Dr. John Y. Odom founded the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute in Madison in 2001 to not only serve the black community but to strengthen the entire community through a variety of social, educational and economic outreach programs. The institute prepares youth for economic independence by focusing on self-esteem, health, goal-setting, academic achievement, study skills, diploma and degree completion, work skills, business opportunities service to others and citizenship.
“The reason we chose Charles Hamilton Houston was because he was such a change agent for this time,” Odom says, “and we want to be that, too.”
The work that the institute does throughout the year in Madison will be on display at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute’s 4th annual Awards Luncheon which will be held Thursday, Aug. 18, at the Sheraton Hotel in Madison. The theme of this year’s luncheon is “The Achievement Gap and The Fierce Urgency of Now.”
“The fierce urgency of now is one of Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s statements. We chose it because we continue to behave like we have a lot of time to close these gaps … and we don’t,” Odom tells Madison365. “We’ve been waiting for 30-40 years for them to close and they haven’t closed yet. When you don’t close those gaps, then you are miseducating kids – they are not learning those skills and that has an impact on their incarceration rates, on their employability, and their potential as family members. It impacts everything.
“There is an urgency in terms of all of the chain of events that affect us from youth to death. We do not have time,” he adds. “There is an urgency, and it’s a fierce urgency.”
Charles Hamilton Houston (September 3, 1895-April 22, 1950) was an African-American lawyer who played a big role in dismantling Jim Crow laws and he also helped train future United States Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.
“Professor Houston was known as ‘the man who killed Jim Crow’ and if you had to have a resume stopper, that would be it,” Odom smiles. “Clearly, segregation was a legal creature. This whole notion of separate but equal was the law of the land. People like me, who were born in Mississippi, fully understood it and knew it to be ever present.”
Odom was young but he remembers well when Little Rock Central High School was desegregated. “Charles Hamilton Houston was a lawyer who worked hard and forced cases into the Supreme Court to end segregation,” Odom says. “He knew – everybody knew – that we were being punished for being black and if he could prove that, legally, then he could collapse the whole system of segregation. He worked very hard on that front.”
Houston played a role in nearly every civil rights case before the Supreme Court between 1930 and Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Houston’s brilliant plan to attack and defeat Jim Crow segregation by using the inequality of the “separate but equal” doctrine (from the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision) as it pertained to public education in the United States was the master stroke that brought about the landmark Brown decision.
“I put it this way: without Houston, there would have been no Brown decision. Without Brown there probably would not have been a 1964 Civil Rights Act. And without the 1964 Civil Rights Act, life in America would be dramatically different than it is today,” Odom says.
The keynote speaker for the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute 4th annual Awards Luncheon will be Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, who has been a guest speaker at numerous universities throughout the U.S. and has been a consultant to most urban school districts. Dr. Kunjufu has authored 33 books including national best sellers, Black Students: Middle Class Teachers; Keeping Black Boys Out of Special Education; An African Centered Response to Ruby Payne’s Poverty Theory; Raising Black Boys; 200 Plus Educational Strategies to Teach Children of Color; and his latest title, Understanding Black Male Learning Styles.
“I’ve known Dr. Kunjufu kind of indirectly – he published my book, Saving Black America. I’ve heard him speak once. We are absolutely delighted to have him for the luncheon,” Odom says. “We’re excited about the potential of his message for this point in time in Madison. Interestingly enough, there are people who do know him very well here [in Madison]. In fact, after I sent the notice out, I saw [Dr.] Gloria [Ladson-Billings] in a community meeting and she came over and whispered that she knew him well and that they were friends. I asked her then if she would be willing to introduce him at the event and she said she would.”
Kunjufu’s work has been featured in Ebony and Essence Magazine, and he has been a guest on Black Entertainment Television (BET) and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is also a frequent guest on the Michael Baisden show.
The luncheon will also honor great members of the Madison community selected by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute including Kaleem Caire, Rev. David Hart, Christina Hodge, Frank Humphrey, Deacon Julius Johnson (posthumously), Velma Ritcherson, Vicki Washington, and Joe Thomas.
“We try to focus on people who are doing good works in the community who aren’t garnering a lot of public attention. Now, there are notable exceptions because sometimes we choose people who haven’t been acknowledged for a while,” Odom says. “We want to showcase people to say ‘thank-you’ for your service but also to serve as an example to other people to participate and step it up so we have more people helping out.”
The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute will be honoring Deacon Julius Johnson who passed away recently. “When we picked Deacon Johnson, he was alive and well … so he knew it. So this was not a decision after his passing,” Odom says. “He knew we were going to honor him. This wasn’t a posthumous decision. He was a great man.”
Tickets for the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute 4th annual Awards Luncheon can be purchased here.
