CHILD WATCHÔ COLUMN

DONALD WASHINGTON, JR.:  A ROLE MODEL FOR BEATING THE ODDS

By Marian Wright Edelman

            “From no house to Morehouse.”  This was a caption in a newspaper article about Donald Washington, Jr., who graduated from Morehouse College summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa this past May.  People have been especially inspired by Donald’s journey to the top of his class because of where he started out:  as a teenager living alone in homeless shelters.  I first met Donald after he became a two-time winner of a Walter Dean Myers Scholastic, Inc./Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Fellowship, awarded to a diverse group of college students interested in a career in the publishing industry.  Two years ago, CDF invited Donald to speak on a panel at our Beat the OddsÒ reunion symposium at Georgetown Law School, where he shared his inspiring story.  Donald is a role model for other young people who face difficult odds and for all who hold negative stereotypes about young Black males.  I have been so impressed by this incredible young leader.

            Donald, who is from the Maryland suburbs just outside Washington, D.C., wasn’t always homeless.  When his parents separated towards the end of his high school years, his mother—who suffers from fibromyalgia, an arthritis-related condition that causes chronic fatigue and pain—found it difficult to continue working the several jobs she needed to pay the rent.  Soon afterwards they became homeless.  Because men and women are separated in the local shelter system, at age 18 Donald found himself living on his own in the first of three different men’s shelters. He later told a local newspaper, “The experience of living in a shelter system feels like an assault on your humanity.  When you stand in line in soup kitchens and see generations of people not doing anything with their lives for whatever reason, the basic realization that your life has the potential to become that [is scary]. . . For me, it was a frightening experience because I was trying to gauge what was going to happen to my future, and I didn't feel like I saw any future for myself.”  Although his immediate circumstances seemed to make the future look bleak, Donald wasn’t willing to let them kill his dreams and was surrounded by adults and mentors who recognized his special potential and were anxious to support him.

Shelter officials allowed Donald to take classes part-time and participate in extracurricular activities at a local community college rather than forcing him to cut back or quit school to fulfill work requirements.  When Donald first won the prestigious Scholastic/CDF fellowship, which involved spending the summers in New York City working at the publishing company, the shelter arranged to hold his space so he could accept the offer and still be guaranteed a bed when he returned.  He was editor-in-chief of his college newspaper, and his professors, who knew he was among their best students, encouraged him to take the next step by applying to transfer to Morehouse, his “dream school.”  Donald was accepted and won a full scholarship.  At Morehouse he just continued to soar.

Donald followed his two summers at Scholastic by interning with the Wall Street Journal’s Atlanta bureau. He also traveled to Israel and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr./SCLC Ben Ami Institute for a New Humanity to study conflict resolution; studied abroad in Ghana; and had the chance to tour historical sites across Egypt.  He was one of five winners of the Compton Mentor Fellowship for graduating seniors, which is allowing him to spend this year running a project in Atlanta called "The Peacemakers: Redeem the Dream Youth Leadership Program,” which conducts Kingian Nonviolence and conflict resolution training with youths and adults.  In the future, Donald is considering a possible dual degree in law and public policy and maybe a career in journalism or international diplomacy.  Right now, for this young leader, the sky’s the limit. 

Karen Proctor, Scholastic’s Vice President for Community Affairs and Government Relations and one of Donald’s mentors during his fellowship, remembers that when she first met him in person he had “a wide grin, a firm handshake, and all the self-assurance of someone who was ready to go.”  She describes Donald as a young man who was prepared to seize every opportunity that came his way, and who already understood “basic principles of high standards and strong work ethics…His beginnings in no way shape him, form him, or do anything but propel him to get where he’s going.”  I am so proud of all Donald has already accomplished and am so grateful he was never willing to give up.  Like many other people, I can’t wait to see what Donald Washington, Jr.’s future holds.

Marian Wright Edelman is President and Founder of the Children's Defense Fund and its Action Council whose Leave No Child Behind^® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.