Making It

You put up a superficial front.

You, like I said before, you just let all the exceptions and say, look niggas, why can't y 'all be like these people over here? They have succeeded, why can't you succeed? This is Henry Jordan.

He thinks the Negroes who succeed in America today are exceptions.

But most Negroes still have little chance of making it.

That's what this film is about.

Making it.

Henry Jordan grew up in the street.

Played in it, fought in it, learned from it.

Now he's a man.

He wants to pull himself up, out of the streets, into the world.

But like many young men, he doesn't really believe he has a chance.

This film is about his chances.

It's about the changes that have been made and the problems still remaining.

It's about men who are making it.

Some of them, the first Negroes in their fields.

How they feel about the problem, what they think the chances are, and what they think the changes have been.

Most of these men do not consider themselves exceptional.

Except that they found out what they wanted to do and did it.

There are a lot of people who don't seem to be exceptional when you see them walking down the street.

Who are.

I can recall in my own experience that as a student, when I was a teenager, no one would have considered me particularly exceptional as a student.

Certainly I was exceptionally bad.

Exceptionally disoriented.

But once I found something to which I felt suited, something that attracted my interest, then I was able to stretch out and develop myself in that way.

And whatever exceptional qualities I had came to light.

But if you'd see me in botany or trying to hold down some of the clerk jobs, or shipping clerk jobs that I got as a youngster, I wasn't at all exceptional.

So I think what I'm trying to say is that it's hard to determine what a person might be able to do if you gave him an opportunity.

I think illness breeds illness and failure breeds failure.

And I think that if you've lived in the ghetto, you've constantly been exposed to failure.

You know, continually all your life you've never had success.

You know, you've never experienced success.

No, have you ever saw a success? It's a, how are you going to be a success? I mean, how can you recognize opportunity? Well, of course, that's a pretty good question.

I mean, I don't see how they're going to be expected to have that either.

If you, and if you look in the neighborhoods, if you look in the communities, and if you look at what they see, the estimates that they are allowed to have of themselves are not very inspiring, generally speaking.

It seems evident, first of all, that the children don't have a sense of belonging to the society.

That they don't have a sense of being a part of its history, or not of a positive nature.

Their contributions are not credited in the history that they're told.

The Negroes were brought here and dehumanized and taken away all their African qualities.

So you see, Negroes have nothing of their own.

Negroes can't look back on past generations and say that if I go in here I can make it, I have the opportunity to succeed.

They haven't got anything to look back on that tells them that they can succeed.

This is what is obviously needed.

They need to know who they are.

They need to know where they have historically been in the world.

Not just in this country, but before they came to this country.

They need to know what they came to this country with, what their forebearers were.

This is obvious in the welfare of peoples.

This is an obvious advantage.

That's why the British have Westminster Abbey and all those kings and stuff interred there, you know, that you can go and witness.

This is where it all came from.

He beat up this one and this one conquered that one.

He knocked over so and so and this is what we've come from and this is who we are.

We feel that entertaining means of carrying their heritage to them have to be devised.

And that this has to be, their heritage has to be incorporated in the school system as an important part of the curriculum, as a vital, as a central part of the curriculum because the great disadvantage that a Negro kid has is that he goes to school and does never get a chance to feel a part of the real thrust and the heroic story of the forging of America.

He doesn't know, for example, that there was a time when cotton was king and who had made it king? Black people.

It's not acknowledged, for example, that young black children for generations have created the popular dances that this country has used to recreate itself.

They're not credited with that and they're not given any cash for it and they themselves don't consider that.

They don't recognize what they have actually done.

But from the black bottom through the Charleston through the jitterbug and the boogie woogie right on up to the Watusi and the twist and the boogaloo of today, they have been the ones in the ghetto situations, in the slum situations, who have from their own genius created these dances and these means of communication, these songs.

Meanwhile, Benny Goodman is considered the king of swing.

Oh, I say, now, baby, you're you got me to.

I just look at me when you wear your high boots with your hip.

All right.

You're out of sight.

With your brother's love.

Admit it.

I can't dig it.

Now, baby, you take one person, one exception and say all of you are supposed to be exceptions.

Why aren't you like him? If he could make it, you could make it.

Of course, you picked him up and you gave him all the qualification that is necessary to make it and he made it because of that or because he was going to make it anyway.

There are some examples of people who would have made it regardless.

But for the most part, I think it's just they're just people who decided that they wanted to do something and sought out, you know, set to establish a program and then accomplish things step by step.

However, it is true that opportunities are shorter and they're much fewer for Negro kids.

And consequently, you have to take advantage of every opportunity.

They have to look at the future of the country.

And the Negro is a part of this country.

So long maybe forgot.

But right now is really needed in the country.

And maybe it's through a need that the people really look up and say, well, let's open doors up and whatnot.

And because the doors open, you know, everybody looks for the insta Negro true.

And the insta Negro is not a tokenism job.

He's the first Negro and he's the one there to justify whatever conscience that, you know, upper management has or lack of conscience they have about the Negro community.

And they make an effort to garner the attention of the Negro community and their acceptance for their product or service by having a Negro.

It's typically a case that they want Negroes who are visible to the Negro community as being Negroes.

Well, these Negroes lost their identity too.

Now before you can get, well, chances like this, you must first turn white.

And you know what I mean by turning white.

Well, I think they call it uncle Tom.

You got to become an uncle Tom.

You've got to be yourself.

That's the only way you can execute what you have to do.

You don't lose yourself.

Rather, you find out more about who you are, you know, because it takes that in order to dedicate yourself to what you're doing.

You can't be expressive by, you know, being a lucky or yes man.

Not only you, but no one, you know.

You know, you that's abroad you, you know, meaning, you know, Negro kids, if that's what they feel they have to be.

There are many token jobs.

I don't want to rule that out.

But there are many opportunities for the American Negro today just on the basis of some of our laws that have been passed.

And not only that, much government money is being spent.

And quite often companies hire Negroes and they can't hire them in a token capacity.

They have to hire more Negroes.

And even though a Negro may go in on a job as a token Negro, many companies have discovered just through hiring this token Negro that he's really been missing out on something by not hiring Negroes.

I've worked at companies where, well, even at Eastern here, we have another Negro.

In fact, he's the one who was most instrumental in getting me hired here.

There's a Negro who happens to be assistant vice president of marketing.

O 'Hare approach Eastern 523, Nile 6000.

Radio contact, squad 0400, low with transponder.

Depart Nile, setting 360, for a radar vector to the one floor right Nile, this final approach.

The present O 'Hare weather is indefinite form and obscured.

The derailing visibility, one -half mile, light visible in fog, RBR is 6000 feet.

Gear down, final check.

Roger, left turn heading, train camp, sir.

There's no problem of becoming a pilot.

It's just a matter of going out.

If you want to become one, you can go out to the airport and start taking flying lessons.

Of course, education does help.

Most definitely helps.

But obviously there's more personality than anything else because the education, it's no big problem really.

If you have the goal qualities to yourself, you can get the education.

There's more free ways of getting the education now than anything else in this world.

So it's not having to be a brilliant student or anything to be able to get what you want.

It's just that you have to have this goal quality of going after yourself, that you want to do something and just go and do it.

And when the obstacles come, work around them, go through them if necessary to get what you want, that's all.

But you got to live for yourself, that's for sure.

The opportunities as far as I'm concerned are excellent for a Negro to become a pilot.

The job openings are tremendous, believe me.

It's one of the biggest things I found with Eastern Airlines is the fact they are looking for Negro pilots and they're continually calling me for Negro pilots.

And the few that I do know are in the service and they're deciding to stay in now rather than come out because of their retirement situation.

I can't see anyone being afraid to try because you just don't know until you try.

I didn't realize it was this open until I tried.

The thing that would please me most would be to see another Negro try for their apprenticeship.

Fellas don't seem to realize how much a trade pays.

They don't realize that the trade is a coming thing.

It was a thing in years going by and it's a job that automation does not catch up to because you create automation here.

This is where anything that's made, anything that's designed, anything that's built has to be made first time by a tool maker.

Now I make $256 an hour and by the time I do graduate, the graduation rate will be somewhere over $4 an hour or close to it.

And by that time the top of the grade will be somewhere near and over $5 an hour, which is darn good pay.

You get a tremendous, well I get a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction out of completing something well.

This trade, when you work within a couple thousandths of an inch or it starts cracking a thousand, breaking it into ten thousandths of an inch, then you're working well.

This kind of thing, it just moves me, you know.

I go all the pieces over it.

When I first started here it seemed to be, well I guess the work was kind of hard at then, but I had to put it in my mind that I had to work because I needed the money to go to school.

And so I just got so I liked it, that's all.

So I decided I would venture out a little bit, learn how to operate most of the machinery which they have around here.

So I would ask most of the fellow, the older fellows which was here, can I operate the machines for a while.

So by me messing around and learning how to operate the machines, I got a better job on one of the machines which they call a palletizer.

It's not a bad job, it's a living.

And the pay is not bad, which I think I could save enough money to continue my further education in drafting engineering by working at this job.

And I figured if I can't take the job as a drafting engineer by going to school, maybe my possibilities of making supervisor here at this company wouldn't be so bad, you know.

I would take that.

You might look at me and say, gee, that cat is real heavy and electronic.

But the thing is, what are you heavy in? You should look for your own identity because even though we are all alike for being human beings, we each have separate identities.

And I think your key to success would be your discovery of your identity.

You know, what makes me tick, what makes me swing, you know, what do I like? You know, and I think this is the real key to it.

To be determined to want to make something of oneself is something that has to develop within.

But I am ordinary.

I just want to be something.

This doesn't make me an extraordinary person.

I should think that there are a lot of people like myself.

Maybe some just don't try hard enough, but I happen to be the most persistent one who refuses to give up.

I put six years in the post office and after I was there for two years, I was ready to leave it.

But while I worked at the post office, I bought a limousine and part -time work.

I hired myself out as a chauffeur with my own car.

I made $3 .50 an hour, you know, half the time sitting in parking lots, really, in the car.

This enabled me to invest in a two -floor building that had some income and then pretty soon another building.

But even then, you know, at 20 years old, I was stretched out so far as hours go.

So here he is.

Let me bring him on out.

This is Lou Butch Baker, the Batman.

Some of the older kids came up to me and they said, What are we going to do? We're getting a little old to keep calling ourselves teens with talent.

So I said, well, you know, I really didn't know what I was saying.

I was just giving them an answer.

I said, well, you know all about the singing part of it.

And you know how to handle yourself to accept money and whatnot.

Why don't you form a corporation and set up your own business? They started with 500 bucks that they had made in this business.

There was a lot of ups and downs in the very first three months, you know, which was really funny, because I didn't think they were going to make it.

And none of them had any money and they had 100 bucks a month rent to pay.

Well, it turned out to be a very successful thing.

I'd sing it in the evening all over this land.

I'd sing out danger, I'd sing out warning, I'd sing out the lonely dream, my brothers and my sisters all over the land.

Oh yeah.

Now I've got a hammer and I've got myself a bell.

I've got a song to sing all over this land.

It's the hammer of justice.

It's the bell of freedom.

It's the song about a lonely dream, my brothers and my sisters all over this land.

How do you go into business? Go and buy your wits.

This is the only way.

If you don't have any money, then you'll have to think of other ways, if there are any.

But, you know, I've, oh gee, when I was 20 years old, I owned a couple of buildings.

It just came from work, you know, and investment at risk, naturally.

Economic stability in the Negro community will be developed from the youth, from a stronger middle class being developed so that we can support our own businesses.

Because the stronger the middle class is, the better chance you'll have to own your own businesses and to control your own destiny, you know, economically and then politically.

And it has to start on an individual level, though.

So the basic thought is, this is my community.

I'm concerned with what happened in my community, and I'm going to do something about it.

And this is easier than you think.

Say, for instance, if we look at it from a school standpoint, you could be concerned about what is taught in your school.

Now, this is something that you can really do something about.

And I'm thinking about, for instance, a school in our neighborhood where people have gone out and insisted that Negro history be taught.

And this has come about to some degree, just by their insistence.

It takes work.

It takes time.

It takes sacrifice.

It takes money, which is something that we are beginning to learn that has to go along with these processes of change.

You know, we must give our time and our money to them.

Dollars are important, but that doesn't begin there.

It begins with individual responsibility of each person taking out time to figure out what he wants to do.

And then when he does that, then he will contribute dollar -wise to the community.

Because the stronger the middle class is, the better chance you'll have to own your own businesses and to control your own destinely, you know, economically and then politically.

Being here, having this job, is only because I had a little bit of insight as to what it took to have this type of job.

I mean, I took this kind of thing in high school.

I dropped out of high school.

At least I was kicked out.

And maybe rightly so, because I was stealing, trying to make it.

And I never really gave it a thought until I got to be 22 years old.

And I said to myself, you know, where am I going? Where am I headed? What will I be in a few years? I guess when you've got a wife and a kid, you begin to think things like that.

And after I made up my mind to that point, then I decided, well, one thing, I'd have to have an education.

I think here's where I began to start going back to school to get a diploma.

I don't say I got a college degree.

No, I don't have one.

But I figured out what courses I needed.

And dealing with people, I felt I needed English courses.

So this is what I went over to junior college and got English courses so I could learn to talk to people without talking in street language, which I was accustomed to.

And well, then it's just a matter of doing a job to get ahead of it.

And it's hard.

It's nothing easy.

To make it up from the streets, it's hard.

It's nothing easy.

But in the past 10 years, more than a million Negroes have moved into the kind of work that demands skills and provides equal rewards.

It's the hope of those who are making it that many young people will follow.

I sort of feel like a guy standing in the door with his foot in it, waiting for the youth to come forward and be brave enough to venture out and try to come in.

It takes work, but the dignity of each individual comes from each individual.

Each of us makes it in his own way.

The power of a community is the sum total of the individuals in it.

When one person makes it, the community as a whole finds a stronger place.

Look here.

Oh, no.

You take me home and make my long house turn up.

Oh, my.