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October 31, 2004

The Real Quad A

Derrick Bell proposed, back in the days when he was celebrated, an organization called the Quad A. I forget the particulars, but I remember the flavor, having read about it in his 'Faces At The Bottom of the Well'. The flavor was mighty, and I must confess to have wanted and wished there to be such an institution. There might be.
pbba2.JPG
In this case my highschool's African American Alumni Association may end up filling the bill. It is basically a who's who of the brothers in LA who did well from our exclusive little prep school. I say it casually, but make no mistake, these men are an impressive bunch. They called a picnic and plenty of people came. I'm expecting good things.

Now this picture was taken back in 1977 when we first formed the Prospective Black Businessmen's Association. It was the first black organization on the Loyola Campus, and as you might expect, we took a lot of heat for starting it. I don't know how many years have gone by with kids finding that picture in the yearbook, but you can bet that it has been inspirational to another generation, afros and all. There are more PBBA pictures, I'll post them to the new Quad A website after that's set up.

There aren't many black kids in LA who went to Catholic School, but those of us who did were fairly well networked back in the day. Especially when I talk about the People of the Dons, a list of names comes up on the regular. These folks are two degrees of separation from everything that's happening of consequence in African American history being made today, and that's why a bunch of slightly overweight middled-aged black men eating hamburgers on a Saturday was pretty exciting. So today a few of us are taking the initiative to communicate and do what we ought to be doing for ourselves and the next generation.

The core of this is that at Loyola, the number of black kids had fallen to something like 18. Now I'm not sure if that was just within one class or the entire school of 1000 students. Probably the former, but that was still unacceptable. Furthermore, all of the weight had been born on the shoulders of a few usual suspects. So those few decided to turn things around. They plowed through a bunch of yearbooks, put together a mailing list and got the ball rolling. It's up to the rest of us to do our share.
1030_Lihi 035.jpg

The day was sweet. It was great to see Glenn, Marlon, Steve, Gabriel, Bruce, Craig, Jerome, Darryl and a gang of others show up with their families. I met a lot of old and new friends, we talked about the usual good old days, the prospects for this year's football squad and the state of our businesses and families. The jazz combo was tight and the brats were juicy. The bouncer was full of kids and the sun was shining. Somebody had the videocam and I snapped a few jpgs for posterity and the new website that I couldn't help but volunteer for.

The agenda is coming. Stay tuned.

Posted by mbowen at October 31, 2004 12:49 AM

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Comments

That's a great photo. I see some stylin' guys, confident, ready for anything life throws at them.

Congratulations on maintaining those links after all those years.

Posted by: Chap at October 31, 2004 10:40 AM

Hello Cobb,

My name is Lawrence Ross and I'm from the Loyola class of '84. I was going through your archives and it was great to read about the PBBA because I restarted it at Loyola in 1982. I'd read about it in a yearbook, brought back the idea to the black students, and we took it from there. One of our first actions was to protest Loyola's decision to stay open on MLK's birthday (pre-national holiday). I intend on going back to Loyola this year and speaking to the African American students. Good to see those 70's pictures! lol

--
Lawrence C. Ross, Jr.
The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities (author)
The Ways of Black Folks: A Year in the Life of a People (author)
Sometimes Rhythm, Sometimes Blues (contributor)
Friends With Benefits (author: September 2005)
inglewoodrudeboy.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Ross at June 30, 2005 08:34 PM

Yeah, I wasn't expecting to be in the country right about now, so I haven't kept up with the LiHi crew (or with local politics) as much as I should have. I'm getting back into the frame of mind for Local Deeds and hope to hookup this year.

Posted by: Cobb [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 30, 2005 08:38 PM