Commentary: Imagine a Popular Black Artist Inspiring Our Kids to Go to School Instead of Prison
When Lou Rawls recently died of cancer at age 72, we lost more than a legendary crooner with a Cognac-smooth voice.
We lost a black artist who put his pipes to work to sing the praises of education for black youths -- rather than eschew it as a pastime for squares that lack the savvy to turn the negativity of street life into profits.
That’s some task for a guy who never went to college himself.
It’s ironic that Rawls died when he did. This is, after all, the time of year that the annual “Evening of Stars Telethon,” once called the “Lou Rawls Parade of Stars Telethon,” is broadcasted. The telethon, which was taped last September, benefits the United Negro College Fund, and was shown last weekend.
Rawls began hosting the telethon in 1980 -- and each year, I’d look forward to seeing him decked out in his tuxedo, introducing other stars and exhorting viewers, in a speaking voice every bit as silky as his singing one, to support the nation’s historically black colleges and universities.
That voice proved to be persuasive. Since the telethon began, it has helped raise more than $200 million for the UNCF.
And Rawls’ role in it all wasn’t lost on young black people. One of his colleagues, H.P. Barnum, told ABC News that many times, “Someone would come up to [Rawls] on the streets and say, ‘Thank you so much, man. I went to school because of you.’”
Imagine that. A singer like Rawls, whose music some label as "pre-rap" because of the way he’d preface some of his songs with monologues, inspiring young black people to go to school instead of prison.
Yet, in many ways, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the fact that someone like Rawls would champion education. Many older black people, who grew up during times when college tended to be an unaffordable luxury for many of them, clearly saw the connection between an education and a better life. And while Rawls, a man who was reared on Chicago’s South Side, knew that he could color his art with his struggles in growing up in a tough neighborhood, unlike most of the rap artists today, he didn’t make his life imitate his art. Instead, by championing the UNCF, Rawls used his art as a tool for helping black youths to rise above the unhealthy influences in their lives.
Perhaps that happened because of an experience that he had in the 1950s. Rawls was touring the South with another legendary singer, Sam Cooke, when he was nearly killed in a car accident. He was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital and was in a coma for more than five days.
But Rawls’ near-death experience didn’t cause him to celebrate himself as a mortal who had cheated the Grim Reaper, but to humble himself as a man who had been given back his life with a chance to make it more meaningful.
According to information on the UNCF Website, Rawls once said: “I really got a new life out of that. I saw a lot of reasons to live. I began to learn acceptance, direction, understanding and perception –--all the elements that had been sadly lacking in my life.”
Compare Rawls’ transformation to that of 50 Cent. I hate to keep picking on Fiddy, but it seems to me that he -- as well as many of his other gangsta rap colleagues -– never learn anything good from their brushes with death. All they seem to learn is that the more violent and extreme they are, the more money they can make. They’ve found a fortune in hyping black dysfunction rather than in boosting black achievement.
And that’s too bad.
I don’t hold out hope that any of them will start to rap about the values of education anytime soon. But I do hope that someone like "American Idol" dynamo Fantasia Barrino, who is now pursuing her GED after spending years as a functional illiterate, will step into Rawls’ shoes. Even if she never leads the "Evening of Stars," I hope she will become a voice for the power of education to transform lives.
And as Rawls proved, you don’t need a college education for that. Just a voice -- and a passion -– that can persuade others of the value of one.
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I could have sworn that he just became a father not that long ago.
Rest In Peace
Again, Fiddy is not fit to carry Lou Rawls' music stand.
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