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A6


From Page One


Path to jobs for hard-to- employ


employment from A1


Patrice Taylor, a single mother of two known to throw a punch. Front row center is Johnny Per- kins,who is trying to start over at 55, when most men are thinking about retirement.For sixmonths, The Washington Post followed the three through setbacks and triumphs to see if what they learned inBrown’s classwould be enough. “None of you in here were


slaves!” Brown shouts that first day. “None of you in here were killed for reading a book.Wehave people who come here from an- other country, don’t know the language or nothing, and they learn the system better than us. At one time, we were second- class citizens. Now we’re third- class.” And then he tells his students:


“If I’mhard on you, it’s because I love you and want to see you succeed.”


T


heway Patrice Taylor dress- es turns heads. Tall and slender, she wears clothes


that cling to her curves. She prefers heels, sexy and high. And she has her nails done every two weeks, often in bold colors — Caribbean blue one week, Con- cord grape another. But Brown’s class is making


her think. One day, Taylor posts this nugget from class as her Facebook status update: “Don’t dress like who you are or where you come from. Dress like who you want to be and where you want to go.” Taylor, 26, will tell you she is


shy, and she oftenglides her hand over hermouth when she laughs, covering her braces. But of the fivewomen in the class, she is the most outspoken, her hand shoot- ing up almost daily to ask ques- tions. It’s up on the day that repre-


sentatives from a bank visit to distribute checkbooks for the di- rect-deposit accounts they’ve set up for each student. “If our routing numbers are


the same,” Taylor asks, “is it safe for us to switch checkbooks?” No, one bank man explains,


because the account numbers are different. Taylor is onemath test short of


earning her GED and hasn’t worked full time since 2006. She joined the program, she says, because ofher children,Za’Dayja, 6, and Tyrell, 9, whose names are tattooed on her arm. Short-term, her goal is to pass


the test and find a job. Long- term, she wants to move out of a subsidized, rundown house in Northeast. “When I hit 30, Iwant to have everythingmy own,” Tay- lor says—her own house, car and steady income. She wants her children to be


proud of her. Za’Dayja is the best reader in her first-grade class but is showing behavioral problems. Tyrell, who smiles easily, once saw his mother tussle with a


EZ SU


KLMNO


“I would like to become a better man, brother and son. “ —Antoine Moore


WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2010


PHOTOS BY NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST AntoineMoore, who converted to Islam while serving a prison sentence of more than 15 years, prays while waiting for his students to arrive for an after-school program.


woman outside their house; after that, every time she left, he’d ask, “Where you going, Mom? To fight?” Taylor admits shewas a fighter


— at school, at clubs. When she was 17, she was stabbed in the head and back during a scuffle. Still, she fought. She says she was angry at


parents who, before going straight, paid more attention to drugs than to her. “When I used to fight, I didn’t feel nothing,” she says. “I didn’t feel no punches, nothing.” In 2008, she was arrested for


simple assault and spent less than 24 hours in custody. That’s when she decided it was time to change. Two years later, she has cut


way back on clubbing and is hungry for work. On her last day of class, when job assignments are doled out, Taylor will refuse hers because it’s in a neighbor- hood where she had a “beef with some girls.” She will turn down thenext one aswell because it’s in telemarketing, a job she has al- ready held. She wants something better now, more than a job — a career. For graduation, the class picks


two speakers—and Taylor is one of them. Less than an hour after she is told of the honor, she starts scribbling a draft, scratching out words and drawing arrowswhere paragraphs need to bemoved. Her last line: “And now I am dress for success!”


“L


et me ask you,” Brown says. “Do you think there are more black men in


jail or college? How many say jail?” Across the room, hands rocket


up. “Howmany say college?” Three hands rise, hesitantly. “There are more black men in


college than jail,” Brown says. “Never forget that.” He tells the class he knows


where they come frombecausehe is fromthose same streets. But he no longer responds to his street


name, “Slim.” His students may hang out with the same crowd they’ve always known, but Brown, 39, spends his evenings with professionals, collecting business cards. Once he couldn’t imagine wearing a tie; now he ownsmore than he needs. Brown’s students talk about


the American Dream. They read about a crack addict who goes from living on the streets to becoming a lawyer. When the class members discuss how to handle questions in a job inter- view, they hone in on one topic many of them dread: Have you ever committed a crime? (Some propose to just say yes and move on. Others argue for explaining how they’re no longer the same person.) Project Empowerment Direc-


tor Charles Jones says the pro- gram seeks to arm people, many of whom have never graduated from anything — not college, not vocational school, not high school—with the tools they need tomake it in a new environment. Although some question the city’s decision to subsidize em- ployment, Jones says it’s neces- sary to ease the hard-core unem- ployed into the workplace. “Most people find employment through networking with others,” he says. “Imagine their network of friends.” Jones dismisses the idea that


those who have never worked simply don’t want to. He sees graduates of the course wearing theirwork uniforms all day—not because they have to, but because they’re proud of them. He re- ceives 10 letters a week from inmates asking how they can get into the program once they’re released. Browntells students theymust


choose: Stay in the jungle, where only two things can happen—get killed or captured. Or change. “A lot of us fear employment,”


he tells his class. “A lot of us don’t believe we can make it in the world. You got more poor white people in America than poor black people. But you don’t know that. All you know is what you see.”


About the project The story continues Thursday as graduates of the Project Empowerment job-training program enter the workforce.


6 J on postlocal.com


Photo gallery: Staff photographer Nikki Kahn


chronicles this class of graduates from the program.


“That all things are possible. I


know from my own experience. I fell from grace and I’m in the processwhere I have to continue. I’mstill in the process of rebuild- ingmyself.” Each day, he wears carefully


ohnny Perkins is running a fever.As soon as he sits down in class, his eyelids start to close, only to bolt open. He


never falls asleep in class, but today he can’t help it. An infec- tion has formed in the ankle that doctors repaired three years ago and he knows he should go to the hospital. He also knows that if hemisses


more than seven hours of class, he will be out of the program. So his mind is set: He will limp and bear the pain until graduation. If Brown’s class were ranked,


Perkins, who grew up in Anacos- tia, probably would be the vale- dictorian. On the second day, he drewa diagramof a human brain on the board to explain each part’s function. Some students stumble when pronouncing words; Perkins corrects the teacher’s spelling: “Mr. Brown, ‘excel’ has one L.” One day, as the class conducts


mock job interviews, Brown asks, “Mr. Perkins, whatmotivates you to do a good job?” “I want to remain indispens-


able to you and the organization,” he answers. “I already knewyou had some-


thing jazzy and fancy to say,” Brown joshes. “But it’s a top-of- the-line answer.” Several classmates wonder


why Perkins is here, why a 55- year-old veteran who boasts of two degrees is sitting in the same room with them. A hint comes whenthe classdiscusses the story of the crack addict. Brown asks: What does this story tell you? Perkins is the first to answer:


pressed pants and collared shirts, a look sharpened by wire- rimmed glasses. But each night, he goes to a homeless shelter, where he hopes his belongings, including 10 Bibles, have re- mained untouched. Everything he uses is communal: shower, bathroom, ironing board. As Perkins tells it, his downfall


came not because he didn’t work hard enough, but because he worked too hard. He was a regis- terednurse for 17 years andat one point had everything he desired: nice cars, designer clothes, a big house — a property in Upper Marlboro that was tied to his name is valued at more than $1 million. He felt invincible, he says. Un-


til he didn’t. He was working 80 hours a


week at GeorgeWashington Uni- versity Hospital, he says, when depression and insomnia set in. Soon he started nodding off at work. He lost his job in 2007. Then, as he tells it, one footing after another fell away: the house, the cars, his ability to find another job. He ended up homeless and


started drinking and using co- caine, a habit he says lasted only months. He began to steal essen- tials from grocery and conve- nience stores.He got caught, and now, whenever he applies for a job, a criminal record shows up. There have been times, he says, when he has aced interviews and been introduced to the staff, only to receive a call later saying he would not be hired after all. That’swhy he signed up for the


program. It promised a job, if not a dreamone. “The Bible says a righteous


man falleth seven times and then gets up,” says Perkins, who at- tends church almost every night. “Basically, the philosophy is ‘keep getting up.’ It’s only the loserwho stays down.”


A class assignment asks stu-


dents if they believe in theAmeri- can Dream, and Perkins keeps writing long after other students have put down their pens. The manwho sits next to himnotices. “What are you writing?” he


jokes. “A book?” “It can’t be answered,” Perkins says, “in one or two sentences.”


B


rown knows not everyone in the classwillmake it.On the first day, there were 28


students; on the last, 25. After they graduate, a fewmorewill fall out of the program. “Theproblemisnot getting the


job, it’s keeping the job,” he tells the class. The students have heard him say many times that they need to stopworrying about their rights, aboutwhat’s owed to them, and start thinking about their duties. “America is built on second chances,” he tells them. “But you have to warrant it.” On the first day of class, Brown


tells students to write down who they are, who they want to be- come and howthey can get there. Onemanwhowould later drop


out writes, “I would like to be- come a successful person in the computer field and own my own business. I would like to change, because the direction I am going is not where I’d like to be.” Patrice Taylor says: “I used to


think life was a party, but I got a wake-up call.” Antoine Moore says: “I would


like to become a better man, brother and son. I will get there by assiduously adhering to the blueprint I set for myself. I will get there by planting seeds wher- ever I go.”


T


he task seems easy enough: pick out a pair of men’s dress shoes. ButMoore,whose right bicep showcases a jail-


house tattoo inked with fluid from a melted chess piece, looks overwhelmed in Macy’s shoe de- partment.


Patrice Taylor, above, watches her son, Tyrell, 9, at football practice in the District. The single mother of two, who is 26, says that by the time she turns 30 “I want to have everythingmy own”—her own house, car and steady income.


Programdirector Brandi Forte, second from left, and Antoine Moore, center, discuss black history with, Project Empowerment students, from left,Martha AnnMorse, Bria Cannon and Davon Bryant at the ColumbiaHeights Recreation Center inWashington.


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