The Harlem Walk

by Joseph Mathews

“Maybe you should think about going into the military because you’re not college material, Joseph.”

“You’re just not that good of a reader son.”

“You have a problem comprehending.”

“I’m afraid sports may be the only option for you to make it out of here.”

These are just a few descriptions I heard about myself in school. I must admit, like many young people around the country, hearing statements like these over and over again, will make school, more than any other social ill that exist in one’s community, their biggest nemesis. For me, school became just that - the place where the seeds of intellectual inferiority and self-doubt, were deeply imbedded into my psyche. Draining my spirits of its youthful innocence and energy, it became a place where my voice was muzzled and creativity was stifled. School was where so many of my hopes and dreams came to die and in many ways it was where I died. So, never did I dream that one day I would be an Ivy League graduate. Not the kid who graduated at the bottom, 166^th out of 166. Dead last in my graduating class.

As my name was being called and I took that long walk across stage for my Masters’s Degree, I couldn’t help but reflect back on the other long walks I had taken in my life. Like the walk down the hallway in 3^rd grade when I was being placed in special education. Or the walks I took to “ISS” for in school suspension, usually because of the constant fighting precipitated by one of my peers calling me the “N” word. Or the walk down the hallway of my high school as I dropped out. And the long walk to my jail cell after getting into trouble at the age of 17. And finally, in spite of the naysayers and people who did not believe I would make it, the walk back into school after I decided to return and give my education one last try. For the sake of context, I would like to note that I attended affluent suburban schools, not the so-called dreaded inner city schools that catch such a bad rap. This is why I am saddened that often in the black community there exists this narrative that we as a collective do not hold each other up but rather tear each other down. That we suffer from a sense of mass anti-intellectualism and do not value education or educational accomplishments of others. I have lived in many major cities and have heard this negative narrative spewed more times than I can count. But if my walk through Harlem with my cap and Gown on after graduation, is any indication or barometer of how we as a people celebrate, and appreciate educational accomplishments, then we as a collective need to take a step back and reassess this notion or rather the narrative that the black community is just full of people with the crabs in a barrel mentality.

Like many kids around the country, I always dreamed of coming to New York and being discovered or recognized. But never did I think I would ever be celebrated in New York because of education. As destiny would have it, after I walked across the stage, and embraced many of my classmates who were headed to downtown NYC to pat each other on the back for their accomplishments, I headed off on my own path down 125^th to Sylvia’s Soul Food Restaurant. As I took this long walk, I was surprised to find that Harlem USA welcomed me with open arms. I was being shown more love than I was shown on Columbia’s campus, and just as much love from the people as they would have shown a ball player. One after another the congratulations began to come my way. People stopping me and told me how proud they were of me, and how they want to go to school and get their degrees too. The congrats came from the “sistas” and the bruthas” the older ones and the younger ones. The ones who looked like they were just getting off work, and the ones who looked as if they had no work to go to. Even the “bruthas” on the block who prompt people to clench their pockets as they pass by took the time to tell me congratulations. Actually though I was not counting I will say more bruthas congratulated me that anyone. One brutha in particular named Karem stopped me to show his admiration and asked if he could take a picture of me – the picture included in this blog. Then he shared with me how as a kid, he and his friends used to go up to Columbia and just sit on the campus lawn and dream about attending a school “like that”. He said he always wanted to be in an intellectual environment like that but he never made it, so seeing me was inspiring and gave him hope even at the age 52. Although I knew that graduating form a school like Columbia was a big deal to my classmates, it served as a collective source of inspiration to the masses of people in the community who had grown up like me.

The sharing of this moment with the people in the community who had been denied the opportunity, meant that much more to me. I knew that I stood on shoulders of people of Harlem from the past like Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, Zora Neal Hurston, James Joyce and Malcolm X who ironically would have turned 89 on May 19^th, the day of my graduation. To share my graduation with them and a host of many others was the most fulfilling reward to me. These are the very people who I fight for. They are the reason I applied to Columbia, and when I am there, not a day goes by that I don’t walk to Harlem to breathe in the air of past sacrifice and current struggle. As I looked into the eyes of the young people who were looking at me in my cap and gown, I somehow knew that the dreams they dreamt at night - the ones that seemed so distant from their reality, were a little closer as I walked with them down the streets of Harlem. I will continue to work to help the kids of Harlem and in two years I will be finishing up my PhD so I look forward to taking that walk with my people again in my Doctoral cap and gown.

Thank you Harlem though I am not from here I was embraced and celebrated as one of your own and that was an honor, and I’m so proud that you allowed me to share this walk with you.