Fifth in a series
Re “Hollywood Instead of Compton Might Have Been Bradley’s Base”
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Mr. Bradley shakes hands with a fan. Photo, John Youngblood.
Dateline Compton – Instead of chasing Hollywood when he graduated college in 1980, Omar Bradley, hoping to return as mayor of Compton in Tuesday’s runoff, took an intended permanent detour into education.
“I had a lesson plan for my students,” he said. “I would draw Africa on the chalkboard, and I would say, ‘What country is that?’ One would say ‘Africa.’ I would point to another kid and say, ‘What country is that?’ ‘Africa.’
“And I would say ‘Africa is a continent, not a country. I want you to understand the meaning of words. It is very important, what words actually mean. What is a continent?’
“And so,” said Mr. Bradley, “as my students began to understand, what they knew was not the whole truth, and I could encourage them to go to the dictionary and start looking up the meaning of words.
“Find their roots. What did they mean originally?
“I would tell them, ‘You are speaking English. But this is really a Germanic language. Most of the people who migrated here, though they came through the British Isles, weren’t British. Through invasion, war and conquest, they were another people. They are the true Americans. This is why America is a Protestant nation, not a Catholic one. What does it mean to be a Protestant? To be under protest.
“I taught the kids that ‘there is more to the lesson than I am actually getting.’
“My classes were so quiet, one day the superintendent stopped by and asked how I did it. I told her that you have to get kids interested in looking behind the meaning of words. The idea is to get them to think universally not just locally.”
The pedantic side of Mr. Bradley hardly is known among some voters. His school days were so long ago, and then in the ‘90s, corruption and violence, seemingly endemic here, turned into steel-strong ribbons around the legacies of many Compton cops and politicians.
Three decades later, the 55-year-old Mr. Bradley can divide the pie of his adult life into three sections:
- The ‘80s he spent as an educator while eventually casting his keen eye on City Hall, not realizing that moral stomachs of city fathers have been growling and winking ever at the law since those faraway days.
- Two years after being elected to the Compton City Council in the early 1990s, he was elected mayor. The political joyride that alternately illumined and scarred his life, began, quietly, then deafeningly loudly.
- The first ugly/sunny decade of this century has taken him to prison and back, which is where he finds himself this afternoon.
This political soufflé can be a head-scratcher at the polls on Tuesday when residents choose between urban planner Aja Brown and the new Mr. Bradley.
