Looking out at the high school juniors on the verge of completing their week at American Legion Jersey Boys State Friday afternoon, Newark Mayor and Senate candidate Cory Booker urged them to “stand out
By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Looking out at the high school juniors on the verge of completing their week at American Legion Jersey Boys State Friday afternoon, Newark Mayor and Senate candidate Cory Booker urged them to “stand out” and do things that other people won’t do.
”What got me here, and all of you, was not the huge leaders described in the history books. It was the leadership of everyday people who went against the grain,” Mayor Booker told the boys and their parents at the Boys State final assembly at Rider University’s Alumni Gym.
The American Legion Boys State program, which has been held in New Jersey annually since 1946 and at Rider University since 1969, teaches high school juniors about the duties, privileges, rights and responsibilities of American citizenship. It was created in 1935 in reaction to the “Young Pioneer” camps that were being promoted by the Communist Party.
The American Legion Boys State participants, who have completed 11th grade, run a mythical 51st state. They create cities, form political parties and elect a mayor and council from within their ranks. They also fill county and state governments, municipal courts and even elect two senators who go on to the American Legion Boys Nation later in the summer.
Mayor Booker, who participated in the American Legion Boys State program as a high school junior in 1986, reflected on the program and told the boys — including six “statesmen” sponsored by American Legion Posts 414 and 458 in Lawrence — that “this was one of the most amazing experiences (for me) in high school. It still lifts me today.”
The mayor, who grew up in a predominantly white suburb in Bergen County, told the boys that his parents wanted him and his brother to be good people and to “be rooted in the understanding of how we got here to where we are.” It was not through the actions of leaders one reads about in history books, but the acts of kindness of ordinary people, he said.
Some of those people went out of their way to help his parents, who were recent college graduates, find jobs, Mayor Booker said. His parents were among the first blacks to work for IBM. They moved to New Jersey in connection with their jobs in the late 1960s and again were helped by others to combat housing discrimination.
”This is how I grew up, because of the acts of kindness and decency of people I can’t name. My parents taught me that you have to manifest truth not in the big things, but every single day in the small things,” Mayor Booker said, as he prepared to launch into an anecdote to bolster that point.
Mayor Booker, who attended Stanford University, related that he was flying back to school one day. Although the plane was full and every seat was taken, the two seats next to his were empty. That is, until a woman with a young boy and a screaming infant made their way to the empty seats, he said.
Mayor Booker was not happy. The 6 foot, 3 inch tall football player thought he had the row of seats to himself. But when the family sat down next to him, it occurred to him that “life is about making choices.” Either accept things as they are, or take responsibility to change them, he said.
He spoke to the woman, who was terrified because she had never flown on an airplane. He decided to play with the young boy while his mother watched a movie in flight. By the end of the flight, Mayor Booker and the woman became good friends and pledged to keep in touch.
But years passed, and he did not hear from the woman — until she contacted him to let him know that she never forgot his kindness. She said she learned that he was running for office and that her family owned a factory in Newark. She helped him in his campaign, he said, adding that her son was one of his best campaign volunteers.
Mayor Booker also recalled the life and death of a young man that he tried to mentor even as he began his career in politics in Newark. The teenager was among a group that would congregate in the lobby of the apartment building where he lived, he said.
Acknowledging that he was “chasing the brass ring” — running for mayor of Newark — he was too busy. He won the mayorship in 2006, around the same time that violence was spiking in Newark. He said that as the new mayor, he was “on a mission,” running to every shooting that occurred in the city, giving speeches and working on policies and initiatives.
At one of those shootings, Mayor Booker discovered the victim was the boy he wanted to help. The boy’s personality reminded him of his own father, who was given guidance by many adults in the small North Carolina town where he grew up, the mayor said.
Mayor Booker said he was extremely upset that people had let down the teenager, including himself. He said he had no speeches to make at the boy’s funeral. He could only think, “how could we all be there for this boy at his funeral, but not for his life.”
Turning to the Boys State participants, he told them that “you will all go on to do some big things. You are called to be great. Answer the call. It’s the small things. I look at you and it feels like yesterday that I was here. The days go slow but the years fly by.”
Mayor Booker urged them to “make every year count” with acts of kindness and love because “only then will you be a great leader.”
Then, David Bagatelle, director of New Jersey’s American Legion Boys State program, made Mayor Booker an honorary staff member and gave him a blue knit shirt with the program’s logo.
Mayor Booker thanked Mr. Bagatelle and left the podium, wading into the audience and shaking hands with the boys.