Native Son Returns Home to L.E.A.D.
Native son returns home to L.E.A.D.
By: Sasha Heller, News Editor
<<First Freedom Project fellow to graduate returns as program director >>
One of Sunflower’s shining stars has returned home to lead the way for the next generation.
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Chris Perkins, a town of Sunflower native, has rejoined the Sunflower County Freedom Project as the new program director. Perkins — part of the Freedom Project’s original class 10 years ago — is the first fellow to graduate from college.
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“Chris brings a wealth of experience and a lot of energy, too,” Executive Director Sarah Hoftiezer said. “Perkins was here from the very beginning so he’s seen the project go from its fledgling status as a summer program all the way to a year-round academic program. He’s our first real success story.”
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A Berea College (Ky.) grad, Perkins said the project offered him a safe place to come to as well as direction on a path that would ultimately lead to a higher education.
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The new program director majored in African American studies though that wasn’t his first choice of subjects.
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“I was really expecting to study psychology,” he said. “It’s just coming from a place like Sunflower County — a place so rich in Civil Rights history, so rich in the African-American experience, it’s much more fascinating to me.”
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Perkins recalls how when he joined the project as a sixth-grader he was quiet and introverted but his involvement with drama and interaction with the fellows drew him out of his shell.
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“I didn’t say two words to anybody that entire first summer,” he said. “I was very shy, very quiet, a very reserved person.”
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The program also worked to instill a sense of confidence in Chris that enabled him to succeed in school.
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“I was not accustomed to doing well in school,” he said. “I learned that it was possible for me to do well in school and that I had the potential to excel academically.”
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Chris’ first job was with the Freedom Project as a summer instructor. After completing his four-year fellowship and participating in an internship in Washington, D.C., as a junior he started teaching the younger fellows during the summer program.
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“I’d been in the Freedom Project and done about all I could do,” he said. “We were the first class so we were pretty much pioneers and the idea was presented to me to teach here.
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“It’s not something I ever thought about before,” he continued. “But since that summer, I knew this is where I was going to be after I graduated. I knew that I was going to be back here teaching.”
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Perkins is quick to share how the project has impacted his life.
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“I never would have been able to go to college had I not been in the Freedom Project,” he said candidly. “When I was in the sixth grade, I was a ‘D’ student. I just assumed that I got poor grades because I wasn’t smart enough to do any better.”
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Public speaking drills, dramatic performances and attending classes after school 5-6 days per week had a profound, lasting effect on Chris.
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“The Freedom Project really guided me onto the path that I’m on today,” he said. “And as a teacher, it made me realize just how passionate I was about the place I’m from.
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Coming home
“Even now, I’m back and all my friends, people I went to high school with, even relatives will say, ‘You’re back? You came back to Mississippi? You got out. What are you doing back?’”
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It was that first summer of teaching with the project that provided Chris with the sudden realization that anything was possible.
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“I just realized there’s something I have to give back,” he said. “I can make this place better. If everybody that has potential to do great things leaves, then we’ll always be where we are. We’ll always be here.”
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It’s that drive to give back to the community and to the project that instilled a sense of greatness, a can-do willingness to strive to achieve that has brought Perkins back home.
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“I got a lot from the Freedom Project,” he said. “It got me to where I am today and the least I can do is give back and give these students the opportunities to do what I did.
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“It is possible for us Freedom Project students, for us Mississippi Delta students, to go off to a four-year college, to have dreams and to be able to achieve them. I just think that as African Americans the examples of success are so limited.”
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He added that channels like Black Entertainment Television can sometimes send the wrong message to young African Americans about what it really means to be black.
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“I just think it’s important for young students to have somebody to say, ‘He came from where I came from. He looks like I look. I can do what he did.’ That’s the example that I want to set.”
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Perkins, 23, and his three brothers were raised in Sunflower by his mother and great-grandmother.
Sunflower County Freedom Project Program Director Chris Perkins demonstrates the "front stance" position in his beginner's tai kwon do class. Perkins was the first Freedom Project fellow to graduate from college and has returned to continue working with the organization.
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“Most of my extended family is still in Sunflower,” he said, adding that a few of them are currently enrolled in the project. “I really enjoyed growing up in Sunflower. It was difficult to find something to do but, for me, my saving grace was the Freedom Project.”
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The future of freedom
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Hoftiezer said she’d like to see the program expand its enrollment to be able to serve more students. However, being a 501c3 program means the project does not receive any financial assistance from the government.
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“So it’s always a challenge to keep ahead of the bills and to stay on top of the grant schedule,” she said. “We’d like to see more community support, more investment from community leaders.”
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Hoftiezer also cited recruitment as one of the program’s challenges.
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“It’s not getting the students here but keeping the students here for six years,” she said. “A six-year commitment is huge for anybody especially for a seventh-grader.”
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Perkins said he’d like to see the project expand into other counties and continue to inspire fellow Mississippi students.
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“I’d love to see Tupelo County Freedom Project,” Perkins said. “I’d love to see us branch out and to see people use our model and continue to do great things across the state and across the country.
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“Our ultimate goal as an organization is to get every student that comes through our program into a four-year college of their choice,” he continued. “But the most important thing to me is that the Freedom Project continues to exist. These doors must stay open to continue to do the work that has proven successful in this part of the country.”
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Printed in the Enterprise-Tocsin, August 26, 2010.
