Search Results for: Obama

How Does It Feel To Be Unwanted?

Undocumented immigrants await deportation at Arizona detention centers, John Moore / Getty

Eileen Truax | translated by Diane Stockwell | An excerpt from How Does It Feel To Be Unwanted? | Beacon Press | September 2018 | 19 minutes (5,083 words)

How many times can you start your life all over again from zero? If there’s anyone who knows the answer to that question, it’s Claudia Amaro. She had to do it for the first time when her father was murdered, when she was ten years old. She started over again for a second time when she was thirteen and her mother decided to move the whole family, including Claudia and her three sisters, to the United States, fleeing violence. She had to hit the reset button again when she was thirty and a deportation order for her husband destroyed her family and the life she had built over the past two decades, sending him, Claudia, and their US-citizen son back to Mexico, a place she no longer felt was home.

And with nothing left to lose, in the hope of getting back a little of the life that had been hers, in 2013, at thirty-seven, Claudia started over for the fourth time. She was prepared to spend as much time as necessary in a detention center in the US. She crossed the border north and at the entry gate said she wished to apply for political asylum. A few months later, her husband, Yamil, did the same. Claudia spent three weeks in detention. Yamil was locked up for two years and three months.

Back in Kansas, a place they both consider their home, Claudia and Yamil live under the ever-present shadow of possible deportation. Neither of them knows if they would be able to start over from nothing for a fifth time. Read more…

Ugly, Bitter, and True

AP Photo/Eric Risberg

Suzanne Rivecca | Zyzzyva | April 2018 | 84 minutes (16,714 words)

 

The most barbarous of our maladies is to despise our being. –Michel de Montaigne

 

There’s a tiny park on Hyde Street in San Francisco, on the cable car line, and for about a year I half-heartedly planned to kill myself in it. The park is slightly sunken, set off from the street, mostly concrete: one of those wedged-in, rarely utilized “mini-parks” common to this part of the city. There are a few rickety maroon-painted benches, a banner of tattered Mexican party flags, some scattered plants and trees. Sometimes, on warm nights, people sit there and eat ice cream cones from the famous ice cream parlor on the corner. Sometimes people take their dogs there to pee. But most of the time it’s empty.

I zeroed in on it because it’s near my apartment and ill-lit. I’d made only a cursory stab at formulating the logistics. Mostly I fantasized in broad strokes, visualizing the final result rather than the step-by-step labor. I knew this much: I wanted to put my California ID in my pocket, along with a piece of paper with my sister’s contact information, swallow a bunch of Xanax with alcohol, and hang myself from a tree. I didn’t think about what I’d use to hang myself, or what I’d stand on to reach the tree, or what kind of knot I’d tie. I didn’t even know which tree. My reluctance to hammer out these details probably indicated a lack of genuine resolve. Or maybe it was just indicative of the bone-shaking agitation that made it impossible to focus on anything intently enough to make a plan.

I walked by the park almost every day, but found it hard to enter. Sometimes I’d stand on the sidewalk and just stare into it, my heartrate accelerating. I knew this was the place, but I didn’t want to go in and scope out coordinates and vantage points. If it was going to happen, I didn’t want to be methodical about it. I was waiting for some trigger that would make it inevitable: some fresh humiliation, some galling failure. Something that would make it all fall into place, get the ball rolling organically, negate the need for foresight. I may have also been waiting for an irrefutable reason not to do it at all.

Read more…

Hating Big Pharma Is Good, But Supply-Side Epidemic Theory Is Killing People

Jose A. Bernat Bacete / Getty, Photo illustration by Katie Kosma

Zachary Siegel | Longreads | September 2018 | 20 minutes (5,459 words)

After breakfast each Sunday we had the option to attend a spiritual group. The facility’s spiritual counselor was a tall woman with greying frizzy hair who collected vaguely heart-shaped rocks, and always had several on her desk that she’d gift to patients who stopped by her office.

She wouldn’t give you just any old rock; no, the rock she’d choose for you had a story: its color, unique dents and chips resembled resilience, an ability to withstand harsh elements while retaining your heart’s shape. She insisted the Sunday group wasn’t religious. “Religion is for people who’re afraid of going to hell,” the popular saying around Alcoholics Anonymous goes. “Spirituality is for people who have already been there.” So we sang along to “Let it Be” by The Beatles.

We had mostly blamed ourselves for what landed us inside an addiction treatment facility. But we were young, so we also blamed our parents (thanks Obamacare!). The reason why we were all in treatment and not quarantined in jail is because we were mostly white and upper-middle class. It was the summer of 2012 and young people like me all over the country were developing opioid addictions. The difference between us and the vast majority of others was our family’s resources, namely insurance that covered the $1,000 per day cost for a residential stint at a spiritually tinged hospital-meets-lake-house just outside the Twin Cities (the land of 10,000 treatment centers). The campus edged Medicine Lake, which I always found cruel because the facility didn’t much like to use medicine at the time, medicine that would’ve eased my withdrawal and given me the best chance at kicking for good. “We don’t do that here,” I recall a nice Minnesota doctor saying.

Addiction experienced in the first-person feels like watching a movie shot entirely in extreme close-ups. No matter how hard you try, you can’t see the world beyond the frame. A tolerance builds after a while and you grow used to the shaky, nauseating ride. We couldn’t have possibly known it at the time, that we weren’t the stars in our very own drama. The content of our stories differed in the details, but the tone was uncannily similar: how prescription painkillers first took hold; after pharmaceuticals became scarce and expensive, how we, as a generation in unison, playing a fucked up game of Red Rover, beelined toward heroin. Another thing we had in common was a lot of dead friends. Read more…

Did We Learn From Anita Hill?

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

In the early 1980s, probably the summer of 1982, a teenage girl was at a party in a Maryland suburb near D.C. It was a memorable night, one which she could recall in detail almost forty years later. Two boys pushed her into a bedroom. One pinned her to the bed and groped her, his body writhing on top of hers, clumsily attempting to pull off her clothes and the one-piece bathing suit underneath them. When she tried to scream, he put his hand over her mouth. The boys were laughing. The girl was afraid the boy on top of her might accidentally kill her. His friend watched, then tried to join in, jumping on top of them. All three went tumbling to the ground and the girl fled, locking herself in a bathroom until she heard the boys stumbling away.

The girl — around 15 at the time — did what many girls who find themselves in this situation do: She told no one. In the next few years, she struggled academically and socially, unable to form romantic relationships.

It’s possible she watched on television almost ten years later when Anita Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about being sexually harassed by her former boss, Clarence Thomas, then a Supreme Court nominee. It’s possible she saw Hill accused of being delusional, or a vengeful woman scorned. “She wanted it” is likely something she heard said of this poised and polished scholarly woman. It’s possible that two years after that, in 1993, she watched as David Brock gained plaudits and wealth for a character-assassinating book claiming to show “the Real Anita Hill,” watched when GOP operatives referred to his mansion as the house that Anita built.” It’s possible she again noticed a decade later, in 2001, when Brock quietly disavowed his entire book and said his writing on Hill was gleaned not from reporting, but from rumors intended to destroy her reputation. He faced exactly zero repercussions. It’s possible she watched Hill, an accomplished legal scholar and lawyer, get reduced forever in history to a woman in the shadow of a man for whom consequences proved to be purely theoretical.

A year later, in 2002, the formerly teenaged girl, now a successful professor herself, married. Early in their relationship, she told her husband she’d been physically abused, but it took ten years of struggling in their marriage before the details came out in couples counseling.

It’s unclear whether she noticed that the boy who watched in that room on the night in question published a book, chronicling his history of alcoholism, and including anecdotes about a friend named “Bart O’Kavanaugh” who partied at the beach with him as a teen. According to her husband, she did remember the last name of the boy who held her down: Kavanaugh. In the 2012 therapy session when she revealed the details of the night that traumatized her as a teen, she told her husband that the boy who attacked her was now a federal judge, and she feared he might one day be nominated to the Supreme Court.

That day came earlier this year. Hesitantly, the woman contacted the Washington Post’s tipline and her congresswoman. Through her congresswoman, she sent a letter describing the incident, and requesting confidentiality, to the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Frightened of the repercussions of going public with her story, she ignored efforts from the Post and others to speak with her. She hired a lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment cases, and took a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent. The test concluded she was telling the truth.

It’s unlikely that gave her much comfort, if she remembered Anita Hill’s experience. After all, Hill took and passed a polygraph test. The man she accused, Clarence Thomas, refused to, was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, and remains on the court to this day.

Those are the details of the story provided by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser thus far, and some of the historical context surrounding them. There are other cultural realities to consider, of course: the current #MeToo movement, which has some women feeling slightly less afraid to speak up about experiences of abuse, and many powerful figures on the defensive, accusing supporters of the movement of going too far. We are in “the year of the woman,” some say. Will that help Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor accusing Kavanaugh? Consider this: 1992 was also “the year of the woman.” It was a year after Anita Hill testified, the same year as the Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, allowing states to regulate abortion as early as the first trimester, a ruling that reaffirmed central tenets of Roe v. Wade while beginning the gradual process of eroding the rights granted to women in the 1973 landmark decision.

Ford initially agreed to testify before Congress, just as Anita Hill did after statements she gave to FBI agents doing background checks on Thomas were leaked to the press. Women from her high school have circulated a letter of support. Of the 65 high school acquaintances of Kavanaugh’s who signed a letter of support for him last week, only four have stood by their signatures since Ford came forward. (Many of those 65, though, did not respond when POLITICO contacted them.) Mark Judge, the friend who Ford says was with Kavanaugh when he attacked her, has since written that he never saw Kavanaugh behave as Ford described and he would prefer not to testify. The Senate Judiciary Committee has subpoena power to compel him to do so, but it’s unclear whether the committee will pursue that route. Meanwhile, a woman who says she went to school with Ford tweeted that she knew about the incident when it happened, though she has since deleted the tweet and declined to discuss it further.

Hill had support back in 1991 too. She had four women waiting to support her credibility, but they were not allowed to speak — because Joe Biden, a Democrat, made a deal with his Republican colleagues. Biden has of late taken up the cause of affirmative consent and campus sexual assault, and has twice come close to apologizing to Hill — though not for suppressing her supporters, or for his own role in the attacks she received (he claims he wishes he’d done more to tone down his colleagues’ attacks on her). As Hill herself said: “He said, ‘I am sorry if she felt she didn’t get a fair hearing.’ That’s sort of an ‘I’m sorry if you were offended.’”

Biden has pointed out he voted against Thomas’ confirmation, but if he suppressed her witnesses, how much does that single vote really matter?

Biden has long been praised for his ability to “reach across the aisle” and work amicably with his Republican colleagues. Many of today’s top Democrats have the same reputation. Does that mean Ford can expect to be undermined in back-door dealings the way Hill was? The vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation was scheduled for this Thursday, but after three Republican senators said they thought it should be postponed, Sen. Chuck Grassley canceled the vote. A new date has not yet been set.

At first, Ford’s lawyer said on television that Ford would testify before the committee. But after receiving death threats, having her email hacked and identity impersonated online, Ford said an FBI investigation should occur before she is forced to go “on national television to relive this traumatic and harrowing incident.” While Ford and her family had to relocate from their home for safety reasons, Kavanaugh’s wife was handing out cupcakes to the reporters outside their house. (Hill’s experience predated the internet age, but she too received harassing phone calls from strangers.)

Sen. Orrin Hatch has claimed the FBI doesn’t conduct such investigations, even though they did investigate Hill’s statements about Thomas. Hatch should know this: During Thomas’ hearing, he praised Biden and Strom Thurmond for ordering an FBI investigation “which was the very right thing to do, and they did what every other chairman and ranking member have done.” (The Justice Department has said the allegation against Kavanaugh “does not involve any potential federal crime” for the FBI to investigate, and that the FBI’s role during background investigations is specifically to look for natural security risks.) The Utah senator even doubled down in recent days: When Sen. Schumer criticized the White House for not ordering an FBI investigation, Hatch said his complaint “does not hold water” because Senate Democrats had withheld Ford’s letter from Republicans and the FBI for two months. Hatch’s accusation comes off a little hypocritical, however, considering the White House and Republicans have withheld the majority of Kavanaugh’s record, only releasing about 7 percent of it and blocking subpoenas seeking answers to a variety of questions. (For comparison, when Justice Elena Kagan was nominated, the Obama White House released about 99 percent of her record.)

Why do these details about Hatch matter? He sits on the committee that will question Ford — and was on it back in 1991 when they questioned Hill. He was one of her most aggressive interrogators, and accused her of plagiarizing her statements about Thomas from “The Exorcist” and an obscure decision by a federal appeals court in Tulsa, Okla. He doesn’t seem to have changed much since then: Ford hasn’t even testified yet and he and Grassley (also on the committee when it questioned Hill) have already said she is “mistaken” and “mixed up.” As Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has sat on the committee for at least a decade, told The Washington Post, “I’ll listen to the lady, but we’re going to bring this to a close,” which hardly suggests any plan to actually consider any testimony from Ford.

It’s odd that Hatch’s blatant, seemingly blind support for Kavanaugh doesn’t disqualify him from being on the committee considering his appointment. It’s especially worrisome in light of a David Brock tweet claiming that it was Hatch’s staff who selectively leaked part of the FBI investigation into Hill’s claims about Thomas to him. It would not be surprising to hear that Brock is experiencing deja vu these days, harkening back to the days when he was determined to help make Hill appear “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty” by printing “virtually every derogatory and often contradictory allegation” he heard about her. Contradictory claims are making a comeback, it seems: Kavanaugh’s defenders have mounted a wild array of excuses for the man. Sometimes it’s that he wasn’t at the party; other times that there never was a party. Or he was at the party but the incident didn’t happen; or it happened but it doesn’t matter because it was a long time ago and apparently teenage boys categorically sexually assault their female peers and that’s acceptable. Or something happened but it was “rough horse play.”

Hill herself penned an op-ed in the New York Times this week, writing that “the public expects better from our government than we got in 1991.” But will we get it? She doesn’t sound so sure: “That the Senate Judiciary Committee still lacks a protocol for vetting sexual harassment and assault claims that surface during a confirmation hearing suggests that the committee has learned little from the Thomas hearing, much less the more recent #MeToo movement.”

It’s fair to wonder why Republicans wouldn’t want to just pick a new nominee. Ford’s accusation is, after all, not the only problem that has come up during the judge’s hearings. He is accused of lying under oath not only this year, but also in 2004 and 2006. The thing he was allegedly lied about: allegedly stolen documents. (A former staffer for Sen. Hatch now claims that Kavanaugh “knew nothing of the source” of the documents he was provided.) It’s also unclear whether he was truthful about his involvement in the vetting of a judicial nominee whom he recommended for the seat. He may have also lied about his involvement with the appeals court nomination of a lawyer who helped develop the Bush-era interrogation torture policies, and another judge who suggested a reduction of the sentence of a man who helped to burn a cross in front of a mixed-race couple’s home. He may have even lied about his knowledge of the interrogation torture policies themselves (according to Sen. Richard Durbin, to whom Kavanaugh professed his ignorance of the Bush administration’s detention and torture policies during his nomination to the D.C. Circuit court, “…[Kavanaugh] had to know he was misleading me and the committee and the people who were following this controversial nomination”).

While legal scholars say Kavanaugh’s actions likely don’t meet the very high bar for perjury, it’s hardly commendable to give someone who apparently struggles to tell the truth under oath — or fully understand the documents he is given or the actions of people he promotes — a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court. There are more than 3,000 federal judges in this country. Is it really not possible for Republicans to find one who has not, willfully or otherwise, said untrue things under oath? The Supreme Court is, after all, the highest court in the land. Wouldn’t it be reasonable, then, to hold the people we put on it to the highest standards?

Moreover, is being the party who insisted on putting not just one, but two men accused of sexual misconduct on the Supreme Court really how the GOP wants to define itself?

Apparently, it is. POLITICO quoted a lawyer “close to the White House” insisting Kavanaugh’s nomination would never be withdrawn. “No way,” the lawyer reportedly said. “If anything, it’s the opposite.” Apparently, the White House is concerned that “if somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried.”

This is perhaps not a surprising view from a White House that stands behind a president caught bragging on tape that he doesn’t wait before forcing himself on women because “when you’re a star, they let you do it… Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” A president accused of sexual assault by at least 22 women. A president who defended his White House staff secretary after claims of the man’s history of intimate partner violence — which the White House knew about for months — was exposed. Or who said, of child predation allegations against Republican senate candidate Roy Moore, “forty years is a long time.” Or who defended Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Corey Lewandowski and so on. In effect, an endorsement from the Trump White House doesn’t do much to dispel the idea that his chosen nominee may have committed sexual predation.

If anything, it’s the opposite.

 

The Prisoners Left Behind

Longreads Pick

Recreational cannabis is now legal in eight states and the District of Columbia, yet many people convicted of nonviolent cannabis trafficking crimes now wallow in prison with life sentences without parole. President Obama’s clemency program offered to help these low-level drug offenders receive reduced prison sentences, but the program was flawed. Now that Trump’s in office, what hope do these prisoners have?

Source: Cannabis Wire
Published: Sep 7, 2018
Length: 13 minutes (3,278 words)

Stripped: The Search for Human Rights in US Women’s Prisons

Illustration by Wenjia Tang

Adam Skolnick | Longreads | September 2018 | 36 minutes (9,904 words)

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky

“God’s mercies are infinite. They are new every morning.”
— Lamentations 3:23

Though its pews were packed, the courtroom was silent as a sanctuary. Most onlookers who filed into Pierce County Superior Court in Tacoma, Washington, on January 25, 2013, were residents of nearby Gig Harbor, a community shaken by a shocking crime, here for the final act: the sentencing.

In the front row, Kay Nelson watched nervously as her sister, Karen Lofgren, the defendant, prepared to make her final statement. The sisters lived two streets apart. Nelson’s children were like older siblings to Lofgren’s two daughters, who were just 6 and 9 years old. Conservative and Christian, Nelson had always been an advocate for tougher crime laws, and until her sister landed in Lady Justice’s crosshairs, she could have never fathomed praying for a judge in criminal court to show mercy on her behalf.

Read more…

Above It All: How the Court Got So Supreme

Robert Alexander / Getty

David A. Kaplan | The Most Dangerous Branch: Inside the Supreme Court’s Assault on the Constitution | Crown | September 2018 | 19 minutes (4,985 words)

Nine mornings after Antonin Scalia died at Cíbolo Creek, the justices resumed work without their beloved, blustery colleague. The rich traditions of the Court continued unabated. After the justices all shook hands in the small robing room across the hallway from the back of the courtroom, they lined up to await the gavel of the marshal. The assembled throng grew silent, then arose. “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” the marshal chanted at the stroke of 10, as always. The eight justices emerged from behind the tall crimson velvet drapes and somberly took their upholstered swivel chairs on the bench. “All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting,” the marshal continued. “God save the United States and this Honorable Court!”

It’s an opening worthy of “Hail to the Chief,” the introductory anthem for the leader of another branch of the federal government. It’s all carefully choreographed. The justices don’t merely walk in, and they’re not already seated when Court begins. From different curtains, they materialize in unison, in three groups based on where they sit. As institutional stagecraft goes, the Court puts on quite a show. Read more…

A Long, Lasting Influence on Educational Equity

Damian Strohmeyer / AP, Wikimedia Commons, Photo illustration by Katie Kosma

Anna Katherine Clemmons | Longreads | September 2018 | 27 minutes (7,413 words)

“Chris Long gave his paychecks from the first six games of the NFL season to fund scholarships in Charlottesville, VA. He wanted to do more, so he decided to give away an entire season’s salary. That’s a story from 2017.”

Barack Obama’s tweet, from December 29, 2017, was retweeted more than 66,000 times and received 268,000-plus likes. The message was one of several tweets in which President Obama shared stories that “remind us what’s best about America.”

Long announced on October 18, 2017, that in addition to donating his first six paychecks of the 2017 season to academic scholarships in his hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, he would also donate his final ten paychecks (a total base salary of around $1 million) to launch Pledge 10 For Tomorrow, a campaign to promote educational equity in the three cities where he’d played professional football — St. Louis, Boston, and Philadelphia. Ever since then, the Philadelphia Eagles defensive end has garnered national headlines and social media coverage, and appeared on talk shows. A reporter from one national outlet shadowed Long on that October day, chronicling how the NFL veteran spent his hours. For Long, who established his own philanthropic foundation in 2015 and who has donated to charitable endeavors throughout his now 11-year NFL career, the day was in many ways, decidedly ordinary.

“I had toyed with the idea [of donating my salary] when I wasn’t sure how badly I wanted to play last year,” Long, 33, says. “To be clear, no one over the age of thirty is that excited about playing another year, no matter what. So I thought, to make this year meaningful, it’d be cool to do something really impactful. It’d make it easier to come to work, and it’d be a good thing to do.”


Kickstart your weekend reading by getting the week’s best Longreads delivered to your inbox every Friday afternoon.

Sign up


Other pro athletes have given millions of dollars to philanthropic causes over the years; the matching funds raised by Long’s Pledge 10 campaign generated another $1.3 million in donations, bringing the total raised to $1.75 million. However, the magnitude of Long’s actions, particularly in the wake of a tumultuous year of racial and social injustices that peaked with the events and violence on August 11 and 12 in Charlottesville, resonated beyond the professional sports sphere.

“When Charlottesville happened, that lit a fire under me,” Long says. “Our hometown has taken such a hit, so I needed to do something public and positive there. This is a time for people to do something positive in general.”

As 2018 began, mentions of Long’s philanthropy resumed, particularly after he became only the fourth player in NFL history to play in and win a second consecutive Super Bowl while playing for two different teams, this one as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles (he’d won a Super Bowl in 2017 with the New England Patriots).

But what hadn’t been written was an in-depth look at who those paycheck recipients were — and more importantly, what populations they serve in working toward education for all. Each nonprofit, selected by Long and his foundation director, Nicole Woodie, after months of research, interviews, and meetings, has made a significant impact not only in their respective cities, but throughout the country.

This is the story of those organizations — and why Long’s donations will have an influence long after he retires from football.

ST. LOUIS

On a cloudy Tuesday morning this June, several volunteers from the Little Bit Foundation and Bank of America stood outside Hodgen elementary school in St. Louis. Rain had poured down a half hour earlier; now, as the humidity remained, small puddles formed on sidewalks and in the pothole-ridden streets adjacent to the school. An elderly woman slowly approached a makeshift tent, under which 5,000 pounds of food had been laid out in bins and crates, cafeteria-style.

Lucy England, Little Bit’s volunteer manager, greeted the woman with a big hug. “Hello! Come on over and get some food!” England said, ushering the woman toward the stacks. The older woman filled two bags with sweet potatoes, watermelon, bread, and chicken, before thanking the volunteers and walking away.

Minutes later, a white pickup truck pulled up and two young men stepped out. As they talked with the volunteers, they filled five bags with food, noting that they planned to deliver some offerings to their neighbors.

The Little Bit Foundation’s Mobile Food Market, in partnership with the St. Louis Area Food Bank, runs the fourth Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of each month, from 9 a.m. to around 12 p.m., in three locations around St. Louis. The free, healthy grocery initiative is just one of the many programs supported by Little Bit, one of the two St. Louis–area nonprofit recipients of Long’s Pledge 10 initiative.

“The thing that’s lovely here is no one has to show any documentation — if you find your way here, you’re meant to be here,” England says. “We say, ‘You’re here, let’s get you loaded up. What do you like? What can you use?’ That really brings out the best in people — it’s empowering to have choices.”

Empowerment and choice is central to the work of the Little Bit Foundation, which serves children in poverty throughout the St. Louis area with an all-encompassing approach designed to address the needs of each child through a focus on academic enrichment, food access, health, and self-esteem. The idea behind Little Bit is simple: If children are warm, outfitted, clean, well-fed, and treated with love and kindness, they will perform better in school. So Little Bit provides books for children to read and new school supplies, outfits them with new socks, clothing, coats, and hygiene kits, offers health and dental screenings and mental health counseling, and provides nutritious food — all for free.

The thing that’s lovely here is no one has to show any documentation — if you find your way here, you’re meant to be here,” England says. “We say, ‘You’re here, let’s get you loaded up. What do you like? What can you use?’ That really brings out the best in people — it’s empowering to have choices.

The idea for Little Bit grew out of a simple request for coats. In 2001, the son of Little Bit’s executive director and cofounder Rosemary Hanley was playing on a high school soccer team, and the team’s head coach asked several parents to gather coats to donate as a community service project. Hanley spearheaded collection along with another parent, and the two distributed the coats to those in need.

An elementary school principal heard about what Hanley had done and asked if she could gather coats for his students. Again, Hanley went to work, asking friends to donate new and gently used coats. On a winter morning a day later, Hanley stood outside the elementary school with trash bags filled with almost 200 coats, waiting for the doors to open.

As she stood in the cold, a little boy ran up. “Look — my dad let me wear his coat today!” the boy said, grinning up at Hanley as he held his arms up in the air. The leather jacket’s zipper was broken, and the coat was several sizes too big. He talked to Hanley as she waited; once the school doors opened, he said goodbye and ran off to class.

The idea behind Little Bit is simple: If children are warm, outfitted, clean, well-fed, and treated with love and kindness, they will perform better in school.

Later, as the students came through the principal’s office to be fitted for coats, the same little boy stood in front of her. As Hanley zipped him into a snug, well-fitting navy coat, she placed the hood over his head. The boy grinned at her and said, “My dad is going to be so happy that I’m warm.”

“I thought to myself, ‘I live where I have everything I could possibly need — I’m not rich, but I do,’” Hanley remembered. “How can children be ten minutes from where I live, and be cold, hungry, and not have what they need? And that thought just wouldn’t leave me.”

She began emailing friends, asking them to drop off gently used clothing, coats — anything they could spare. The operation started in her cofounder’s basement; she established the beginnings of the Little Bit Foundation later that year (they received official 501(c)(3) status in 2006). Slowly, the nonprofit grew, expanding to other initiatives in working to end the poverty cycle and allow children a better path to education.

According to the 2018 Missouri Poverty Report, 24 percent of St. Louis City residents, including children, are living in poverty. Last year, Little Bit served 9,728 children in 31 St. Louis–area schools. In selecting partner schools, Little Bit’s main criteria is that 90 to 100 percent of the student body qualifies for free and reduced lunch, meaning they are living at or below the federal poverty line. “Since, unfortunately, many schools in St. Louis fall within this category, we first consider schools with the greatest need and the fewest resources,” Stacy Lupo, Little Bit’s communications director, says. “Most importantly, the leadership of our partner schools must be aligned with our mission and committed to its success, with a dedicated school liaison who will work directly with Little Bit volunteers and staff.”

Volunteers for Little Bit worked a total of 12,480 hours in 2017 and 2018. And they have plans to serve many more; Hanley often repeated a business-like mantra during a several-hour visit: “We are not fooling around — we take this work very seriously.”

Two or three volunteers greet the students at their respective school every week, offering them a hug or a high five inside the Little Bit Boutique, which is often set up inside a large closet or extra classroom space within the school.

The boutique has both gently used “emergency” items and newly purchased “new” items, the latter of which are ordered for a particular child every week. There are books, stuffed animals, hygiene kits, and school supplies, and each boutique has a pop-up tent that serves as a makeshift dressing room. The most requested new items? Underwear and socks.

All items are purchased new. If a young boy has outgrown his old pair of shoes, a Little Bit volunteer measures his shoe size and orders him a new pair. Emergency, gently used items are given to children with an immediate need. For example, if a little girl has lost her winter coat, the Little Bit volunteer gives her an emergency coat and then sizes her for a new coat, which is delivered the following week.

Each boutique has another essential element: a full-length mirror. “One thing we’re trying to improve is student self-esteem, so no kid walks out of here without looking into that mirror and smiling at themselves,” Alex Goodfellow, Little Bit’s program director, says. “It brightens your day.”

The one-on-one interaction is also pivotal. Volunteers provide continuity in schools where teacher and staff turnover is often high; one elementary school volunteer, Al Hinch, said he’d seen three different principals come through the school where he has volunteered with Little Bit over the past six years.

One thing we’re trying to improve is student self-esteem, so no kid walks out of here without looking into that mirror and smiling at themselves,” Alex Goodfellow, Little Bit’s program director, says. “It brightens your day.

“Attendance and behavioral problems improve when we can give this kind of attention,” Maureen Bahn, a 17-year volunteer with Little Bit, says. “We pick up every time something is going on with that kid. We are another support system.”

Bahn recalled a recent school visit, when a little girl came into the boutique with her clothes soaked in urine. Little Bit also outfits each school with a washer and dryer, so the school nurse washed the young girls’ clothes while Bahn helped her pick out new underwear, shorts, socks, and shoes.

The Little Bit Foundation warehouse, which stores all of the donated and purchased items, is 33,000 square feet. Three full-time staff members (Little Bit has 20 full-time employees working out of their offices), as well as a host of volunteers, work in the warehouse each day, which Little Bit moved into last July. The entire system is extremely organized: donations and purchases are sorted and labeled by age, gender, and size; an organization-wide database system allows Little Bit to track each child that they serve. Volunteers at each school have a tablet that contains the same technology system, so they can input each item as it’s given out. During the 2017–2018 school year, Little Bit moved over 337,000 items, which averages out to about 9,300 items per week.

“The opportunity with Chris Long, we didn’t see this as ‘Oh isn’t this sweet,’ we saw it as ‘Let’s shine the light on what’s going on in our city that’s positive, so we can change the narrative,’” Hanley says. “Let’s build the momentum around what we’re doing, with his help, so that we can really move that needle and promote change.”

Colby Heckendorn, 36, is beginning his fifth year as principal at Patrick Henry Downtown Academy elementary school, which has worked in partnership with Little Bit for 13 years.

“It takes so much stress off of families, who love their kids and want to provide everything possible, but sometimes just can’t,” Heckendorn says. “Little Bit fills that void, and the kids are just blown away by the kindness. They don’t fully understand all the work that goes on behind the scenes, but they are so excited to come into school with a clean, new uniform that’s ready to go.”

Long visited Patrick Henry Downtown Academy on March 22, 2018, spending time at a boutique as the children came through. “Dignity is so important for anybody,” Long says. “Then to have that resource of Little Bit, it kind of blew me away. It was hard enough for me as a student, and I had everything I needed. I can’t imagine not having a coat, not having a toothbrush, not having basic hygiene — all that stuff you need when you’re a kid.”

* * *

“Do you remember your biggest childhood dream?” 23-year-old Tiana Glass asked the audience at College Bound’s annual spring gala. “Dreaming has always been something sacred and precious to me; I could be a black girl prodigy today, a hero tomorrow, and your president next week. Dreaming was my refuge, for the times when the world became too much for me to handle.”

College Bound was the second St. Louis–area nonprofit recipient of Long’s donations. Founded in 2006 by Lisa Orden Zarin, College Bound helps students from low-income backgrounds prepare for and apply to college through a myriad of programs. College Bound stays with each student for seven to nine years, supporting them throughout college and as they prepare to enter the workforce or apply to graduate school.

Through their four-step “To and Through” program, College Bounds assists its students in four main arenas. The first step focuses on college readiness, which develops academic, social, and emotional competencies through one-on-one tutoring, ACT prep, coaching, grade monitoring, and academic skills curriculum as well as extracurriculars such as leadership camps and community service.

In step two, which focuses on college access, students prepare to apply to a four-year college or university. College Bound helps with financial coursework, navigating the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), finding summer opportunities, and obtaining financial counseling.

College completion, or step three, starts in 12th grade and continues until the student graduates from a four-year college or university. Throughout college, CB students have regular contact and support, transportation to and from their college or university, connections to academic advisors, and individual financial counseling.

Finally, in the last step — career readiness — each student develops “soft skills” and awareness of and exposure to potential careers. To achieve this, College Bound offers job shadowing, tours, panels with working professionals, paid internships, mentoring programs, and specific career-prep programming.

Zarin founded College Bound after watching her son, a privileged student from a private school, navigate the college admissions process. She researched the St. Louis area and learned that while 75 percent of high-income students applied to and graduated from four-year colleges and universities, less than 9 percent of low-income students achieved the same results.

In 2006, the first class of 36 College Bound students applied to college. Today, College Bound serves more than 600 students in their direct-service program, another 150 through their partnership with St. Louis Community College, and 250 more students indirectly through their Get Your Prep On college preparatory curriculum, FAFSA completion, and college counselor engagement. Currently, College Bound students attend 44 St. Louis area high schools and 74 colleges nationwide.

“We are able to commit to our students for a long period of time and with a depth that other organizations normally aren’t able to,” College Bound executive director Scott Baier says. “We are with them for the next seven to nine years, not just ensuring the transactional and important things, but also that they have the academic, mental, and social skills that they can thrive once on campus.”

That empowerment manifests in many ways. Since elementary school, Hassan Owens had been an intelligent, hard-working student, but his family didn’t have the resources for him to apply to college. Owens joined College Bound during his sophomore year of high school. Almost immediately, he signed up for an ACT prep course, ultimately improving his ACT score by three points. College Bound helped him get the test fees waived, so he could take it multiple times and earn a better grade. Additionally, College Bound helped Owens set up college visits, assisting him not only in funding the visits, but also in evaluating and understanding what type of institution he might want to attend. “He is so coachable, he is so smart, but what he needed were very concrete resources: applying for the FAFSA, which we did during his senior year and every year after while he’s in college,” Baier says. “It’s a small step, but one that trips up many first-generation college students.”

After graduating as the valedictorian of his high school class, Owens earned a full scholarship to Xavier University in Louisiana.

“College Bound provided me with the knowledge and access to all of these tools,” Owens, now 22, said. “The sad part is there are many students like me, who are smart and eager to attend college, but who are prevented from doing so because they are scared by the cost of college or not completing forms (like FAFSA) on time. First-generation students are told, ‘Go to college and change your life circumstances,’ but it’s not that simple.”

Owens graduated from Xavier University this past spring in the top 10 of his class; he’ll start medical school at UCLA in the fall, on essentially a full scholarship.

First-generation students are told, ‘Go to college and change your life circumstances,’ but it’s not that simple.

For Glass, a woman who joined College Bound after her sophomore year of high school, the mental health support was just as vital as the academic support. Glass joined College Bound during her sophomore year of high school. She’d been depressed for years, after being diagnosed with a learning disability and a speech impediment. Because of this, she says that teachers often underestimated her or dismissed her ability in the classroom. By the time she found College Bound, she was borderline suicidal.

College Bound has two full-time mental health professionals on staff, both of whom are licensed clinical social workers, in addition to two practicum students, who work with many of the College Bound students, 93 percent of whom are people of color. As Glass pointed out, students at low-income schools often have minimal — if any — access to mental health professionals.

When she met one of the College Bound wellness coaches, Jenn Starks, Glass says her life turned around. Through one-on-one as well as group counseling, Glass healed from past traumas and discovered self-empowerment. “I am sincere when I say that I would not be here today had it not been for College Bound,” Glass says.

Glass graduated from the University of Missouri, Columbia, this past December. After winning an entrepreneurial contest via a business incubator with her newly developed vegan cosmetic line, Black Honey Bee Cosmetics, designed for women of color and LGBTQ women, Glass is confident in who she is and where she wants to go.

With a staff of 42, College Bound works in so many ways with a variety of populations, including helping immigrant families of College Bound students understand the process of gaining legal status. And they continue to find new ways to grow. This past year, College Bound introduced a partnership program with St. Louis Community College. Baier had learned that the school’s graduation rate was only 9.6 percent. So College Bound set up an office to carry out what Baier calls “intrusive counseling,” meeting with each student, on average, 16 times a semester, in order to help the student population work toward graduating. The specific population that College Bound worked with had an average graduation rate of between 1 and 3.1 percent, so the need was great.

“Intrusive means that our coaches are actively texting and calling and communicating with our students, to help nudge them along the way so they know what’s coming down the pipe,” Baier says. “Students enrolled in community college often don’t know the resources they need, so we ask what they need and then we help figure it out — issues like financial aid — so they’re keeping their focus on what happens in class.”

College Bound is also working on early college credit initiatives — by 2022, they hope to have 100 percent of College Bound students achieve some kind of early credit.

“Everyone thinks there’s something magic about doing this,” Baier says. “And while our students are phenomenal, it’s really about resources. Look at what kids from overprivileged backgrounds are able to do — that’s the playing field we’re trying to level. I want sixty-five percent of College Bound students to graduate within five years because that would put us on par with the highest income quintile out there — that they graduate with less than $35,000 in debt and three quarters are employed or in graduate school or in meaningful service twelve months post-college.”

“We are very interested in the social justice mission that Chris promotes and the manner in which he does it,” Baier says. “That’s one thing got me really excited; you normally don’t find people like Chris Long, who are willing to take risks in using their celebrity for good.”

BOSTON

Dhruval Thakkar moved with his family from India to Boston three and a half years ago. As a high school sophomore, Thakker had never visited the United States. He spoke almost no English, and despite his warm, friendly personality, he felt lost. “It was hard,” he says of his first days at West Roxbury High School in Boston.

His English teacher recommended that Thakkar apply for Summer Search, the Boston-area recipient of Long’s donations.

In 1990, Summer Search founder Linda Mornell was working as an adolescent counselor in private practice in the Bay Area. All three of Mornell’s children attended summer programs — first, Outward Bound, then National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) — during their high school years. Her son, an active athlete, loved Outward Bound. Her oldest daughter, however, hated the idea of the program before she’d even started. Unathletic, afraid of heights and the dark, Mornell’s daughter went on the trip “involuntarily,” Mornell says. “And she probably got the most out of it. Before, she approached everything with ‘I can’t.’ While on Outward Bound, they gave her a new nickname: Sara Can. And she came home Sara Can.’”

Later that year, Mornell’s youngest daughter was a junior at a private high school. Mornell picked her up at school one afternoon and saw a young man standing outside. He looked uncomfortable, “ill at ease,” Mornell remembered. She asked her daughter about him, and her daughter said he was on a full scholarship. “And I thought, ‘Wow, what must it feel like to come back to school every fall with kids who’ve gone to Switzerland or who’ve traveled the world. So I thought, ‘I’m going to start a program so that kid will have a story to tell when he comes home.’”

In that first summer of 1990, Summer Search sent 14 students — including the young man outside of the school — from low-income backgrounds on all-expenses-paid trips. The young man, Mornell learned, had never been outside of his neighborhood in south San Francisco. He’d never been to Oakland; he’d never traveled on a plane. He flew to Bali and spent six weeks with the group, working a community service project.

However, while the trip was successful, after the group returned Mornell sensed the students had lost the energy and excitement from their journeys. “One single intervention isn’t helpful for kids who have trauma and deprivation — you have to have a more sustained effort,” Mornell says.

So in 1992, she added a second fully funded summer experience, as well as year-round mentoring for each student, whereby the student talked with Mornell each week to discuss everything from school interests, collegiate possibilities, family issues, and personal development. The student’s second summer experience, following their junior year of high school, caters toward their individual interests. They can choose an academic experience, such as enrolling in courses at Columbia University; they can select an international learning experience, such as studying sustainable energy in Costa Rica; or they can decide to return to the wilderness for a second outdoor experience.

‘One single intervention isn’t helpful for kids who have trauma and deprivation — you have to have a more sustained effort,’ Mornell says.

“The importance of that second trip, that service experience, is that all our students understand that they have something to contribute,” Hermese Velasquez, executive director of Summer Search Boston, says.

For the next five years, Mornell was the only staff member working with the program’s 100 students. In 1996, she hired two staff members — and the program grew from there.

Now a national nonprofit for high school students based in five cities (the Bay Area, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Seattle), Summer Search has served more than 6,600 youth to date, many of whom have become the first member of their families to attend college.

“There’s a brain drain in summertime,” Sylvia McKinney, executive director of Summer Search Philadelphia, says. “Students who have a positive educational experience in the summer tend to start off well-prepared, ready, and engaged for school, whereas students who don’t have that experience take until about January to make that transition.”

Summer Search Boston, founded in 1996 as the second Summer Search location, serves roughly 1,000 students each year, in partnership with 33 area schools. The median household income for the students they serve is $24,000; a high percentage of the students are recent immigrants to the United States.

For his first summer experience, Thakker traveled to Wyoming for a 30-day outdoor adventure; he’d never spent a night away from his family before. In the woods, Thakker, learned survival skills, such as how to cook (“pasta isn’t that hard,” he said, laughing), how to be a leader, and what it means to work on a team. He also learned about adaptation. “No shower for 30 days — that was a lot,” Thakker says, smiling as he brushed his long, dark, wavy hair from his forehead.

Last summer, for his second Summer Search experience, Thakker spent 17 days in Nicaragua, teaching English to area residents.

Thakker’s mentor has proven vital to his development. “My mentor, Armani, is the coolest person I’ve ever met,” Thakker says. “He’s been such a great support in my professional and personal life, both when it comes to the college process and me being able to adapt to the community here.”

During his senior year, Thakker was repeatedly bullied by a fellow student. Thakker and the student were competing for the same scholarship, via a foundation that would provide four years of fully paid tuition at one of six select higher-education institutions. Out of 1,400 students originally selected for consideration, Thakker and the student bullying him were two of the top 20 finalists. On the day of the final interviews, a nervous Thakker met with Armani. While the conversation boosted his self-confidence, Thakker ultimately didn’t receive the scholarship. The student bullying him did.

“Honestly, that news broke me,” Thakker says. “But Armani told me how everything happens for a reason, and he taught me to always look at the positive side. He showed me how now, I could apply to any colleges, whereas the scholarship recipients are limited to six particular schools.”

Thakker felt like he’d disappointed his family, and he worried over how his parents would pay for his college education. But in talking to Armani, he learned not to see the process as a failure.

“Armani was like another parent in the times when I needed a parent but I didn’t feel right to talk to my parents about this,” Thakker says. “He helped me learn that I didn’t let anyone down, but that everyone was proud of me for getting this far. I did lose in the last rounds, but I got something out of it. There was someone who believed in me.”

Each Summer Search mentor is trained extensively, both by a master trainer out of the national office as well as in the San Francisco Summer Search headquarters. Training essentially involves working with the mentors on the skills of being a keen listener while also holding students accountable and ensuring they follow through. Some mentors have a master’s degree in social work, though it isn’t required.

“I think once kids realize you won’t interrupt them, you won’t direct them, that you will just listen, they start talking and they can’t stop,” Mornell says. “It’s an incredibly rare experience.”

“A large part of our population comes here from one country and then a large part of their identity is missing, so sometimes those foundations aren’t fully developed,” Pedro Suncar, a mentor now in his third year with Summer Search Boston, says. “Not being able to connect to cultures and see how other people do things creates a silo. So the concept of travel and being able to say you’ve been somewhere and seen that is a reason I think the program is so successful.”

Summer Search Boston executive director Hermese Velasquez is a former Summer Search student, which is where she first discovered her love of travel. During her second summer experience, teaching math to schoolchildren in Ghana, Velasquez immersed herself in the culture. She lived with a host family and rode the bus to and from the school each day.

“That taught me that regardless of where I came from, I have this really, really strong gift to contribute to the world,” Velasquez, a native of Belize, says.

Long’s donation, combined with the fundraising match initiative, brought in close to half a million dollars to support Summer Search Boston and Philadelphia. But perhaps more importantly, Velasquez says, it raised Summer Search’s public profile. “The Summer Search bus became greater. We experienced a lot of new folks in the room this year, and that to me is more important in some ways, because we’re generating new partnerships and relationships with folks in this city who didn’t know about us before,” Velasquez says.

Thakker interned at Boston Children’s Hospital this summer. He watched intense conversations between doctors and parents, and observed as surgeons broke difficult news to young children. Growing up in India, Thakker planned to become an engineer. But his experiences through Summer Search, he says, have reinforced his desire to become a surgeon. He’ll start classes at Wheaton College this fall.

“I feel like the way I’ve gotten here today was Summer Search,” Thakker says. “They have been there to help me in every aspect of my life.”

PHILADELPHIA

Thirty-four parents crowded into the Mariana Bracetti Academy classroom in northeast Philadelphia, hugging their knees as they sat on undersize chairs; others stood along the back wall, fiddling with their cell phones. One father held his baby boy in his arms, offering him a bottle, as he watched his toddler son run around the table. Another mom handed her adolescent son a tablet to play on, as she took out a pen and notebook to take notes.

“All right, all right! Are we all here? Is everyone a parent of a sophomore?”

Alex Cromer, a Summer Search program associate, stood at the front of the room, dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt, her nose piercing reflecting off of the classroom’s fluorescent lights. As the assembled group nodded collectively, Cromer began outlining what the Summer Search wilderness trip would be like for the students, whose family members had gathered here for information — and reassurance.

“My son has never been in an airport before,” Trena Medford said, referring to her son, 16-year-old Tymir Hill. “I can’t come after my baby if he gets lost. How do I know he’s going to the right place? And you said to only pack three shirts? He is going to get funky!”

Several other parents murmured in agreement before another parent interjected.

“I thought my daughter was taking a bus to New York or something? When will she be at the airport?”

“All these fears are so valid,” Cromer said calmly, nodding. “First, you would know if your student is getting on a plane or a train, because I’ve talked to you, and also, your student should know.”

“Well, my son doesn’t really talk to me — he only texts!” a mom yelled out, as the other parents laughed and echoed their agreement.

“Ninety percent of you, your kids are getting on a shuttle bus,” Cromer said. “For those other ten percent, when your students are flying in somewhere, there will be someone with a big sign, greeting them. We’ve been working with all these partner organizations for years now, and we’ve established relationships with them. I can assure you, we keep doing it because it works.”

Summer Search Philadelphia is the youngest chapter of the nationwide program. Just over a decade old, the Philadelphia office has served 249 students since its inception — and it’s growing. Last year, thanks in large part to Long’s donation, they moved from serving 25 rising high school juniors to 37. Their staff of seven employees works with five area schools (they’re in conversation to add two more schools in 2019) in selecting their students.

The bond between mentor and student is evident; as the parents and students gathered in the MBA cafeteria before the breakout sessions, filling plastic plates with Boston Market chicken, green beans, and mac ’n’ cheese, excited students hugged their mentors and introduced them to family members.

Several students wore Eagles T-shirt jerseys; Philadelphia is a sports town, and the Eagles have long brought together the diverse population in a way that few other teams, organizations, or leaders have done. When Long announced that Summer Search Philadelphia would be one of his recipients, “every time he played a game, we became part of the narrative,” McKinney says. “In a city like Philadelphia, that’s just boomtown.”

Long attended the Summer Search fall celebration last October. In addition to adding more students, McKinney says that Long’s donation helped overall by increasing school, nonprofit, and organizational partnerships, while also raising Summer Search’s profile in public policy discussions. They even created an “Ed Talk” series, mirroring TED Talks, but focused on education.

Like other Summer Search offices, the need in Philly is far greater than the number of students they can serve. Over 170 students applied to the program this past fall. After the several-step application process, including multiple interviews, the final 35 were chosen.

“All of our students come with many skills, but they may not have had the access to exercise those opportunities,” Velasquez says. “We give them the opportunity to open the door slightly, and they barge in and take control of all that we’ve provided to them. They begin to grow and thrive and soar after that.”

Seventeen-year-old Maria Jiminez began Summer Search in the fall of 2017. As she sat in the cafeteria and talked about her first experience, she tapped her long, eloquently painted fingernails on the table.

“I’m the type of person who likes to go out and explore, so I felt like this was something for me,” Jiminez said. “To have an organization and a mentor that I can talk to about how I’m feeling, her always being there to give me advice — I love her so much and she is someone I can trust with anything. For me to have these type of people in my life, that’s really important.”

Raja Mitchell, 18, is the oldest of five kids. A recent graduate of Boys’ Latin Philadelphia Charter School, Mitchell first heard about Summer Search through his school. When Mitchell’s principal recommended him for Summer Search, Mitchell didn’t hesitate.

“It’s just a really good program,” Mitchell says. “My mentors helped me so much through high school. You can call them with anything, and they’re always there to answer.”

For his senior project, a mandatory 10-page paper and a 50-hour internship, Mitchell’s mentor, Program Manager and Summer Programs’ Specialist Erin Callison helped him find an internship at the Energy Co-Op in Philadelphia. There, he studied renewable and sustainable energies. The internship built on Mitchell’s second Summer Search experience, when he’d spent three weeks in Costa Rica studying sustainable energy resources. Mitchell grew coffee on green energy farms, helped to build a basketball court for local residents and took Spanish with local school children. Now, after college, he hopes to either enter the sports medicine field — or work in sustainable energy.

“He was always responsible, but this has made him grow into a man,” Mitchell’s mother, Nicole, said. “It has really changed his life.”

“Visiting with Summer Search made me smile,” Long says. “These are high schoolers, and they’ve had to grow up quick. You can tell this program … it’s created hope. And a glimpse of what life is like outside of that bubble they’ve lived in. It was great to hear stories of some of the experiences and the people they’ve met.”

‘He was always responsible, but this has made him grow into a man,’ Mitchell’s mother, Nicole, said. ‘It has really changed his life.’

Despite his mother’s travel concerns, Tymir Hill arrived in Colorado without incident. Each Summer Searcher has to pass a baseline fitness test, which includes hiking three miles in 45 minutes. While Hill had passed that test, the six-foot, 230-pound 16-year-old had never visited a location at altitude. A few days into his hiking adventure with his fellow participants, his 40-pound backpack on his back, Hill passed out. He was helicoptered to a nearby hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with dehydration.

Medford retold the story of her son’s (mis)adventures with a laugh, noting with sincerity how the staff kept her appraised of the situation throughout his brief hospital stay. Even though she wanted “her baby” to come home, Hill insisted that he wanted to stay. He loved his Colorado experience. He recently went on a six-day trip to Iceland with his school, and he is already planning his Summer Search adventure for 2019. Medford, in turn, said she has learned to relinquish control and to trust her son’s instincts.

“With single-parent households like mine, particularly of a young man living in this city, there are so many fear factors,” Medford said. “As a single mom, I can’t teach him to be a man — evidently this can. Summer Search is like the best baby daddy ever.”

At the final event of the evening informational session, a scheduled open mic time allowed for graduating seniors to offer impromptu remarks about what Summer Search has meant to them. As they stood in a single-file line near the auditorium’s stage, some opened with private jokes for their classmates and others gave a “shout out” to their group, their mentor, then the other mentors, and on and on. But many messages were impassioned and sincere.

“If I would’ve listened to fear, I wouldn’t be here,” Shay Smith, a graduating senior said. “This whole experience has really helped me find out who I am. All of this is preparing us for something great. I have done so much because of Summer Search.”

‘As a single mom, I can’t teach him to be a man — evidently this can. Summer Search is like the best baby daddy ever.’

McKinney has a loud, infectious laugh, and her intelligence and determination shines through whenever she speaks. At times, her passion for Summer Search feels part advocate, part evangelical. “Is there need for this? Absolutely!” McKinney says, her voice rising. “Would I want every student to have the opportunity to go through this process? Absolutely. We need to grow. We have no choice. Because the need is way too great and the service that we provide is way too dynamic to serve so few.”

CHARLOTTESVILLE

Chris Long’s alma mater, St. Anne’s-Belfield School (STAB), is spread out across two campuses in Charlottesville. The Upper School, serving grades 9 through 12, sits on a sloping hill just off of UVA’s campus (or Grounds, if speaking in Thomas Jefferson’s vernacular). The coeducational, independent boarding and day school for preschool through 12th grade dates back to 1910.

More recently, Long and both of his brothers (Kyle Long, an offensive guard for the Chicago Bears) and Howie Jr. (who works for the Oakland Raiders) attended STAB, which Long graduated from in 2004 before heading up the street to play football for the UVA. In 2009, one year into Long’s professional career, St. Anne’s head of school David Lourie flew to St. Louis to talk to him about supporting the school financially.

That conversation led to a scholarship established by Long and his wife, Megan, to fund one student’s education at St. Anne’s. The Longs wanted to remain anonymous donors, and they continued to fund the scholarship for the next seven years.

This past summer, when white supremacists descended on Charlottesville and violent clashes erupted, leading to the tragic death of anti-fascist protester Heather Heyer, the Longs decided they needed to do more. They also felt that they might be able to inspire others to similar action by removing the anonymity of their support. So at the start of the season, Long announced that he’d donate his first six paychecks in support of two fully-funded scholarships to St. Anne’s-Belfield, from sixth grade through high school graduation. (Lourie says that 40 percent of St. Anne’s students receive “some level” of financial assistance.)

Long also stipulated that the recipients would be members of the Boys & Girls Club of Central Virginia, a nonprofit organization that serves 2,500 area youth, and which he’s supported since his days at UVA (Long’s mother, Diane, has been a board member of the Boys & Girls Club since 2004).

When the news broke in 2017 that Long had signed a two-year contract with the Eagles — on his 32nd birthday — Long was at the Southwood Boys & Girls Club, talking with the kids and competing in footraces where he executed, according to the Boys and Girls Club of Central Virginia CEO James Pierce, “the perfect tie at the finish line.” Pierce thought Long would only stay for 10 minutes; he ended up staying for two hours. In a nod to perfect subtlety, he’d worn a non-logoed, forest-green T-shirt. A photo from that day shows a smiling Long crouched down, mobbed by kids hamming it up for the camera, with a handwritten name tag that says, simply, “Chris.”

“I was so pleased, but in no way was I surprised [by the partnership donation],” Pierce says. “The Long family is extremely generous, and if anyone was going to do it, it’s going to be Chris. He’s always been somebody who’s put the community before himself. He knows that he’s been very fortunate in his life, and he feels like it is part of his mission to enhance the world that his young family will grow up in.” (Long and his wife, Megan, had a son, Waylon, in 2016.)

* * *

As the Philadelphia Eagles open their season tonight against the Atlanta Falcons, fans will be watching what happens on the field. But for Long, the focus is on the work that remains in offering educational equity throughout the United States, whether for young children, high schoolers, or college students. Last year’s total salary donation was a start. But it certainly wasn’t the end.

“I’m an athlete. I gave money and I’ve drawn some attention to it, but when we leave or they stop taking pictures, these people go right back to work,” Long says. “The people working for Summer Search, Little Bit, College Bound, the volunteers I’ve met in Charlottesville, and people like James Pierce — they are just amazing people. And we’re really lucky to have them.”

***

Anna Katherine Clemmons is a freelance writer, reporter, and producer who was written for ESPN, Conde Nast Traveller, Hemispheres, and USA Today Sports. She is an adjunct professor who teaches teaching Sports Journalism and Sports Media Production at the University of Virginia.

***

Editor: Krista Stevens

Copy editor: Jacob Gross

Fact-checker: Matt Giles

I Would Never Say That, But the Character, He Said It: An Interview with Catherine Lacey

McKeown / Stringer for the Hulton Archive, Getty

Tobias Carroll | Longreads | August 2018 | 16 minutes (4,305 words)

Since the 2014 release of her debut novel Nobody Is Ever Missing, Catherine Lacey has established herself as one of the finest chroniclers of alienation working in fiction today. Her follow-up, The Answers, took as its subject a young woman who is hired to be part of an experimental program to give a famed screen actor a kind of compound girlfriend. Both novels grapple with questions of restlessness and malaise, and turn familiar fictional ground — an American abroad in the former, a larger-than-life celebrity in the latter — into something strange and mysterious.

Lacey is also an acute observer of larger literary and cultural traditions: last year, in collaboration with artist Forsyth Harmon, she released The Art of the Affair: An Illustrated History of Love, Sex, and Artistic Influence. In it, she chronicles the dizzying web of connections between artists of many disciplines over the course of decades — and in doing so unravels the mystique of the solitary genius.

Lacey’s latest book is her first collection of short stories. Certain American States demonstrates another aspect of her literary abilities. The stories found in here cover a wide stylistic range, from the surreal travelogue of “The Grand Claremont Hotel” to the meditation on loss and possessions found in “Please Take.” That stylistic range allows Lacey a way to explore her preferred themes of alienation and interconnectedness in a myriad of ways — making for an unpredictable set of narratives throughout the book. Read more…

Twelve Longreads for Aretha Franklin

NEW YORK - JANUARY 09: Soul singer Aretha Franklin reviews a copy of her album "Aretha Franklin - Soul '69" at Atlantic Records studios on January 9, 1969 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Aretha Louise Franklin was born in a small house on Lucy Avenue in Memphis, south of where the Mississippi River borders the city, on March 25, 1942. By the age of 2, she moved to Buffalo, NY, and then by 4, Detroit, where she’d live most of her life and where she died this Thursday morning, at the age of 76. Her father, Rev. Clarence LaVaughn Franklin presided over a congregation at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit. Aretha began singing there as a child, and through his connections, she met Sam Cooke, Dinah Washington, Clara Ward, and Mahalia Jackson, all innovators who would influence the kind of musician she became. At 18, Aretha Franklin signed to Columbia Records, the recording home of Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. She released seven albums, then moved to Atlantic in 1967, where she released the string of recordings for which she is most well known, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul, and Aretha Now. 

Franklin became commercially successful and critically lauded. She earned 18 Grammy Awards and dominated the now defunct category for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance with 23 nominations and 11 wins. (Anita Baker won it the second most, with 5 wins). What a female vocalist was and could be, inside and outside the soul tradition, was and is forever altered by what Aretha did behind her piano. “She is the reason why women want to sing,” Mary J. Blige told Rolling Stone.

I love ethereal Aretha, when she sang atop the flutes in “Daydreaming.” But I also love how the bridges in  “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and “Ain’t No Way  sound like a crisis, a love panic, and the slow build and back and forth with her backing vocalists in “Mary, Don’t You Weep.” Aretha Franklin’s catalog is vast and deep, spanning decades, registers, genres. Here is a list of my favorite longreads for and about her so far.

1.“Aretha Franklin, the ‘Queen of Soul,’ Dies at 76,”  John Pareles, New York Times, August 2018.

The New York Times’ official obituary, with full exposition of the chapters of her life. 

2. “The 50 Greatest Aretha Franklin Songs,” Rolling Stone, August 2018.

“Respect,” recorded in 1967, penned originally by Otis Redding, is number one.

3. “How Aretha Franklin Created “Respect,” Carl Wilson, Slate, August 2018.

It’s not much of a stretch to suggest that Aretha’s flip of Redding’s more conventional, male-dominant song of domestic conflict and desire into a hymn of sexual and political liberation paralleled the creative subversion in those sermons. Her most distinctive rewrite, the addition of the “R-E-S-P-E-C-T/ Find out what it means to me” bridge—which it’s still shocking to recall was completely absent from the original—has a touch of a preacher’s pedagogy, the moment when the celebrant might focus in on a scriptural passage and muse, “Think of this word, ‘respect.’ What does the Lord mean when he uses it? What does it mean, for example, within your own home?” But to keep proceedings from getting too heady, she immediately cuts in with language from the street: “Take care, TCB” (meaning “take care of business”) and “sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me” (meaning … well, that’s up to you).

4. “Aretha Franklin’s Astonishing ‘Dr. Feelgood,'” Emily Lordi, The New Yorker, August 2018.

Emily Lordi, author of Black Resonance: Iconic Women Singers and American Literature, walks us through a live performance of Franklin’s “Dr. Feelgood” at the Fillmore West.

5. “Aretha Franklin Was America’s Truest Voice,” Ann Powers, NPR, August 2018.

In this tribute, Ann Powers says, “Everything popular music needs to be is there in Franklin’s songs.”

6. “A Song for Aretha,” Nell Boeschenstein, The Morning News, February 2011.

The author recalls a life of listening to and watching Aretha.

I don’t claim to know what a woman’s got to do to make it in America these days, or ever. I am still only beginning to feel my way in that darkness. That said, when I look at, listen to, or think about Aretha Franklin, I recognize in her person what I want one day for myself. In her I see a certain awareness that life is difficult and life is wonderful and that, either way, you pick up and carry on with your shoulders as square and your voice as strong as you know how to make them. Either way, you pick up and carry on with an awareness that the world out there is larger than any me or you, her or him, but also that you and me, he and she is where it all began in the first place. In her I see a way of living that is equal parts heart and head, a way which never loses sight of priorities. She has remained stalwart in her conviction of self. And that means something these days, as I sometimes wonder whether being oneself even matters anymore.

We all have people we feel this way about. One friend says she learned to live from listening to Ella Fitzgerald. My mother says she learned from reading Eudora Welty. Joan Didion certainly showed an uncharacteristic amount of admiration for someone when she wrote of Georgia O’Keefe, “Some women fight and others do not. Like so many successful guerrillas in the war between the sexes, Georgia O’Keefe seems to have been equipped early with an immutable sense of who she was and a fairly clear understanding that she would be required to prove it.”

For me, Aretha reigns with the strength she finds in vulnerability. Flaws, heartaches, mistakes, the stuff of life: These are the things she takes to heart, claims as her own. By claiming, she can then turn them around and offer back to us what she has learned. She can say, “Look at this. Feel this. This is us, don’t you see?” I wish for my own voice what Aretha’s has had from the beginning: a sense of self so strong that she had to open her mouth and sing to keep from exploding, to keep herself whole.

7. “Soul Survivor,” David Remnick, The New Yorker, April 2016.

Remnick’s profile of Franklin includes thoughts from former President Obama and a recollection of her December 9, 2015 performance of “A Natural Woman” at Kennedy Center Honors.

8. “Aretha Franklin, 1942-2018: Long Live the Queen of Soul,” Kelley Carter, The Undefeated, August 2018.

A heartfelt recollection from Detriot native writer and documentarian Kelley Carter:

I had backstage credentials and I wanted to see if I could get some time with her — just one quote for my would-be story. Because of the story about her failure to pay bills, she’d cut the Free Press off. No interview requests were granted. Not even to talk about her iconic song and its forthcoming anniversary. But in a room backstage at an awards show, I could be somewhat anonymous.

I raised my hand and she called on me. I’d heard a rumor that she loved the version of “Respect” that this blue-eyed soul group from Ann Arbor, Michigan, The Rationals, had recorded. A crew of white boys from Washtenaw County had taken an Otis Redding track and somehow did something to it that made Franklin and her sisters, Erma and Carolyn, take notice. It was my chance to get something from her. And I would have taken anything from her to help push whatever my story on her ended up being.

I remember her looking out at me as I asked. I purposefully coughed over my affiliation’s name because I knew the disdain she had for the Free Press. She gave me what I was looking for. It was a quick reply; she was humored. “We added the sock-it-to-me’s to it,” she said, looking down on me from a stage in that small room. I could tell for a brief moment that she was thinking of her sisters, who had died long ago: Erma from throat cancer and Carolyn from breast cancer. I saw it in her face. The memory was dancing in her mind.

When I asked my mother, a longtime Detroiter, to tell me what the summer of ’67 in Detroit was like during the thick of the riots, the summer Franklin’s song hit No. 1, I was taken aback as she shared with me how men and women were running in the streets, shouting back at police officers, “Sock it to me!” as they were trying to stay alive, clearly inspired by Franklin’s anthem, which had hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in early June.

9. “The Man with the Million Dollar Voice: The Mighty but Divided Soul of C.L. Franklin.” Tony Scherman, The Believer, July 2013.

This deep dive into the life and preaching artistry of Rev. C.L. Franklin, Aretha’s father, casts a light on the talents of her parents.

If Aretha did grow up unhappy, her relationship with C.L. would have played a major role. The favorite child bore the weight of a demanding father’s expectations and constant, intrusive attention. Aretha craved C.L.’s approval. “[She]… would do anything to please [her father],” said a later friend. It was far from a healthy relationship. But as a performer, Aretha couldn’t have asked for a better teacher and model than the Rabbi. The tonal variety, for instance, that he wrung from his big voice found an echo in Aretha’s virtuosic shading. No less an authority than Ray Charles saw little difference between the two Franklins’ styles. “She’s got her father’s feeling and passion,” said Brother Ray. “When C.L. Franklin, one of the last great preachers, delivers a sermon, he builds his case so beautifully you can’t help but see the light. Same when Aretha sings.”

10. “Aretha Franklin Was More Than Just A Great Voice,” Tomi Obaro, Buzzfeed, August 2018.

11. “Aretha Franklin Was a Revolutionary Act in Pop,” Rashod Ollison, Virginian Pilot, August 2018.

I don’t remember my life without the sound of Aretha Franklin’s voice. It was a constant in my home. Her music was something of an altar for my mother, as she returned to Franklin through good and bad times. This became true for me as well. No matter the song, be it the mournful wail of “Ain’t No Way” or the stomping funk of “Rock Steady,” Franklin’s voice gave me a solid sense of place. This was especially true, given that my family moved so much when the rent became too high. But one thing never changed: Franklin providing solace through the surface noise of well-worn vinyl. Her 1972 “Amazing Grace” album, the legend’s glorious return to gospel during the peak of her pop career, has been a musical balm for years. I have never been without a copy.

12. “Lady Soul, Singing it Like it Is,” Time, June 1968.

In her first Time cover story, its writers try to understand soul.

But what is soul? “It’s like electricity —we don’t really know what it is,” says Singer Ray Charles. “But it’s a force that can light a room.” The force radiates from a sense of selfhood, a sense of knowing where you’ve been and what it means. Soul is a way of life —but it is always the hard way. Its essence is ingrained in those who suffer and endure to laugh about it later. Soul is happening everywhere, in esthetics and anthropology, history and dietetics, haberdashery and politics—although Hubert Humphrey’s recent declaration to college students that he was a “soul brother” was all wrong. Soul is letting others say you’re a soul brother. Soul is not needing others to say it.

Where soul is really at today is pop music. It emanates from the rumble of gospel chords and the plaintive cry of the blues. It is compounded of raw emotion, pulsing rhythm and spare, earthy lyrics—all suffused with the sensual, somewhat melancholy vibrations of the Negro idiom. Always the Negro idiom. LeRoi Jones, the militant Negro playwright, says: “Soul music is music coming out of the black spirit.” For decades, it only reverberated around the edges of white pop music, injecting its native accent here and there; now it has penetrated to the core, and its tone and beat are triumphant.

For more: