Say It Loud!
Patrick Oliver turns a new page as he takes his reading and writing series to other states
BY HELAINE R. WILLIAMS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
It’s been a long and fruitful road for jack-ofall-trades Patrick Oliver. That road has taken him out of his native Little Rock three times and added many titles to his resume — corporate executive, entrepreneur, youth mentor, book marketer, author, consultant and literacy advocate. He’s most passionate about the last title. Almost single-handedly, Oliver has turned his love for books into a multifaceted career of teaching young people the value of such a love. Founder of the Little Rock-based Say It Loud! Readers and Writers Series, now in its 11th year, Oliver is implementing similar programs for school districts throughout the country. Say It Loud! exposes Little Rock students ages 12-17 to “activities designed to enhance their appreciation for literature as a tool for personal, educational and career development,” according to the organization’s Web site, speakloudly. com. To date, more than 3,000 young people and adults have participated. Say It Loud! represents just one of many irons in the fire for the energetic Oliver. He is still soaring with Turn the Page and You Don’t Stop: Sharing Successful Chapters in Our Lives With Youth, an Essence magazine best-seller. The book, of which Oliver is editor, uses essays, poems, short stories, paintings and photography to promote the power of reading and writing. Most recently a resident of Chicago, Oliver is back in Little Rock, contemplating his future, tending to family matters ... and, as always, churning out programs to promote literacy as a priority among children. “We live in a society today that overpromotes popular culture [to] young people — overpromotion of how you look, what you have on — when we as older adults know that that’s not going to get you anywhere,” Oliver says. “What’s important is what you’ve got in your head. ... We have to make sure these young people coming out of
school these days are functionally literate.” Raised in the Hollingsworth housing project on Little Rock’s eastern side, Oliver says he came to appreciate reading while a student at Hall High School. He read the newspaper to have morning baseball discussions with his grandfather, the late Dave Dickerson. He was also influenced by Beverly Couch, his sister, an avid reader and a “quick wit.” Oliver says he read in school “for survival,” but for pleasure, he turned to black authors, essayists and poets such as Amiri Baraka; Arkansas-born Haki R. Madhubuti, who heads Chicago publishing company Third World Press; and Claude Brown, whose Manchild in the Promised Land was the first significant book Oliver said he read. After graduation from Hall, he studied at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro and Philander Smith College at Little Rock before deciding to move to Southern California. There he entered the corporate world, working as a senior contract administrator for Hughes Aircraft Corp. NEW WORLD In California, Oliver says, he discovered a “huge, diverse environment” that enabled him to meet authors at book signings and conferences. “It gave me, really, a true appreciation for the written word because now I was seeing more than just the book [and words] on the page,” he says. “I was meeting the individual behind the book. And I began to find out that the individual who was writing the book, whom I initially saw as a major superstar, was just like me.” After a layoff due to a military budget cut, Oliver’s career path took a sharp turn. At first, he volunteered at art museums in Los Angeles. But he needed to do something more. In 1991, he returned to Arkansas, armed with cultural merchandise — artifacts, T-shirts and the like — and spent the summer working as a vendor at festivals and other events. When summer ended, he used his profits to open Images of Africa at 1236 S. Main St. The store offered high-end African masks, sculptures, clothing, textiles and jewelry, along with books. Oliver recalls that Images became a cultural center of sorts, hosting discussions about African art, poetry readings and book signings. It became “your neighborhood center where intellects would just come and share their wisdom.” In 1996, Oliver donned another hat, that of restaurateur, moving Images to 1318 S. Main St. and adding Kuumba Kafe. “Kuumba and Images were part of my vision to promote literature as a human right for all people,” Oliver says. In 2000, he moved to Memphis, where he worked as an artist-in-residence with the Memphis Arts Council and helped a black-cultural store develop its business. He also helped form the Marcus Garvey Institute and Teaching Academy, a private school for kindergarten through sixth grade. This wasn’t Oliver’s first experience shaping young minds. While operating Images of Africa, Oliver served as program director at the Gaines Street Center for Community Enrichment, an afterschool initiative of Gaines Street Baptist Church. After realizing the magnitude of the students’ reading and writing deficiencies, Oliver says, he wanted to move the program from a recreational after-school program to a literaryarts-based program to teach the youths about their black heritage and give them “a sense of selfpride.” BROADENING HORIZONS He took students in the program on local field trips and out-of-town trips to Memphis and New York — “so they could see Harlem,” he says. “They read about Harlem, so we took them to Harlem.” They visited the home of Tony Mandina, one of “The Last Poets” — the poet-rappers of the civil rights era — and went to Simon & Schuster to see how a major book publishing company operated. Oliver next worked with the Central Arkansas Library System, founding Say It Loud! in conjunction with the Sue Cowan Williams Branch. He secured grants to bring writers to Arkansas to conduct workshops for students. The Say It Loud! group took field trips to writers’ conferences and other events. Program projects included a radio talk show, a newspaper project and a spoken-word CD and everybody was expected to take part. “You had to be committed,” Oliver says. Participants were required to consider reading and writing as something they would do in college, possibly even as a profession. They also had to enjoy reading and writing, even if these would not be their main areas of college study. Many children dropped out of the program when they realized the intensity of the work. Those who stayed improved their grades in school, Oliver says. Oliver is proud to note that Say It Loud! alumni are now graduates of top universities including historically black colleges and universities. It wasn’t just during Say It Loud! events that Oliver influenced young people. He served as an informal mentor to Shawn Bediako, a Camden native who is a psychology professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Bediako met Oliver during the former’s days as an undergraduate at the University of Central Arkansas at Conway and the latter’s days at Images of Africa. Going to Oliver’s store and perusing the books “was like a weekly journey to me,” Bediako recalls. “Patrick and I just started having conversations every week. I would just keep going ... and we really got to know one another well.” Oliver was one of several black men who impressed upon Bediako the importance of getting an education. And, through the guest authors and speakers he brought to Little Rock, “Patrick just opened up a whole different world to me,” Bediako says. That world motivated him to earn a master’s degree and doctorate. “Patrick has been the most significant teacher that I’ve had outside of [academia],” Bediako says. “I try to emulate him as much as I can.” In 2002, Oliver moved from Memphis to Chicago. A blossoming acquaintance with Third World Press founder Madhubuti had landed him a job as director of sales and marketing for the publishing company. “It was a successful four years,” he says. After leaving the publishing company, Oliver became director of programs for Open Book, a citywide after-school reading program for students in sixth through eighth grade. Living in Chicago was a major adjustment, Oliver says, recalling that he moved there during May and was “seduced” by the festivals and other, numerous cultural events. While in Chicago, he continued to run Say It Loud! with volunteer help back in Little Rock, but he came home frequently to check on things. The program continues, with the promotion of a couple of initiatives. Encouraging Our Sons to Read is designed to ensure that black students graduate functionally literate and have the opportunity to become productive citizens. Another, Literacy Nation, is a radio show that airs at noon each Thursday on KABF-FM, 88.3. The show features authors as call-in guests. And the Say It Loud! Women Empowerment Series sponsors author appearances and discussions conducted by women 18-30. OLD AND NEW Oliver now makes his living as an independent program development specialist and consultant. Pat Ford, executive director of the Chicago High School Redesign Initiative, praises Oliver as “a wonderful organizer.” “I have participated in several of his events,” she says. “Not only was he the most outspoken advocate of adolescent literacy in Chicago, his work is also well-known across the country.” Ford’s organization consulted with Oliver on a youth leadership initiative for high school students. “His input was invaluable,” she says. “And the resources he brought to bear were highquality and appropriate. He is a team player with the rare ability of working well with both adults and young people.” Since Oliver’s return to Little Rock, he has continued to work with the Open Book program’s writing component. He is also working on his second editing project, a series of essays titled What Our Fathers Told Us: Celebrating Their Dedication and Wisdom. The book is due out in the fall. That’s not all. Projects Oliver is helping to develop in Little Rock include the Sherman Park Community Development Organization’s Community Technology Center; FutureTech, a Saturday program for 25 youths ages 12-17 to learn about technology; cultural networking events planned by a handful of different groups around the city; a children’s book festival; and a black writers conference. Oliver is now committed to using his clout with publishers, authors and literary organizations “to give something back to Arkansas.” He wants children here to have access to the same authors, cultural events and other opportunities as children in Chicago and other larger cities have. He said he worries that Little Rock offers an “overload of entertainment venues” for kids, but has a shortage of cultural events. “You have to be creative and you have to be intelligent,” as well as innovative, in today’s world, Oliver is quick to tell young people. “When you are literate, there are so many things you can do.” Reading list Books recommended by Patrick Oliver: Yellow Black: The First Twenty-one Years of a Poet’s Life by Haki R. Madhubuti Tougaloo Blues by Kelly Norman Ellis (poetry) Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture by Bakari Kitwana Black Boy by Richard Wright Race, Law and American Society: 1607 to Present by Gloria Browne-Marshall The Skin I’m In by Sharon Flake (young adults) Ornate With Smoke by Sterling Plumpp (poetry) Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman Monster by Walter Dean Myers Brothers and Sisters by Bebe Moore Campbell The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twentyfirst Century by Thomas L. Friedman The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama The Message: 100 Life Lessons From Hip-Hop’s Greatest Songs by Felicia Pride Say It Loud! events The Women Empowerment Series meets 1-3 p.m. Saturdays at various venues. Future guests include Deborah Gregory, author of Cheetah Girls books (July 12); Victoria Rowell, actress and author; Erika and Monica Simmons, apparel entrepreneurs and authors; Lynn Richardson, mortgage specialist and author; and Cathy Johnson, illustrator. The Encouraging Our Sons to Read project meets 6:30 p.m. Thursdays at various venues. Guests will include Kevin Dunn, puzzle maker; Turtel Onli, comic book illustrator; and Troy Cle, science fiction and fantasy novelist. Guests on forthcoming Literary Nation shows hosted by Patrick Oliver on radio station KABF-FM, 88.3, are: Actor, author and community activist Hill Harper, noon Thursday. Pioneering rapper and author Grandmaster Flash, and music historian and author Bill Carpenter, noon June 19. Educator and author Herb Boyd, noon June 26. For information, e-mail info@speakloudly.com. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STATON BREIDENTHAL Patrick Oliver hosts Literacy Nation, a weekly program at radio station KABF-FM, 88.3, in Little Rock. School district officials throughout the United States have asked Oliver to implement for them models of his successful Little Rock-based youth literacy program, Say It Loud!
Democrat-Gazette/ CHRIS DEAN Joshua Boney, 12, sketches during a meeting about comic books hosted by Patrick Oliver at the Sue Cowan Williams Branch of the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/CHRIS DEAN Patrick Oliver (center) talks about comic books in a meeting that includes volunteer Sean McIntosh (left) and Kavin Alexander, 12. The event was part of the Encouraging Our Sons to Read initiative, a program of Oliver’s Say It Loud! Readers and Writers Series.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/CHRIS DEAN Patrick Oliver (second from right) explains his plans to have youngsters develop comic books during a meeting at the Sue Cowan Williams Branch of the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock. Listening are (clockwise, from bottom left) Kendall Bruce, 13; Calvin Nichols, 17; heads bent William Boyd and Joshua Boney, both 12; volunteers Ken Lewis and Sean McIntosh; and Kavin Alexander, 12.
