Hope and Dreams

The Making of a Social Entrepreneur

Jim Johnson is a big believer in the easy-to-dismiss notion that it takes a village to raise a child. That adage certainly describes his childhood in Falkland, a farming community in eastern North Carolina. From McCoy Williams, his uncle, to Mr. Monk, his elementary-school principal, to Mr. Dempsey, his high-school civics teacher, it seemed as if everyone in Falkland had a hand in raising "Junior," as Johnson was known then. Of course, there were advantages and disadvantages to living in a place that close-knit. "If I got in trouble on the other side of the county, my parents already knew about it when I got home," Johnson says. "And we didn't have a telephone."

Johnson felt the support of the people of Falkland -- and not simply because he had so many aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who lived within hollering distance. Folks looked out for one another -- especially one another's children, says Ruby Johnson, his 70-year-old mother. She still remembers the time when one of the families whose house she cleaned bought Junior his first overalls. A few years later, a neighbor sewed him his first Sunday suit. Times were tight, Ruby says, which inspired routine acts of generosity. Neighbors shared what they grew -- sweet potatoes, corn, snap beans, tomatoes, strawberries.

Johnson knows where his demanding work ethic comes from. It comes from his father, James Henry Johnson, who worked six days a week at an auto-repair shop and who later put in 24 years at the Union Carbide plant in Greenville; from his mother, who still rises at 4 AM every day to cook for family and friends; from his Uncle McCoy, a custodian who also farmed for more than 20 years. Johnson's first job as a boy was delivering cold drinks and Nabs crackers to Uncle McCoy and the parched field hands. Later, he worked alongside his uncle, picking tobacco and hauling corn. "They didn't have a PhD from a university -- they had a PhD from the school of hard knocks," Johnson says.

He grew up poor but says he didn't realize that he was poor until he got to college and studied poverty. His parents didn't talk about what they didn't have. They worked long and hard to support Junior, his older sister, and his younger brother. Johnson didn't learn until later just how hard it had been for them to get by with his father making $35 a week and his mother making 50 cents an hour. One year, Junior asked for a bike and got a shoe-shine box instead. He understood the message. He shined enough shoes outside Oscar Lee's Snack Bar and Pap's Grocery Store to buy himself a shiny red bike. To this day, his parents know better than to get rid of that bike.

In the 1950s and 1960s of Johnson's youth, there were few college graduates from Falkland, particularly from the black community there, but Johnson grew up knowing that his parents expected him to make good grades, to finish high school, and to go on to college. That was the expectation of the community, says Johnson, who's still amazed at how many students of his generation went on to become doctors, educators, or professionals. For a place where farming was the most logical career path, not to mention a family tradition, parents understood the value of a college education: It led to better opportunities for their children, even if those opportunities existed elsewhere.

Johnson had good role models. His grandfather, Noah Williams, used to sit on the porch swing and read three newspapers every day, recalls Johnson, who became a voracious reader himself. By the time he was a high-school senior, college wasn't a mysterious or an intimidating place because he knew a number of older students who had gone. As a boy, he visited his older sister and a cousin at North Carolina Central University, a predominantly black college in Durham. As a high-school student, he and a classmate toured the Chapel Hill campus of UNC with Don Dempsey, their civics teacher, who was finishing up a PhD at the time. "It was his way of encouraging us and telling us that we had the ability to go far," says Johnson. Dempsey was right, even though Johnson chose Central over UNC. Johnson graduated from Central summa cum laude in only three years.

Johnson has a visceral understanding of the importance of his work. Unlike outreach programs that cater to underprivileged but academically gifted children, the 124 students in Durham Scholars represent a wide cross section of the community. Some of those students seem assured of succeeding in college and beyond. Many, however, illustrate the range of challenges that Johnson and the staff face. Boys who were put into foster care because of behavioral problems or abusive families. Two Hispanic brothers who are still learning English. Two sisters who suffer from severe learning disabilities. A 14-year-old girl who, after entering the program, revealed that she was pregnant. "They're the ones most likely to be left behind," Johnson says. "They need our help the most."