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Holloway:
Good evening and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I'm your host, Jay Holloway. Tonight we have a multi-talented woman; she's a lawmaker, community activist, educator, former teacher, and now North Carolina's first African-American female senator. And actually, Senator Lucas, why did it take up until 1993 for us to put an African-American woman like yourself in the North Carolina Senate?

Lucas:
That's probably a good question, Jay. We've always been involved in politics since 1935 when the Durham Committee on Affairs of Black People started an organization to get people involved in registering, voting, and then seeking elected official positions. So I think what people don't know is that we've been out there a long time. An interesting point though is, why has it taken us this long? I think it's because women were not as active as they are now. And if you will look at statistics, you will realize that many women are becoming active in politics, and we have the largest numbers, so why not get out there and get involved. Now as for me, I didn't want to be involved in it. I thought I would be a classroom teacher for the rest of my life. Then I went on to become state president for all teachers, and someone said to me, "Why don't you run for office?" "I don't want that."

Holloway:
That's what happens.

Lucas:
That's what happens. But they said, "Well you're qualified, you've done this, you've done that, you've done the other." Consequently, I entered. I was appointed first, and then I took _______ place and then I ran for the position and received overwhelmingly the support from the citizens. And each time I've run, I've been successful.

Holloway:
Tell our audience what district you represent and where is that?

Lucas:
I represent District 13, there are two senators, Wib Gulley and myself. And I represent all of Durham, all of Granville, part of Person, and part of Wake. So I have four counties, and those constituents call on me regularly. The highest percentage is from Durham: it's approximately 60%. So I represent those four counties.

Holloway:
Well as a Senator, you deal with a lot of issues. In this short amount of time, we probably wouldn't have enough time to deal with all the issues that you're dealing with. But I know that . . . well, tell me what is most important to you, I guess, to start with.

Lucas:
That's a good question. That's a fair question. But the people need to know that there are two major responsibilities for legislators, in my opinion. Those two responsibilities are number one, to write laws, to enforce or write legislation and get that passed so that it will impact on the lives of citizens. And the second is to appropriate funds. When you appropriate funds it means that you've identified those services that are most needed for funding so that they can help citizens out there. So those are two major responsibilities. The other responsibility is you have to address those constituent needs when they call on you. People want you to come and speak, they want you to listen to their concerns. And then if they have needs, they want you to write legislation for them. So basically, my responsibility is with helping to write laws, and then appropriations. Now my major concern, as I always tell everybody, being an educator, I try to deal with those needs of children. Consequently, if you deal with the needs of children and take care of them, then we can make a better world for our children who are coming on. And then you want to look after the elderly with Medicaid, Medicare, and independent living, because oftentimes they are citizens who just need to live independently rather than being housed in a nursing home or a care home. Because they can take care of themselves, they just need some support. And then I'm concerned about issues that affect women, certainly. And if there are issues that concern women, you can always find me on the battlefield or in the trenches trying to help them. Women make up the largest segment in the Welfare Bill: 97% of the women in North Carolina are single moms who need our support as they come off the welfare rolls. So I'm out there for children and the elderly and women. And there are so many issues that I support because it helps people.

Holloway:
Well let's talk about education, which your career as a professional you spent much time in. And the first thing I'd like to maybe talk about: teachers are what many educators thing are what matters most in terms of developing those children. And a large amount of your career was as a teacher and as a director of staff development for teachers. We have a unique problem in this state of attracting new teachers and retaining good teachers, and losing a lot of good teachers. What are your thoughts on that?

Lucas:
Strong thoughts on that, Jay. Number one, being an educator, I know that the classroom teacher is the key. I know that the classroom teacher is the key, because when that door closes, it's the teacher and the students and/or her assistant. So we do need to have the best teachers available for our children. And we don't need to play with that; we need to try to get the best teachers. But when we get the best teachers, we need to have diversity. When you see African-American males who are falling out, you don't have role model teachers there to encourage those young men. Now we have teachers, but I think that diversity of faculty is a strength that most school systems need. Too many of our children are dropping out of school, and when you don't get a good education, you know what's going to happen when they're out there in the street. They are not going to take care of your property and my property. They're going to be in all kinds of experiences that are negative, and their parents will have lost sight on what good parenting is about. So education is the first thing for supporting those children who we know are at risk for doing criminal things out there in the public.

Holloway:
Let me interrupt you for a second. So are you saying in terms of diversity, one of the things I know is that North Carolina is not unlike the rest of the country in terms of the majority of the teachers are white and female.

Lucas:
Right.

Holloway:
So you're saying that more teachers and more people need to get into the profession that look like you and I.

Lucas:
That's exactly right. If a child doesn't see his ethnicity present-and it's just a given that if they see you, Jay, in that classroom, they want to be like Mr. Holloway. There's a goal, there's a mission, there's hope for them, because they see if you are there and you succeed and you've done this-but all too often our children don't have the support group of encouragement that they need, and I'm saying now as I work on the Governor's Commission on Juvenile Crime that we need to be sure that parents know how to parent. We need to be sure that we can identify those at risk factors which cause children to go astray, and one of them is not getting an education! People are in prison today because they didn't have the education to read, to compute, to write, to even have an excellent interview as they went for jobs. And so we've got to turn that around and make sure that we have the best people who have our children's interest at heart educating our children. And I'm not saying that doesn't exist, but I'm saying we need to be more diligent about it.

Holloway:
Right. So you would agree that education is and can be the Great Equalizer.

Lucas:
It is the key component. It is the key component. My father made sure, until I was the age of 10 when I went to live _______, he made sure that we came home in the evenings, did our homework, learned our mathematics, learned our multiplication tables, spoke to him about what occurred, and you know, we were poor. But that image of my father saying, "You will go to school," to my brothers and sister, "and you will learn, and you will behave when you are in school."

Holloway:
Now you grew up in Durham County.

Lucas:
I grew up in Durham.

Holloway:
Now, you also in working in the Durham City schools, you've seen the county and the city schools merge. Durham had a difficult merge and it brought out a lot of, perhaps the worst in the race relations issues. You want to share with our audience what you learned in observing that, and how do you observe that now as a senator?

Lucas:
And that is interesting; you've put me on the spot with that one, because it was hard. It was very difficult. But I look at it as two things: when you've got leaders on both sides of the aisle-you have the black, you have the white, you've got leaders. And I feel that leaders have purposes, and their purposes should be, number one: to articulate what is the truth. What is the truth? What works for our children? I believe the system should have merged long ago, because when you bring those two strengths together, you've got the very best minds, you've got the best vision, you've got the best people who should be working together. And I think that the merger tried to have that. But regardless of how you do, there's always evil lurking in the background, trying to destroy what is good. So I think that, given time, it will still work.

Holloway:
When you look back on you growing up in North Carolina, and you look at today and we talk about the differences in parenting-but the NAACP nationally I think recently said that they thought that the integration issue may have been a mistake. How do you look back at that now as we look at the current merger of these schools systems? Some people are saying we're going back to segregated schools. And I guess the real question, if I had to point it, is when you look at student achievement, can it happen better in an integrated or segregated setting?

Lucas:
That's why I've said to you that diversity is extremely important in a school. If you've got African-American males and females, and Caucasian males and females, and Hispanics and Asians, you need to have that diverse culture present. I feel that in too many instances, African-Americans gave their children away. They gave them away by not being there in the schools. I have a sister now who has two sons who go to school in Durham, and I've said to her, "You need to be diligent about seeing after those men in that school. Look at what they're learning. Look at their interaction with their peers. See how they relate with their teachers. Understand what their extracurricular activities are." Parenting means that you must follow those children from day one, and you know that. You follow them through that K-12. If you don't do it, Jay, something's going to fall through the cracks. Too many parents have not gone to take care of their children.

Holloway:
One of the things that a lot of educators and political leaders are saying in our state as we look at defining what the problems are in the educational system is, looking at it from the preschool all the way up through K-12, community colleges and universities.

Lucas:
That's right.

Holloway:
And you can't just say you have success at one area. You look at the entire process.

Lucas:
You have to have the total umbrella, the entire package. When we look at our university systems and see that they want a certain SAT score for our children to enter their universities, many of our children are not achieving those scores. So they are not, the pool is emptying for these children to go to college, because the expectation for them, on their grades, for their behavior, for their - they are just limited. And if we don't provide that for our children, they're not going to go to college, they're not going to go to community college, they're not going to university system. And then we have too many of our schools that have done away with the skills. The students, when I was going to school we learned how to do construction, brick masonry, carpentry, graphics, all of those skills were there. So that if you didn't go for a college education, you would have a skill and you would be able to make a decent living with decent wages. And that's why I'm so concerned about what's going to happen to our children as mothers come off the welfare rolls. 97% of them are coming off, and they're single parents with large families. Something's going to fall through the cracks if we don't give those women decent wages to educate their children.

Holloway:
So am I reading between the lines that we need more governmental assistance after the welfare, or the community needs to come in to bridge this gap, or . . . ?

Lucas:
That's a good observation, because women have two years, two years when the clock starts ticking for them to come off welfare. When they come off welfare, I feel that there ought to be a place where can go to grieve, to say, "I've done all of this, I've been on this job, I still don't have these funds. I need transportation, I need child care, I need job training, I need a decent wage." So I don't want the government to give up on the women, and I want that support service to always be there for them. Now, I think the national clock ticks for five years, North Carolina's clock ticks for about two.

Holloway:
Let me go back, before we get off of education. There are two major initiatives in North Carolina to kind of reform our system: the Excellent Schools Act and the ABC's of Public Schools. You want to share with our audience your observation on those two and explain them somewhat?

Lucas:
Sure. The Excellent School Act is dealing with providing what schools need for their supplies, their resources, giving teachers good wages, maintaining the tenure in terms of four years so that principals will have an opportunity to evaluate to see that these teachers are on track. And then making schools safe -- now what does that mean? In my opinion, it means that we are going to institute those policies which a teacher may use to help her when she finds children who are falling through the cracks and giving problems. And I don't want anybody to think that we need to wholesale students out into the street with alternative learning and giving them an opportunity to still run rampant. But safe schools would say hey, here are the rules, here are the policies: that your child can't come to school with a gun, a knife, he or she's got to come to learn and we're going to make those institutions safe for learning. And with the ABC's, the A stands for Accountability, B for Basics, and C for Control. We want to give the schools the money, we want to hold you accountable, because you've identified the needs for your children at your school. X School may not have the same needs as Y School. So X can identify their needs, their funds will be used for that; Y can identify theirs, and their funds can be used for that. I'm glad you haven't asked me about charter schools, so moving right along.

Holloway:
[laughs] We won't ask you about that. Well let's move to another category now, and maybe perhaps, I want to talk about race relations. Black Issues Forum has been talking about this in our series now. President Clinton has already started with his National Town Hall meetings, his National Race Initiative. Governor Hunt has something going on as well. When you look at race relations in North Carolina, what are your observations?

Lucas:
Well let's first start with my role in the Senate for race. When I went to the Senate in '93, there were six women, I think. I'm the only female African-American there. Oddly enough, everybody asks me, "How did they treat you?" You know, that's the question everybody, "How did the good old boys, what . . .?" It has been the most pleasant experience, very rewarding, very beneficial, because of the attitude and behavior that I brought to the experience. I know who I am. I've analyzed Jeannie Lucas. And the key is relationships with each other. I appreciate the leadership of the Senate, they appreciate me. I speak what I feel; I let them know when I think they are wrong, and I let them know when I think they are right. So the race relations starts with you and it starts with me. And what my behavior is in accepting that which would be detrimental or destructive to me, or noncomplementary. An individual has to feel good about himself or herself, and you can stand in any crowd, in any circumstance, and be the man or the woman whom you've been groomed to be. So race relations, I am, I'm almost like John Hope. It is very difficult, he says "It's a daunting experience for us to get out here and try to do better and get the races to come together." I think personally, as long as we live, we will have problems. But if it starts with us and our educating our children, race relations will improve. Don't put your-I'm not an ostrich, I don't put my head in the sand. There are people who dislike the color of my skin and they won't even listen to my wisdom or my knowledge. People will not like the color of your skin, they won't listen to your wisdom or your knowledge. But we have to continue and persevere.

Holloway:
So personal accountability is what you're really saying.

Lucas:
Of course.

Holloway:
And a lot of people want to put it on someone else. I think you've articulated that so beautifully. But what do you say to the person who still feels that it's the other person, it's them that's holding me down.

Lucas:
It's good, you use some of your friends-I have two friends who are white, and I'm going to lift their names up: one is Mickey, his dad is Norman; they are the Browns. And I bounced off Mickey, I said-because he's very honest, very open-and I'll say, "Mickey, is this a racial issue?" "Yeah, Jeannie, they're the Klan." I just bounce it off, I say, "Read this and give me your opinion." And I'll read it and give you . . . so you bounce off what's existing. And he'll tell me what he feels should be done, and I'll tell him what I feel should be done, and we kind of reach an understanding. More people need to do that. More people need to do that. Because he will easily tell me, "Jeannie, I don't think you need to be in there. White folks aren't going to like that." And I'll say, "Well you shouldn't be in there, because you know, we're not going to like." It's a matter of how comfortable you are with your friends and how comfortable you are in situations. I've gotten older, Jay, and now I don't mind speaking for what is right. I used to hold back, I used to allow everybody else to talk. But now I feel it's my responsibility to say, "That is not right. Here's what we can do to correct that."

Holloway:
Dialogue and personal accountability are fine. Are there some other specific steps-a specific step you just gave as an example of really talking to your friends and being open and honest. But what can you encourage people that have not gotten to that point yet but want to get to the point where you are?

Lucas:
It's interesting, somebody said to me, "Jeannie, how many white bosses have you had in your life?" None. So I've been free to just vocalize what I felt because I didn't fear my job, I didn't fear any reprisals. And there are a lot of people who aren't free to do that. They are free, but they will suffer consequences. So we need to be sure, and even with legislation, we need to be sure that we support those instances where people have been mistreated. What I mean by that is, if we find that there are people on their jobs who are being demoted in terms of their skills and their opportunities and they should be elevated, we need to rush right in, we need to be there. I am sorry what occurred in the General Assembly with some hiring and firing practices and management. And we know that it's all not good, and it's all good-no. All of it is not good. But we need to be there to look at it, and there needs to be an opportunity for people to have a hearing space to say, 'Jay, you mistreated me. I needed to have gotten that next job. I should have been elevated.' We need to start supporting people on that.

Holloway:
In the last few minutes-we're about out of time . . .

Lucas:
Are you serious?

Holloway:
[laughs] You've been an excellent guest. In the last few moments, I want to give you an opportunity to talk about our whole health care arena. And there's so many things we could talk about, but I want to throw the topic open for you to select what items you'd like to talk about in health care.

Lucas:
Well, I'd first like to talk about managed health care and to look at what's happening with HMOs and people not getting all the information they need to be sure that they have the best kind of program to take care of their needs. So I hope that we'll be looking at that, the HMOs as they impact the elderly, but also we have another thing that's coming up with the for-profit, the Blue Cross/Blue Shield thing that's coming up. The non-profit now wants to become the for-profit, and the people are feeling that since they amassed this fortune, that that money should go back to some of the people who have supported them through the years. So we're going to be looking at that in a study commission. Then we have the big problem out there with AIDS, and we know we need to help people who are in harm's way. If there's a mother who doesn't know that her husband has been an AIDS victim and she contracts it, and then the child gets it, then we need to be protecting the citizens out there by giving them some kind of program that will help them.

Holloway:
I noticed that you are also on a commission when you're out of session on mental health. Any issues you want to say about mental health?

Lucas:
Oh yeah, because we look at mental health, substance abuse, those things that are impacting the lives. With mental health, we get letters all the time. We just got one the other day from a lady who said that her son was in an institution and he has reached a certain age and it's now time for him to get out of the institution, but there's no place for him at home because he can't get the treatment and he can't get the support he needs. So we need to be looking at that more. With mental health, if you had a problem today, you would want this state to have funded those institutions, those medicines, those support groups, staff to help take care of you, because you have given to North Carolina. North Carolina needs to give back to those who have mental problems.

Holloway:
Any concluding comments you'd like to make to our vast audience across the state? Words of wisdom?

Lucas:
Sure. We in North Carolina need to protect our children. Too many of our children are involved in criminal acts. We need to have good parenting skills, we need to have schools and institutions that will embrace our children, because if our children make up our society, then we need to be sure that we've groomed them to be the best children. So I want us, that when we talk about putting kids in prison, I want us to talk about how we prevent these children from becoming criminals.

Holloway:
Thank you so much. You've been a wonderful guest and well-stated. Senator Jeannie Lucas.

Lucas:
Thank you.

Holloway:
We thank you so much for watching, and of course we've just heard from Senator Jeannie Lucas, North Carolina's first African-American female senator, multi-talented educator and lawmaker in North Carolina. If you'd like more information on Senator Lucas or anything related to this topic, please give us a call at 549-7167, fax us at 549-7168, or mail us at the address on your screen, or visit us on the World Wide Web at www.unctv.org/bif. Send us e-mail at bif@unctv.org. I'm Jay Holloway. Thank you so very much for watching Black Issues Forum. You have a blessed evening and a good night.

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