Within days of sending off my quarterly contribution to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, I received a press release announcing the closing of the LaVarnway unit.
The announcement surprised me, inducing a reaction similar to finding out a childhood friend you hadn’t seen in decades had died.
Growing up in Milwaukee’s urban community, central city ‘Boys’ Clubs were a haven from segregation and apartheid, a place where your skin color didn’t matter.
Equally important, clubs like LaVarnway were a conduit to maturation and comradery.
Milwaukee’s streets were cleaner and much safer during my childhood, a paradigm the Boys Club and other community institutions had much to do with.
Black children were also different.
Most of us were products of traditional nuclear families, who, despite institutional racism, were empowered to achieve academically, as well as vocationally.
Fortunately, we had the advantages inherent in having both a father and mother in the home. And while we were technically po’, we weren’t poor, nor did we embrace the Culture of Poverty as many do today.
The cherry on the top was that my generation grew up in an actual village.
We engaged neighbors, shared a common spiritual and cultural reality. We even grew and maintained grass and picked up litter.
Villagers on the block and around the corner represented our extended family—which is a foreign concept to many today.
Government schools like North Division were viewed as community centers.
Churches were more than spiritual havens; they were institutions that replaced welfare and served as catalysts for civil rights campaigns.
And the Boys Club? It was both a sanctuary from delinquency, as well as a youth development center.
The clubs provided a venue to exert our energies, learn relevant skills like carpentry, and build lifelong relationships with boys sharing a similar culture.
Eons ago, the clubs’ sole purpose was male youth development.
LaVarnway, during my youth, was the 15th Street Boys Club.
The 15th Street Unit was the Boy Scouts, YMCA, and Salvation Army wrapped in mud cloth.
For me, it was all that and a bag of homemade chips.
If you were looking for me during my pre-teen years, chances are you’d find me at 15th Street.
I spent many hours there, particularly during the summer months when school was out.
My uncle, the first African American state diving champion, was a director and in charge of the pool at 15th. As such, he was like a surrogate father figure to me, my cousins, and all the other impressionable boys, even though most had full-time fathers at home.
Uncle Ronn Grace taught us to swim and about hygiene, personal development, and manhood.
He taught us how to stand up straight and look people in the eye. To respect our elders and our culture— supplementing what we learned at home.
He also corrected our grammar, forced us to drop words like ‘ain’t,’ and never to use double negatives.
He stressed the importance of being able to articulate with anyone.
Because the Club was exclusively for boys, we often swam naked. Before we were allowed in the pool, Uncle Ronn would do a cleanliness test. He would either rub our wrists or ankles to see if any dirt showed up. If so, back to the showers.
Uncle Ronn started a swimming program that introduced us to competition with White clubs. He also led us in a Rites of Passage that included an introduction to Judo and boxing (for exercise and discipline), African culture, and academics.
In essence, members of the 15th Street Boys Club engaged in a Rites of Passage; we were introduced to the basic concepts of manhood, with positive male role models paving the way.
Teutonia Avenue, between Hadley and Center Streets, was an entertainment and business strip back in the day.
There was a movie theater and bowling alley in the middle of the block and restaurants (and a quality strip club) on either side.
At the corner of Hadley and Teutonia was a Kohl’s Foods grocery, managed by a short White guy named Herb Kohl. Yes, that Herb Kohl, the future U.S. senator.
Taking a shortcut from my home on Locust, I would enter Kohl’s on Teutonia en route to the Club. The fruit and vegetable department was at the back of the store, where I would casually steal an apple or orange before exiting the grocery, which opened to a parking lot. The Club was on the other side.
That was a routine for many of us.
Many years later, while serving on a tribute panel for Baseball Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig, I admitted my juvenile delinquency to ‘Senator’ Kohl, who was on the dais. In fact, I held out a couple of dollars as restitution.
It was supposed to be a joke, but surprisingly, the multi-millionaire owner of the Bucks took my money!
After watching a Boys and Girls Club advertising featuring actor Denzel Washington a few years ago, I started making quarterly contributions to the Club. I did so with some hesitancy in that I disagreed with the decision to open the clubs to girls.
I’m not chauvinistic. But the ‘Boys’ Clubs was a much-needed conduit for male development. It was as memorable as it was unique. Not all organizations should be gender-neutral.
There’s a reason why we have a Boys and Girls Scouts and a Y.M. and YWCA. The last time I ventured to a public building, there were separate girls and boys restrooms, although that may soon be an antique if those on the far, far left get their way.
Minister Louis Farrakhan wasn’t being a chauvinist when he organized the Million ‘Man’ March. Or why sisters organized a separate march for themselves the following year.
Expanding the clubs to girls essentially destroyed a unique pathway, a fraternity for young men. And that’s beyond being able to swim while naked.
Today, more than ever, a gender-specific club is needed to fill the void left by the absence of Black fathers in 70% of African American homes.
Our Black boys need projects and programming to embrace their unique needs. And, to be more exact, they need men like my uncle who will serve as village sub-chiefs.
LaVarnway opened as 15th Street Boys Club in 1957. The Boys Clubs expanded to include girls in 1990. New programming started immediately after that.
Today, it provides daycare and other social welfare services instead of its original purpose: to build strong men and good citizens. There are zillions of missionary organizations and poverty pimps out there to fill that social service void. The club was supposed to be a ‘club.’
Five years ago, the LaVarnway facility was sold to the Rescue Mission, a large complex, including a school next to the Club, extending to Center Street.
If not torn down, I assume the Club will become a recreational center for the Rescue Mission when it closes in December.
The 15th Street Club will join several central city units that have been closed in the last two years.
The pandemic has played a role in that tragedy, although the clubs have been losing membership for a decade.
I blame some of that on poor marketing and community outreach.
Obviously, funding, or lack thereof, has also been a significant factor.
Maybe MPS, which is supposedly seeking public input on spending over a half-billion dollars in stimulus money, should look at reestablishing the Boys Club with its original mission.
That’s a viable investment, particularly given that most Black boys in MPS are failing in their academics and headed toward irrelevant lives.
Who knows, maybe the tainted MPS board can entice my uncle to return and run the Club for a while. He is now a lawyer living in Minnesota. His proteges include doctors, lawyers, and politicians. And me.
I’m sure Uncle Ronn would recreate the 15th Street model of my youth, with an eye on impacting today’s village dysfunctionality that, by coincidence, took root when the Club took on a new role.
I don’t know if I’ll continue contributing to the Boys and Girls Club. There are so many viable and essential charities in competition, it gives me pause.
Or maybe I’ll earmark my limited donations to the December funeral costs for LaVarnway. An old friend that helped mold me into who and what I am.
Hotep.