IN BLACK IN WHITE
by
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One of the big fears for almost all of the black guys was that we would come out of St. Paul's School as carbon copies of these seemingly pampered and very proper white boys. Like me, many of the black guys hated the flack we would take from the folks in our hometown communities when we came back – ‘changed’. Some of us were determined that we would change very little. The fear of someone suggesting that you were ‘acting white’ is something with which many intelligent black children must contend. I hated hearing anyone imply such a thing about me back in Harlem Park, but it seemed to be an inevitable part of the price for high academic achievement in the black community, and indeed, I did hear it. It’s backwards thinking and everyone knows that, but it continues to this day. In the Black community we should be encouraging every black child to do their best, and yet our friends often ostracize us and say we’re trying to ‘act white’ if we do too well, or speak too well. The best way to get around it is to ignore it, and continue to do well. That’s what Mike Russell tried to do. He performed well. The ‘ignoring’ part was more vexing for him. I think he would have liked a bit more acceptance from the more hardcore of us. I was a part of that hardcore group and I knew there was no chance for him. No one trusted him. I wanted it all; complete acceptance from the boys on the streets, and I still wanted to do well in the academic world. I was fighting like hell to hold onto a part of me that most reasonable people would insist that I must renounce in order to get ahead. I refused to do it. I think I was right to do so, even today. I believed that the two parts could co-exist. Intuitively I reasoned that if I were to go back to the community from whence I came with this SPS education, and try to make a difference, I would need to retain some of that rough-edged piece to get the job done effectively for those needy black folk. It is a very fine line to negotiate. Malcolm X is someone whom I admire a great deal, and his early life was not a pretty picture. Yet, I believe all that street hustling, and the hard knocks he endured, helped to prepare him for the great service he later rendered to black folk (indeed all folk); serving in the profound way that only Malcolm X could. At least, I wasn’t committing any felonies. Someone like Mr. Grant, who appeared to loath and disavow all of the supposedly unsavory manifestations of that ‘street mindset’, must have hated what he saw me hanging onto, and he may have been right. Who knows? Guys like me, Cook and Hipp tried to walk that line. Consequently, we were slightly more thuggish at SPS than we were anyplace else. I think at SPS, a lot of us were trying-on-for-size that street persona that was denied us back home, where we were the ‘good kids.’ I know that I was going for a Tony Stewart meets Joel Finney kind of combination; a sort of tough, yet quiet cool, tempered by athletic skills and a good grade or two. Obviously, such behavior did not go over well with Mr. Grant. I’m sure he felt responsible and it embarrassed him greatly. Some of us did a fair amount of stealing. Now I know that is not a nice thing to admit but we did, and believe me, it was way too easy given the expressed and implied honor code in operation at the school. There were no locks on the doors at SPS and most of the guys were in the comfortable habit of leaving their money, watches, etc. in plain sight in their rooms. At the gym, these guys did not even lock their lockers and for me it proved to be simply irresistible. It was at the gym that I committed my first theft of cash. I was late getting to football practice and I mistakenly opened the wrong locker. When I saw some guy’s wallet sitting there, cash plainly visible, looking around I thought, “Oooooh! This is way too easy!” I helped myself to some of it, but I never took it all. If the guy had $60, I might take $25. That way, he might think that he had misplaced some of his money or he might not remember how much he had, but he wouldn’t be flat broke and steaming mad. I considered that very thoughtful of me, and it became my pattern. I would hit a few lockers whenever I needed some extra cash for the expensive books, laundry or snacks at the Tuck shop. The expression ‘hitting lockers’ became part of the lexicon among some of the boys. I always worked alone and almost never told anyone exactly what I was doing or how much I had taken. My conscience suffered very little because, after all, these guys were wealthy. I imagined my thievery as a perversion of the tale of Robin Hood, where I was ‘the poor.’ It’s despicable I know. At that age, while I knew it was wrong and felt bad about it, the remorse was fleeting. As an adult, I can’t imagine how I could cross the line like that. I know I was thinking, “But these guys have so much,” which will never do as an excuse. There is no good excuse.
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About the Book
Harlem Park is the name of one of the bleakest, meanest neighborhoods on Baltimore’s West-side. The nasty scourges of heroin, crack, and a host of other inner-city drug and criminal activity are as prolific in Harlem Park as they are in far too many other neighborhoods around Baltimore City (also known as Charm City), and many other American cities as well.
Notable television dramas; HBO’s, The Corner, NBC’s, Homicide: Life on the Streets and 'The Wire' have explored and dramatized many of Baltimore City’s societal ills. These television productions explored, in excruciating detail, the ravages of heroin and its attendant criminal activity on the daily lives of the citizens of Charm City where heroin is nothing less than an epidemic. There is also the frequent national news coverage of the more outrageous murders and assorted mayhem plaguing this relatively small metropolis.
In Black In White looks at the lives of some of the people who have worked, played, loved and died on Baltimore’s mean streets. It examines a time (1960’s -70’s) before the periods examined in the aforementioned television shows; a time when life was still dangerous and hard; but perhaps when the neighborhood still retained some of the charm for which Baltimore is sometimes noted. It was a time of great social upheaval and seeming great promise, despite the desperate circumstances of day-to-day life.
This is Harlem Park as seen through the eyes of someone actually living squarely in the midst of the fray, someone determined to find another ‘choice’ through the impossible miracle of a scholarship to the all-boys St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Concord, New Hampshire, an exclusive private boarding school; the same school attended by one-time presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, 'Doonesbury' cartoonist Garry Trudeau and numerous other elite American families and luminaries.
Among several other themes, In Black In White looks at the idea of nature versus nurture. It’s the story of the ‘two educations’ of a black youth; an education derived from attendance in the Baltimore City Public Schools and surviving that city’s streets; and then an education acquired from time spent in the ivy-covered Halls of one of the finest boarding schools in America, living and learning daily among some of the most privileged youth in this country.
The outcome is anything but certain. Both places have the potential for chewing a body to bits; both places inhabited by some good and not-so-good people.
In Black In White is a story about coming of age, forging relationships, success and failure, life and death and moving on. It provides an intimate glimpse into two very different worlds; which in the final analysis may not be all that different.
About the Author
Larry Woody (Woody) is native of Baltimore, MD and a product of the very mean streets of Harlem Park on Baltimore’s West Side. At the age of 13, through an academic scholarship program called A Better Chance (ABC) he received a scholarship to attend the prestigious St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Concord, NH. His boarding school education was a life altering experience for him, one of the more pivotal in his life. From there, he went on to receive a B.Sc. degree in 1976 in Therapeutic Recreation from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. After that, some real-life drama began. Woody spent a few summers working at Variety Club Camp for Disabled Children in Worcester, PA and for two years he was an Educational Associate (non-classroom teacher) for the Baltimore City Schools. However, a few years before, a chance audition and subsequent portrayal of Jesus in a college production of the play Godspell had given him the acting bug, and in 1981 he moved from Philadelphia to NYC to pursue acting. Woody became a member of SAG and AFTRA. His very first professional on-screen scene was as a doctor in a scene with John Travolta in the film Blowout. While looking for work as an actor, Woody worked at Window’s On the World restaurant on the 107th Floor, Tower One World Trade Center (sigh). He also worked as a house manager at the NYC Negro Ensemble Company, where he saw many now prominent black actors begin their careers. For nearly fifteen years Woody performed in numerous television commercials, print, voiceover, film, stage, etc. Some of his favorite roles include Carlyle in Streamers, Dracula, Henry in Ed Shockley’s Liars’ Contest, and Cowboy in Steve Yeager’s independent film The Connection. In 1993 he became a father, and stayed at home for the next three years serving as the primary care giver to his son Colin, an invaluable experience. Woody has full custody of his son now, and views his role as a father as probably his biggest role to date. Out of his experiences caring for his son, came a five-year stint as a Lead Teacher in the infant room of a corporate day care center; an anomaly in a profession where there are few men. Woody then began working for a national pediatric literacy program called Reach Out and Read at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), encouraging a love of books in children aged 0-5 years old. He worked for the Early Head Start program at CHOP as an Infant Toddler Specialist doing home visits, helping disadvantaged families with child development activities for their children, and now works with Focus on Fathers, an initiative to get fathers involved in the lives of their children. Woody enjoys playing guitar and songwriting. He has written more than fifty original songs and has performed his songs on the streets and in the clubs of Philadelphia, Baltimore, in Washington Square in NYC and NYC open stages, including the stage at Gerde’s Folk City, where musicians like Hendrix and Bob Dylan once played. Woody has also written a play with (original) music called Rockaway, based on a fictional Hendrix-like rock musician, which received a workshop production at Columbia University in 1983. He has written short stories, most of which have been lost, but he very much enjoys that medium. IN BLACK IN WHITE is Woody’s first book. He is researching his next book about his experiences working with disadvantaged men, women and children in Philadelphia. Woody currently lives in Philadelphia, PA with his his son Colin. ‘What a long strange trip it’s been!’