Table of Ten

After reading an article a few years ago about the United States Supreme Court’s decision to gut affirmative action in college admissions, I immediately traveled back in time to my seat at the table next to my father at a black-tie event hosted by the Atlanta chapter of a well-known African American organization.

It was about 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night. My father and I were seated side by side at a banquet table in a massive ballroom inside the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Atlanta, across the street from where my office now sits.

The room was packed with more than 2,500 of Atlanta’s “who’s who” in Black business, arts, politics, and entertainment. I still remember being a kid, watching on television as Hank Aaron broke the home run record. And there he was that night, just a couple of tables away with his wife.

Civil rights legends, local leaders, and the city’s best dressed all mingled in the glow of chandeliers and the hum of music and conversation.

My mother and my date were with us, but both were off socializing, along with the three other couples my parents had invited to fill our table of ten. My parents were the hosts, which meant they had paid $5,000 to the organization for the table, helping to cover the cost of the five-star hotel, the ornate decorations, and, as always, a worthy community initiative.

But at that moment, it was just Pop and me, alone at our table, surrounded by a sea of celebration.

By then, Pop had long since stopped wearing American-style tuxedos. He dressed exclusively in African attire, not to draw attention to himself, but because he had become so deeply committed to his work that he wanted every part of his life to represent what he believed.

He sat with his arms crossed, a look of exasperation suddenly clouding his face. Before I could ask what was wrong, he started in, his voice low but intense, cutting through the noise.

“I just don’t understand, Hawk. I know it’s the holidays, and this is a party, but I just don’t see how WE, African American people, can be sitting here dancing and singing. All these accomplished people, great minds, with all these resources to pay for these fancy events, but it feels like we are just ‘asleep at the wheel.’”

By now, the ballroom was so loud with laughter and music that I had to lean in to catch every word. When Pop spoke like this, I knew I couldn’t miss a syllable, even with my mother shooting us playful scowls from across the room.

“You are teaching Hakim bad habits, Asa,” she would say in these situations. “Get up and socialize, or he’s going to think it’s all right just to sit there like you!”

“I’m talking to my SON about something important,” he would respond, grinning before turning back to me.

“See, Hawk, I just don’t understand it. Maybe these folks aren’t seeing what I am seeing.

“Everywhere I go, there are efforts afoot in schools across this country that demonstrate a system that completely disregards our children. From tracking, to misplacement in special education classes, to improperly medicating children as an excuse not to teach them, to high-stakes standardized testing that serves no one, to continuing to function with the underlying assumption that poverty is evidence of lack of intelligence.

“Now, they are going beyond denying us our rightful place in the history books in school. They are fighting against the adoption of a school curriculum that serves ALL children. These are OUR babies I’m talking about, Hawk, and we are placing them in danger every day we send them to school."

“I’m in the ROOM with the top scholars who set the agenda for learning, and I know firsthand that their agenda for our children does not consider or contemplate solving the achievement gap. When you go to observe a school’s staff development training in predominantly African American schools and, instead of focusing on best teaching practices, ninety percent of the time they are being directed to teach behavior-management techniques, you KNOW you got a problem!”

He paused, scanning the room, then continued.

“For years, Hawk, I approached this as an academic problem. I studied the IQ tests. I studied the achievement gap. I went looking for schools that were successfully teaching the same children everybody else had already labeled ‘at risk.’ I thought that if we could identify what those schools were doing right, we could show other educators how to do it.”

He shook his head before continuing.

“Eventually, I realized that we already know how to teach these children. I have seen schools do it. I have seen teachers do it. The problem is not that we don’t know HOW. The problem is whether we have the WILL to do it.”

“What do you mean—the will?” I asked.

“I mean that I have been in the room with people at the highest levels of education, people helping to set the agenda for how children are taught in this country. And I have seen a clear absence of will when it comes to educating certain groups of children. Not an absence of knowledge, Hawk. An absence of will.”

He leaned closer.

“And if we can know how to teach a child and still choose to leave that child behind, what does that tell you about every other part of this society?”

“That it’s not just about education,” I said.

“EXACTLY! Education is where I came to understand it. But education is not the only place it exists.”

He paused for a moment.

“It’s almost as if we don’t believe that the few gains we’ve made can be reversed. This is why you must know your history, Hawk! Remember, during Reconstruction, we gained a lot of rights and progressed in certain ways. We even held elected office in some places. But that was all eroded with the rise of white supremacy. Hate toward African American people became commonplace, Jim Crow came into effect, and then the Supreme Court began making decisions that eroded the rights of African Americans, rights that all believed were here to stay.”

“That’s a lot,” was all I could say.

He laughed, arms folded.

“My next book is going to be called Table of Ten. And I’m going to talk about these same issues, and about how every time we sit around at these black-tie events, at tables of ten, with all these important people, and NOT talking about these critical issues we face as a people, we risk the possibility of everything we’ve fought for going away. It’s already happened once, Hawk. Table of Ten, Hawk! You heard it here first. Make sure I get credit for it if someone writes that book before me!”

"Maybe you need to write the book NOW, Pop," I questioned. "People will listen to you!"

"I don't know, Hawk, most people do not know me to listen to what I have to say."

“I’m not saying they don’t know ANYTHING about me. Some may have an idea about what I do, but it’s not like they’ve read any of my books or articles. There’s a smaller part of the community, those interested in education or history, who might know more. But most people just know I’m your mother’s husband, and probably think I’m some sort of professor who wears African clothes and talks about Africa all the time. And you know what? That’s just fine by me.”

He would pause to laugh at himself, then add:

“Honestly, if it weren’t for your mother, most folks wouldn’t know me AT ALL. I’m a homebody, and while I enjoy being here with her tonight, I’d get just as much pleasure being home in my library, researching and writing, while your mom rests on the couch next to me.”

“Are you serious?” I asked him. “You’d rather be working than having fun?”

He smiled.

“This is serious stuff, Hawk!"

"Now, your mother, she’s much better than me with people."

"She’s a social butterfly and loves engaging with our friends. She’s always been the reason we’ve had so many friends, everywhere we’ve lived. And since she’s become the mayor, it’s even more important for her to be at these events. But without her, these people wouldn’t be thinking about me, and that’s perfectly okay.”

Just then, my mother returned with my date in tow, clearly frustrated that we hadn’t so much as stood up since they walked away to socialize.

“Asa, you need to get up and speak to people! You need to get up! If you keep acting like this, you’re showing Hakim that this is okay. It’s not! You’re teaching him to be antisocial.”

She turned to my date.

“Are you sure you want to deal with this?”

They laughed as my mother rested her hand on my father’s back, then grabbed his neck and started again.

“What are you guys talking about, anyway? We’re the hosts of this table, and you aren’t even talking to our guests!”

“I’m talking to my son,” my father replied, laughing. “Let me talk to my son. We’ll be right here. This is important stuff.”

Before she could respond further, my mother was pulled away for another conversation, dragging my date with her again.

My father folded his arms, holding his elbows in each hand, and his tone turned serious as he continued.

“See, Hawk, African American people are in a crisis situation in our community, but those of us in the best position to do something about it are either focused on the wrong problems or are more interested in making sure others recognize our individual accomplishments than we are about helping the community. It’s really easy to become so distracted by adulation that being celebrated starts to become more important than the work that’s necessary for the liberation of our people.”

He stopped to greet a friend passing by, then continued.

“The biggest challenge is that we don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t know who we are. We are asleep at the wheel. We send our children to failing schools each day, schools that don’t teach the whole child and, in doing so, inadvertently teach them that they are inferior.

“Even those of us who have the means to send our children to successful schools often turn them completely over to the school for everything. It is never a good thing to turn the socialization of our children over to other people, to ANY other people. We are the only group of people who do that. So, our children are in danger, and we are willingly placing them there.”

I loved moments like these. He would get in a zone and start “dropping science,” offering his expert analysis on any number of issues.

He was a voracious reader and researcher. His bird’s-eye view of society was always founded upon facts that he would merge together to form his conclusions. In addition to his expansive library, he had subscriptions to more than forty monthly periodicals, from The Christian Science Monitor and Ebony to Popular Mechanics.

“I just have a bias for knowledge,” he would say. “And I am a teacher first. So, I try to digest everything I can on every subject. That helps me to understand how people think and what matters to them, and it informs me as I determine the best way to communicate information I want to share. It doesn’t matter WHAT you have to say if you’re just using big words and people can’t make sense of it.”

“Now, Mr. Hilliard,” he said with a wide grin, arms still folded, “listen closely because I don’t share these nuggets of truth with everyone.”

Looking around, most of the tables within eyesight had been served their dinner. Our guests would be returning soon. I looked at my father, anxious for him to get the rest of his thoughts out before we were interrupted again.

“But what do you mean by ‘Table of Ten,’ Pop?” I asked.

As he often did, he was still sharing background to set up the comment he REALLY wanted to make. So, he ignored my question and continued with his train of thought.

“We are just ASLEEP, as a people,” he said. “And many of our people who appear to have some sense of responsibility to our community have little understanding of the problem and where it comes from. You got to know your history, and specifically how we got here, to have any chance of helping us get back to where we need to be!”

He was rolling now.

“Take African American physicians, Hawk. They go all the way through medical school and never learn that the oath they take when they become doctors, the Hippocratic Oath, is taken in honor of the African father of medicine. The Greeks referred to him by the name Asclepius, but his African name was Imhotep.

“What do you think it would mean for young Black boys and girls to know that the father of medicine was a Black man? More importantly, why do you think this information is hidden from us, and hidden so well that even those of us who are successful medical professionals have NO IDEA about this fact?

“This speaks to the INSTITUTIONAL nature of the problem, and why those of us who are focused on training more doctors in our community are only PART of the solution.

“The degrees we’ve gotten can’t fix our issues. No, we need to take the time to find out who we are, and with that knowledge, we can play a more important role in defining what we want our future to look like, and not simply try to ‘hitch a ride on someone else’s cart.’

“This is what I’m focused on with my work, Hakim, because it’s this lack of knowledge of who we are, this lack of information of how we got to where we are, that has got us so mixed up and confused about what to do, even when our intentions are pure.”

Taking a sip from his water, he continued.

“Hawk, Table of Ten NEEDS to be written because I don’t think we understand how serious this situation is.”

He looked away from me and toward the main stage in the ballroom to make his next point.

“Take tonight, for instance. We are sitting up in a ballroom of the nicest, most expensive hotel in the city. We are wearing our finest clothes, and we’ve paid $5,000 for the opportunity to be here.

“We just got through listening to the president of this organization talking about the $100,000 that we collectively raised tonight to help our community, but we spent more than $500,000 to be here!

“And we go to several dinners similar to this one every year, and we have the same moment in each program where we celebrate each other for our efforts on behalf of our own community. Your mother and I either host a table and invite our friends, or we attend as guests of other couples. It is often the same five couples at each of the events. Many times, we go to a different event on consecutive nights at the SAME hotel.

Looking distressed, he was not done.

“Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate every penny that is put toward causes that help our people. But my concern is that the problem is much deeper than the money we raise each year. It’s the psychosis that prevents us from seeing what to do with our money.

“The problem is that we are sitting up here tonight talking about helping Black people, and we are less than a mile away from one of the most socially and economically challenged African American communities in the nation. But most of the people we plan to help with the money WE raise tonight do not live in that community because we adopted society’s view of that community, that it cannot be saved.

“And contrary to what we are taught, the people in that community have the same brilliance among them that is in this room tonight, and they can see us clearly for the fools that we are.

“The people in that community down the street see the hollowness of our claims of love for our community because few, if any, of us here tonight actually LIVE in that community. And rather than host an event like this in the one Black hotel in our community, the one sitting in the middle of a community that society has given up on, we ignore that hotel as it slowly crumbles to the ground.

“Hawk, I would gladly give my $5,000 that I paid tonight to Paschal’s Restaurant so that this event could be hosted there. You wouldn’t even have to give me a seat. You could serve me a piece of fried chicken on a Styrofoam plate, and I would enjoy it from my place along the wall in the corner of the room.

“In fact, you wouldn’t even have to pretend to feed me or have an event at all. I would just stop by to drop off my money.

“Could you imagine what it would mean for Paschal’s if every organization that has these annual events would host them there?”

Before I could react, he had more to say.

“But what you really need to ask yourself is why we, presumably the best and brightest in our community, can’t see this. We can’t see that there is something fundamentally wrong with our psyche, that we give our money to the Ritz-Carlton for a black-tie event but then drive down the street past Paschal’s as quickly as we can to avoid getting robbed.

“Hawk, I love your mother and will follow her wherever she goes. I always have and always will. But we are in a serious crisis in our community, and that’s why I can’t stop trying to learn more and to find ways to get this information out to everyone.”

Sitting pensively, he continued again.

“Yep, Table of Ten. That’s what I’m going to call my next book. It needs to be written.”

As I began to process my father’s words, my mother and my date returned to the table.

“Are you guys done?” my mother asked as she and my date sat down to begin eating their meals.

“I’m just talking to my son,” my father responded with a smile.

“I’m just talking to my son.”

Looking back, I realize that Pop could not fully enjoy the party because he could not stop seeing what he believed the rest of us were missing.

Even in that beautiful ballroom, surrounded by music, laughter, accomplishment, and celebration, he was thinking about our children, our history, and how quickly rights that people believed were secure could disappear.

He had spent years studying children whom society had already labeled “at risk.” He had gone looking for schools that were successfully teaching children from low-income communities, children from families struggling with addiction, children carrying every burden that society used as evidence that Black and brown children could not learn.

And he found them.

He found schools and teachers exceeding every expectation. He found children mastering material others had decided was beyond their reach. He found proof that the ability of the children had never been the problem.

The country knew how to teach them.

What it lacked was the will.

And once Pop saw that clearly in education, he began to recognize it everywhere else. If the people sitting at the highest levels of education could know what worked and still allow generations of children to be left behind, what did that mean for every other institution in society?

That was what he was trying to teach me at that table.

Nearly twenty years ago, Pop was telling me that we needed to wake up. He had already seen what could happen when a people became comfortable with their progress and stopped watching the forces working to reverse it.

That is why the Supreme Court’s decision carried me back to that ballroom. Pop never got the opportunity to write Table of Ten. But today, I cannot stop wondering what he would say about how much of what he feared is now taking place before our eyes.

I think he would fold his arms, look at me, and say what he said that night:

“It needs to be written.”

And perhaps this is my way of beginning.

For Those Who Want to Know More:

The conversation I have shared in this story grew out of my father’s lifelong work as an educator, psychologist, historian, and advocate for equal educational opportunity.

He spent years studying schools and teachers who achieved extraordinary results with Black and brown children whom society had labeled “at risk.” His conclusion was not that we needed to discover whether these children could learn. The evidence had already answered that question.

We knew how to teach them.

The harder question was whether our educational institutions had the will to provide every child with what was already known to work.

The following works provide some of the foundation for the ideas Pop was sharing with me that night:

• Asa G. Hilliard III, “Public Support for Successful Instructional Practices for At-Risk Students”. In this report, Pop identified successful schools and teaching programs, including the Marcus Garvey School in Los Angeles, Dunbar Elementary School in Atlanta, and Project SEED, that demonstrated the academic potential of children routinely labeled “at risk.”

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• Asa G. Hilliard III, “Do We Have the Will to Educate All Children?”, Educational Leadership, September 1991. Pop examined educators who produced exceptional results with Black, Hispanic, low-income, and previously low-performing students. He argued that the central question was not the children’s capacity to learn, but whether educators possessed the vision, preparation, expectations, and will to teach them.

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• Asa G. Hilliard III, “If We Had the Will to See It Happen,” in Letters to the Next President: What We Can Do About the Real Crisis in Public Education (2004). This later work continued his argument that educational failure persisted not because successful approaches were unknown, but because the country had failed to summon the will to make success available to every child.