. Though he was assassinated before I knew of
him, he was as alive as any teacher in my life.
And years later when I met Yuri Kochiyama at a pilgrimage held at Tule
Lake Concentration Camp, as facilitator to the circle of Japanese speaking
participants, Malcolm X was very much still as influential as any living person
in our lives. When I met her, I said, “I
love Malcolm X” and she grabbed my hands and said, “OH, you love Malcolm
also!” I told her that Malcolm X reached
down from the other side, and lifted up my students when they needed help and
saved their lives – save them from the potential violence of police harassment
and the constant harassment he faced at school.
Eleven years old. Black Lives
Matter.
Tonight, I’d like to share with you
the back story to a film filmed and edited by an 11 or 12 year old young Black
man Cochise Moore during the first term of his seventh grade year. I first saw Cochise in the entry-way of
Jefferson Middle School in 1992. Who
could miss him – a burst of anger, running out the door with a student teacher chasing
and pleading, “Cochise! Come back. It’ll only be worse if you leave!” He was already gone off the school grounds
but hearing her voice, he turned briefly, and I swear there was a bright flash
of light as the sun seemed to catch the white X in the middle of his cap and it
shown as if it were made of gold metal.
At that moment a thought flashed through me, “He turned around!”
The student teacher shared that
Cochise had gotten in trouble in the 7th grade hall again for
fighting. She said he was always
erupting when the other students said racist things to him just to see him blow
up. His teachers have given up. They say he’s a thug.
“He turned around!” kept echoing in my mind
and with that I marched into principal Dr. Bolden’s office. Dr. Bolden was the young new principal of
this troubled school which he had turned into a Multicultural International
Middle School along with a new staff who gravitated to the school to have the
opportunity to teach with him and turn everything around. I asked Dr. Bolden if I could have Cochise
during my morning prep. The seventh
grade team didn’t want him, but I could take him as his seventh grade teacher
during that period. Unlike any other
principal I’ve taught for before then and after, he went with it. He
cleared the way.
First meeting, I took Cochise out to
a nearby fast food place and we sat and talked about his interests. In that meal together I learned how
irritated he was at people wearing the Malcolm X clothing which came into
fashion before Spike Lee released his film “ they don’t even know what the X
stands for,” he criticized. Having learned his interest in filmmaking I
suggested, “Why don’t you tell these
kids what the X stands for by making a film.”
His eyes sparked. I told him I
was married to a filmmaker, and I thought he would be fine coming in to teach
some classes. “The camera is a great
tool to say what you want to say, Cochise.
It’s powerful. “
I was up to something for sure. A close family friend of ours was Abas
Ansari. His sister Bahati and I were
sisters from another mother, as close as sisters could be. They were Muslim. Abas was also a Vietnam Vet and strict father
of another student, eighth grader, Nadirah.
I had plans to bring together a strong male role model with Cochise, a
strong parental role model. I also
strategized to have Abas’ spunky daughter and no nonsense Iquo Udosenata, a
Nigerian American student eighth grader into my morning prep too. Nothing like eighth grade peers to talk some
sense into a hot headed seventh grader. Cochise did not have a chance. No choice except to get stronger and more
disciplined from the inside out.
My husband Will came in and trained
Cochise. Eric Schiff from across the
hall, a strong anti-racist Jewish man who was cooler than cool replete with his
tech lab, his editing lab, his cameras and lights, backed the training up as Cochise’s
day to day coach. I also asked Cochise
to check in with Dr. Bolden, also cooler than cool from time to time about the
project, some alone time with him in his office for other than disciplinary
action. I brought out every book and
calendar with Malcolm X with images.
Cochise spent days with the film camera and a table pedestal taking shots
carefully. He told me he had chosen the
shots and perfect songs already – “they’re about Malcolm X” he said proudly
about the Arrested Development piece.
Nadirah and Iquo were his crew – and I overheard a lot of conversations about
how to deal with stupid racism. They
told him what for in no nonsense language.
Then came the day Abas visited,
dressed as he did when he was Fruit of Islam for the temple in Chicago. Cochise was definitely impressed and subdued. It cracked me up to watch Cochise as he
listened and listened and listened some more.
He would fidget, but not too much under Abas’ strict gaze. His face flushed with stress, but he listened
and listened and squirmed and listened for the whole period. In earlier days, Cochise had told me he was probably
going to grow up and go to prison like
his dad. But now there was were role
models he could not deny in his life – Vietnam Vet, Fruit of Islam Abas Ansari
and Dr. Bob Bolden.
Nadirah, Iquo, Schiff and I will
never forget the day that Cochise finally played his film for his whole
school. Schiff had helped us become the
first Channel One School in the District, very controversial because it brought
Coca Cola into the school. At the same
time it gave us equipment so that the young people could produce and show their
own news programming, and films. And
Cochise was the first one to play. All
the classrooms stayed tune after the student news program as the words Malcolm
X came across the screen. Schiff came
from across the hall to watch with us.
Everything was hushed out in the hallways except for Cochise’s film. And when it ended, there became the sound of
applause down the hall. “Cochise, come
here! Listen!” I said as the young ones
came to the door, and he could hear that building wide instantaneous
applause. I shall never forget
that.
Malcolm X, the film, shot by Cochise
Moore, shown just weeks before Spike Lee’s film opened at the downtown McDonald
Theater, changed this young man’s life.
Malcolm X changed his life. His
team, the Spirit of Malcolm X, a few
teachers, a principal, new Sisters, a filmmaker, changed his life and Cochise
changed ours. Please enjoy the film. Cochise, the professor in Seattle Washington,
who rescues young people from hopelessness and anger himself, found the VHS and
sent this to us, but in the process the color could not transfer so you will
see it in Black and White. Then I’d like
to say just a few words of what happened next.
Like all good things, goodness leads
to another blessing. The next September,
the eighth grade Cochise Moore, on the first day of school said, “Ms. Kawai
Joo, what film are we going to make this year?”
I said, Bahati always wanted the four remaining Black Pioneer women of
Eugene to be honored someday, Cochise.
You could do an oral history project with no editing: Mrs. Washington, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Mims, and
Mrs. Reynolds. Cochise said he would
bring a team together: Cory Mainor, Michael Kay or Michael Klindt, Marcus
Nettles and Trayvon Cooks. Their project
was called the African American History Project, and they won honor from the
State and community for it. That’s
another story, another team. What the
four elders did to smooth out these young men, to fill them with pride and love
was a beautiful thing. Cory, Cochise and
Michael are all teachers. Michael Klindt
is teaching at Springfield High School and is the archivist and the local
expert on this story.
So I say, Thank you, Minister El
Hajj Malik El Shabazz. Thank you,
Malcolm X for reaching out to every generation for as long as there is
injustice, violence and the colonial yoke of white supremacy.
