Hope and Dreams

Name: Jim Johnson
Occupation: Professor, Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Aspiration: "There are pressing social problems we should be addressing, and I had to do something. I've always believed I was put on this earth to make a difference."

D'Mario Smith may only be entering the eighth grade, but he's already made up his mind about which college he wants to attend. He's going to Duke. Not only is that school strong academically, but D'Mario likes the idea that he won't have to leave North Carolina, which is important to him. He won't even have to leave Durham. Rather than venturing far from home, he'd prefer to attend college just across town, so that he can return home whenever he needs to -- say, "if my little sister calls and says, 'Come by and give me a ride.' " D'Mario hasn't made up his mind about a career. He's still weighing his options -- comic-book artist, engineer, scientist, or maybe a businessman who makes "at least $1,000 an hour."

Unfortunately, warns James H. Johnson Jr., dreams like those don't stand much of a chance in a troubled neighborhood. A geographer with a PhD, a professor with an endowed chair at a leading business school, an expert on poverty, and a tireless activist for social justice, Johnson understands that Duke University and D'Mario's neighborhood are close physically -- but in reality they couldn't be farther apart. They're two different worlds: one blessed with opportunities, the other choked with obstacles.

In D'Mario's neighborhood, being a good kid from a good home isn't necessarily enough to survive the drugs and violence. Even though his house sits on the better end of the block, its yard protected by a fence with a sign that reads, "Beware of the dog"; even though D'Mario is exceedingly polite, good-natured, and bright (he made the A/B honor roll last spring); even though he has two hard-working, doting parents, he is at risk. D'Mario, who is 12, won't graduate from high school for another five years. Anyone who lives in a neighborhood like his knows that five years is a long time to avoid trouble. Even if you don't go looking for it, trouble can find you.

That kind of unforgiving reality brought Johnson, 46, to this neighborhood. He carries a lofty title: the William Rand Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Management at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But he's waging an in-the-trenches campaign to save disadvantaged kids like D'Mario from the streets. Durham Scholars, a program that Johnson launched five years ago, provides kids like D'Mario with the resources that they need to survive and to succeed: a safe place to go after school; access to the latest technology; a network of tutors, mentors, and role models; and a college scholarship. Johnson counts on those resources to forge a connection between two worlds -- a bridge that one day may extend from D'Mario's neighborhood to Duke.

It's become almost fashionable for social commentators and dotcom entrepreneurs alike to pontificate about the "digital divide" growing wider, rather than narrowing. This is the story of a man who stopped pontificating and who started building bridges. Bridges between academic research and social action. Between private-sector money and inner-city needs. Between students attending one of the country's top business schools and children living in poverty. Between the global marketplace and minority entrepreneurs. Between mainstream companies and unemployed African-American men. Put simply, he is building bridges between the haves and the have-nots.

What's truly amazing -- breathtaking, really -- is the range of Johnson's efforts and the diversity of people those efforts reach. Though metaphorical, these bridges lead to very real results. Ask Jordan Wright, a former drug dealer who is learning how to be a responsible husband and father. Ask John Deberry, an African-American businessman whose once-struggling auto-parts store is now growing. Ask nonprofit and health-agency managers across the country who have found ways to rely less on philanthropy and more on themselves. Or ask Lenora and Lester Smith, D'Mario's parents. Before they got involved with the Durham Scholars program, they weren't sure how they would send their three children to college. Now they know that they've got a chance.

"Jim is an academic activist in the most positive sense of the word," says John D. Kasarda, director of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the Kenan-Flagler Business School. "He's taken what he's learned as a teacher and a scholar and applied it to help people and communities compete in the 21st century." After years spent researching, writing, and lecturing on inequality and on demographics in large urban areas like Los Angeles, as well as in smaller urban areas like Durham, Johnson decided to come up with some remedies. "There are pressing social problems we should be addressing, and I had to do something," he says. "I've always believed I was put on this earth to make a difference."