[img]2335|right|George McKenna||no_popup[/img]Let there be no doubt about why the mainstream black community of South Los Angeles voted its manly son, George McKenna, to the LAUSD School Board nearly a month ago.
Standing before an adoring crowd of hundreds on Saturday morning in the classic auditorium of Washington Prep High School, his defining alma mater as a hallowed administrator, Mr. McKenna’s eyes swept across the traditional setting, inside and out.
His elegance shimmered in the golden reflection of this special lifetime moment, on the very day he turned 74 years old.
“This is our sanctuary,” he said, reverently. “This is where we built our children. This is where we grew the crop that has now become the blossom that goes out into the world and makes a difference.”
Those poetic, heartfelt words could be inscribed on a plaque in the Denker Avenue school where he carved his nationwide reputation.
Cynicism Was for Others
Not a trace of cynicism was evident after more than half a century in Los Angeles high schools, before slipping into temporary retirement.
Not a trace of cynicism after one of the most bruising campaigns in LAUSD history, where the big boys play. All of the punches were thrown by the other side. Alex Johnson, out of the office of County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, a non-educator trained in the law, heavily outspent Mr. McKenna in the spring election and last month’s runoff.
Non-educators are not strangers to the School Board. However, to the 9.5 percent of South Los Angeles voters who participated on Aug. 12, Mr. Johnson’s lack of educative seasoning was overwhelmed by Mr. McKenna’s mountain-high background – and shiny record.
Carefully avoiding stepping into overt criticism, Mr. McKenna decried the unblushing campaign attempts to pit community members against each other.
In the Washington Prep auditorium jammed with stars of the community, Mr. McKenna, speaking intimately of the life he has led, disdained elaborate oratory for quintessential eloquence.
Unity Should Transcend Differences
With a not particularly oblique reference to the late campaign, emphasizing the plural rather than the singular, he pledged fealty to unity. He presented himself as a common man of the common people, with an accent on everyone.
In pursuit of positivity over negativism,
“Why are we here?” he asked. “We are here because of community. We are here because we did what was necessary to be here. You and I are connected.”
That led into perhaps the most pragmatic theme of the New Orleans native. “We now need to talk about something which is even more important, unification of that which was fabricated.”
Seldom has a Los Angeles politician turned a classier phrase in describing what his camp called a character assassination that failed.
He comes in peace and harmony, he said.
In extending a branch of olives to the Johnson campaign, Mr. McKenna said that “there always is a place for coalitions, for reconciliation and restorative justice. This is important in any situation where we have, in some ways, appeared to be divided.
‘Don’t Aid Dividers’
“We should not allow ourselves to be divided internally in our community. There are enough people who are not in this community who would love to divide us on their own.”
In yet another memorable turn of phrase, Mr. McKenna said (while some glanced over their shoulders at the late campaign of Mr. McKenna’s rival):
“We should not be persuaded to savage ourselves.
“We are not here for personal gain. We are here to make a commitment and to continue the service to the community of children and families. In our profession, teachers, staff, everyone serves children.
“Not anything is more important in this world than children.
“I don’t have any family of my own,” and that acknowledgement may have underscored all the more Mr. McKenna’s satchel of singular educational accomplishments.
He cannot, however, rest, in completing the School Board term of another former Washington Prep principal, Marguerite Pointdexter, who died last Dec. 5.
The March 3 primary for a full new term is less than six months into the future.
