<Begin Segment 26>

AI: Let me ask you more about this, because it sounds like this was really the beginning of a youth-focused service...

TI: Yeah.

AI: ...program, and also was it unusual for a social service agency to have a multiracial staff the way that you did?

TI: Yeah.

AI: Edwin Pratt was African American...

TI: Yeah.

AI: ...you're a Japanese American.

TI: Right.

AI: And then your other staff people?

TI: (My first full-time secretary was African American). Yeah, it was a program, volunteers, everyone was pretty well mixed all along. Those we served were also mixed. And seemed the right thing to do. So one of the things I believed in because it was a fact, that (we had a series of exceptional African American workers). And so I willingly accepted that reality, and I encouraged people to apply. [Narr. note: I accepted the fact that our workers would be in high demand, so the least I could do was make sure all workers would be better skilled as a result of working at the Atlantic Street Center. Every effort was made to share leadership roles. As a result, one year two of the top African Americans were offered much greater salaries, but they rejected the offers because of their opportunities for assuming leadership roles. They didn't believe other agencies could offer such access into leadership.]

AI: Your staff people?

TI: Yeah. Uh-huh. So I had a, a university student at the time, but Miss Barr was one of my workers in the housing project, and she later became head of Lincoln High School, also a dramatist, real good stage... voice was excellent. And I had, of course, I had Pratt, was the director of Urban League, and later Walt Huntley, who was, who worked at the center as a social worker, then became director of model cities program, [Ed. note: Narrator is referring to the Model City Program] which was very successful. So my expectation to the staff was, "You will be a much better person as a result of working at Atlantic Street Center, and getting you ready to go out into the community to work, too." So we were, developed a mentorship program early on. The, the national sponsor of the United Methodist Church was against what I was doing because all the other settlement houses were keeping the traditional route.

AI: So when you say "against what you were doing," you mean your decision to focus on the youth...

TI: Troubled youth. [Narr. note: Changing the agency from a multi-focus settlement house program to a single focus on troubled youth who were un-served.]

AI: ...needs and the troubled youth and services to them. And the other settlement houses had a broad range...

TI: Yeah.

AI: ...of services and programs. And so what happened when you had, came into conflict with them?

TI: Well, I wasn't appreciated very much, you know, from the national leadership. I knew that people can't appreciate, make radical change in an organization that's been existent from 1910, doing the same thing. But I really didn't think the agency should be just doing "happy time" program. It had to have more substance. So when I changed the direction of the agency and United Way was able to approve it, and national somewhat approve it grudgingly, at that time, I had two social workers and me. And then later, we were able to get one more. It was small, small staff. And after two years of sweating it out and trying to help these kids, I wondered, "There must be a better way to help these kids." So reading the literature and reading past research, found, conclusion I found was that the sloppier the evaluation, the greater probability of great success, and the more astute the research is, there'll probably be no success.

AI: You mean evaluation of the service program?

TI: Yeah. For any type, for delinquency across the United States.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.