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Letter to the editor

NEA to give retired educator King award

A veteran teacher who dedicated his life to improving the educational lot for blacks wins a special national honor.

By SHANNON TAN
Published June 6, 2005

LARGO - James E. Feazell Sr. was born in Mississippi when Mississippi was, well, Mississippi - at least for black folks. Separate but unequal.

He came into the world 58 years ago in a black-only hospital. Later, his folks moved to Pinellas County, which for African-Americans was only marginally better than Mississippi. People who looked like him attended black-only churches. They had to watch films in black-only theaters. White people seldom wanted to swim in the same water as black people.

From his seat on the black-only bus, headed for black-only Pinellas High, the teenager would stare, bewildered, at Largo High. The white school.

At home, he asked his mother about segregation.

Susie Feazell advised her son to accept the unacceptable. "That's the way it is," she told him.

James E. Feazell always tried to obey his mama. He still does, in fact. But he refused to accept the inevitability of racism.

That is one reason that next month, he will travel to Los Angeles to accept the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award given by the National Education Association. He will be the first Floridian so honored.

Among the first black teachers at Largo High School, Feazell, who taught social studies, helped develop a human relations council, founded a Black Culture Club and taught the first African-American history class. He started a black baseball league and a black Boy Scout troop, and he helped students apply for scholarships, choose colleges and find jobs. Later, as a recruiter for Pinellas schools, he was responsible for hiring 648 black teachers in a decade. Even after retiring in 2003, he started a free tutoring program to help students pass the FCAT.

Not bad for an old school teacher who calls himself the "Salt Man."

* * *

Feazell pulls out of the driveway in his old Toyota Camry, blasting Christian music from FM 91.1. A few blocks away, he sees Willie M. Banks leaning on his walker. "Say big brother!"

He honks at Mama Gordon, who's waving from her yard, and he pulls over when he sees Corey Moore, who was part of his Christian middle school group. "What's up, blood?" he shouts.

"Hey, Fee," says Moore.

"All right, doctor!" Feazell replies.

Everyone in Ridgecrest knows Mr. Fee. He was the one who listened to their stories about pregnancy and drugs, who reassured them that one mistake didn't make a person. He made sure they signed up for Brain Bowl competitions, not just sports. He told them it was a blessing to be smart.

"I'm the salt man," he said. "I can't make you drink. But I can make you thirsty."

Feazell was a teacher of second chances, says BeBe Hobson, a former student who is now director of a Christian youth group. "He saw something in you you didn't see in yourself."

Feazell's mother, Susie, still lives in the yellow house she bought in 1960 for $9,999, when Ridgecrest was a black subdivision surrounded by mostly white Largo. It still is. She may not remember what happened an hour ago, but Mississippi is etched in her memory.

She just doesn't want to talk about it.

"Somebody come down and shoot me if I say what it was," says the 83-year-old over a plate of bacon and grits.

Susie Feazell does reveal how hard she worked when her husband was in prison, how hard they prayed when their last penny ran out. When James had no money for high school graduation, a white lady showed up like an angel and took him shopping.

James Feazell's future wife, Gwen, lived four doors down. They met when she was 13 and he was 15.

By eighth grade, Feazell knew he wanted to be a teacher. They helped the most people. After graduating, he won a full scholarship to Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach.

"He probably wanted to become more than a teacher," said his high school principal, Cecil B. Keene, 80. "Teaching was just the beginning."

* * *

Feazell gazed back at the sea of white faces.

It was 1968, and he was taking an exchange class at Stetson University. He was the only black person in the room.

The Bible told him he could do all things through Christ. But he couldn't help but remember how his teachers said whites were better students.

When he got back his first test, he didn't look at his grade right away. He scanned the room. Some of his white classmates scored Cs and Ds. He recalls his grade was an A or a B.

Students were students, he realized. It had nothing to do with skin color.

But he never imagined it was possible to do anything to change decades of injustice, not until he saw the sacrifices the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was making for civil rights. When King was assassinated, he wept in frustration.

"When I get back to Largo," he decided, "I'm going to start making changes in my village."

Feazell was only 21 when he started teaching at Largo High in 1969. The school recently had been desegregated.

Crowds of angry whites demonstrated at schools elsewhere. Racially charged fights broke out at Dixie Hollins and Boca Ciega high schools. Black students, frightened, didn't know what to expect. But many of them already knew Feazell. He was their ally.

"It kind of eased that tension for a lot of us kids," said Samuel Ford, 53, now a Largo High teacher. "He told us, "Be yourself, don't try to change so much. Try to get to know the other side of the corner."'

Feazell became a master at working the school system. He loosened height and weight restrictions that had the effect of excluding some black girls from cheerleading. He started a Little League for black boys. He founded a Black Culture Club and helped schools such as Dunedin, Osceola, Seminole and Gibbs High introduce African-American history in their curriculum.

"The one way you kill people is to take their history," he told students. "They took smart Africans from Africa. They brought them over because they knew they would W-O-R-K. You can't say we won't work; we worked 300 years for free."

When teachers sensed potential problems, they would meet with students to talk things out. Feazell told black students they needed to get help from white folks to succeed. He told white teachers that black students who acted up in class wouldn't turn violent; they were just being loud.

"Things were so wrong," said retired Largo High teacher Barbara Moore, 64. "He tried to make it so right."

* * *

The three Seminole High students pile into the van. "You have some math work today?" Feazell asks Jasmine Smith.

"I have a test tomorrow," says the 16-year-old.

"Oh Lord," Feazell replies.

Jasmine's parents forced her to join the tutoring program founded by Feazell. She had failed the FCAT by 17 points. Feazell would pull her away from her friends. He would tell her not to talk to anyone. Pray. Study. Sit in the front row. Do your best.

After finishing Feazell's program, she passed the FCAT - by 2 points.

Feazell started the free program in 2003, to help Ridgecrest students improve their FCAT scores. If a student has a problem learning, there's a reason, said Feazell.

"Find out how the kid learns," he said. "Find out about the kid's background."

Tijuana Diarra, 28, now a teacher at James B. Sanderlin Elementary School, watched some of her former classmates end up in jail or drop out of school. But Feazell pushed her to attend college, writing her reference letters and notarizing documents, checking on her through friends, aunts, even professors.

"Every year, all four years, that smiling face encouraged me to keep going," Diarra said. "He said if you make it, I'll be there for you."

Some people love teaching, Feazell says. But he loves the people he teaches.

[Last modified June 6, 2005, 01:34:12]