An Interview with NOBLE’s Executive Director, Jessie Lee
How did you get started at NOBLE? I was a chapter president at the New Jersey
Chapter, after joining the chapter, I had been in law enforcement since I was 19. And you know how you feel like you were blessed with somet- hing and you want to give it back, well I didn’t know how I was going to give back to the com- munity. I looked around and by being in law enforcement I found NOBLE, I saw what they were doing as far as in the community in which I was serving. I found that as an individual, I can make a small impact, but with an organization I could make a larger impact. That’s how I be- came involved with NOBLE on the local level. On the national level, I was very active in the
local chapter as president and used to attend all of the national meetings myself, I went on my own dime, my own dollar to travel around the country getting to know more about the organi- zation. I enjoyed what I was doing on the local level and I wanted to expand to the national le- vel to create a greater impact. The opportunity came up to serve as the Deputy Director and after serving the year or year and half or so an opening came up for the Executive Director I have been the Executive Director since
2003, I joined the organization in 2001 after retiring and initially was out reorganizing the organization as the Deputy Director and my job was to take over and manage the staff. As the Executive Director I take care of funded issues and other things of that nature. To go out from one position to the other, I just wanted to do it all.
What was it about law enforcement that attracted you? I have a unique story, I went into law enfor-
cement at 19. To be a law enforcement officer you had to be 21. What had happened was, co- ming out of church , there were about 4 or 5 of us playing basketball it was on a Saturday, and we walked out and there was a Caucasian offi- cer that stopped us. Took us in the police car and took us to Juvenile hall saying that somebody had broken into a car about a half mile away and that we fit the description. Only to get us there and after about 15 or 20 minutes take us loose. I was angry and I refused to leave and I told them to call my parents to come down here and make sure that my name wasn’t on any of that paperwork. The guy kicked me out of the police station, so I sat there, went to a payphone and asked my parents to pick me up. I’m really angry and very dishappy with the law enforce- ment. So I played football, and my football co- ach happened to be a law enforcement agent and told me that I had two options. I could change the system or be angry. To me it wasn’t a race thing at this time, it was a right or wrong thing. I experienced racial profiling at an early age, I could have been angry but I wasn’t so I went on this rampage to get on the police department. So I started when I was 18 applying and they’d say I was too young and wouldn’t get picked and everybody kept pushing me, eventually I was in. I wound up starting on the police department at a very young age and had a great career.
The Black E.O.E. Journal
ganization for every nationality, whether it be Irish, Hispanic, Asian, or whatever and they are ok to have those organizations, but we practi- cally bleed diversity, we allow everyone who believes in the mission of the organization to be a part of the organization. When I tell them that the NAACP was created by both a Cauca- sian and an African-American, they sit back and wonder about that. Our funding started by being paid by the government, the government’s lack of supporting anything that is anti-government. When we believe in being conscience of law en- forcement as part of our mission, then we want to make sure that law enforcement is doing the right thing for the right reason. Education itself may make you more aware
of it so that you can console it, but it’s hard. We still need mechanisms to monitor it and that is where our organization has to do is monitor. If you manage with your heart and your
I started getting involved with education be-
cause every time I would apply for a promotion the rules would change. So I started finding out why I needed education. It’s funny because your publication is always at the colleges. So I was at a two year college, I picked one up and there was an ad in there for law enforcement. I loo- ked at it and really started pushing for my own education. If you want to survive, you had to find out what the chief of police needed for his position, and well now, I will be finishing my Ph.D. at the end of this year. I have two masters degree, and here is a person who hated school, but with a motivation to succeed and as a gift now, I also teach as a professor because I want to make sure that these young people are prepa- red and I just want to give back because I have been very blessed to have a lot of very positive people in my life.How is it that you apply to the mission of your organization?
How is it that you apply to the mission of
your organization? When we talk about the equity on the admi-
nistration of justice, we have programs like The Law and You, to allow young people, well first, the ignorance of the law is no excuse. I want to make sure that every young person knows as much as they can about the law. They don’t’ have to know it by heart but they need to know where to get it and where to find it. Then they can live their life accordingly, when somebody does something wrong, then they’ll know they are doing something wrong. And the only way to challenge it is by taking the proper steps, I live by a mission to ensure the quality of justice is there.
What kind of obstacles do you encounter when you are carrying out your mission? Why do we need another organization that
has the word ‘Black’ in it? Do we still need these type of organizations? Is it a racist type of organization? Are we anti-American? Are we this or that? I take that obstacle and say, ‘Wow’, but if you go on the internet and you search for organizations, you will find every type of or-
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common sense and really look at the good; and as someone once told me, “misused knowledge is good for nothing.” I’ve seen a greater impact on giving somebody a warning than the impact of giving somebody a ticket. Isn’t the objective to be sure that the behavior is changed? It is not necessarily the punishment rather than changing the behavior.
What is it that you would like our readers to know about you and your organization? About the organization it is that if there re-
ally are issues or concerns to look to us for alter- natives. If you are in a community where there is an issue with law enforcement and you don’t have the relationship that you think you should have, then we are there to help build those rela- tionships between the community and the law enforcement community. Another thing is that we have some of the best community engage- ments that are offered. We’ve been to areas such as Cincinnati when they had the riots, we were there, we had a town hall meeting when nobody could get anyone to show up. But when we sho- wed up, we had no more room to put people. When people have a chance to experience that and understand that they can also have a voice to be heard, and understand that they not only have a voice, but a place to be heard they feel better. A lot of times people just want to get things off their chest. For me personally I just want to be there
and have as many contacts on a positive not to be sure that I am able to communicate with as many people as I can to just mentor. I believe in mentoring. I leave from the D.C. area twice a week to drive to New Jersey to teach Freshman Year Experience. I love teaching law enforce- ment classes, but I want to be sure that young people stay in school. That is my intention, one thing is to get them in there, and another thing is to keep them in there. I want to make sure that we keep our young men and women in school, I am really focusing on young men right now because I had all sisters and I want to be sure that we have nice young strong men to be there for the women. Those are the things that I really look forward to having.
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