Call Me Mister

Now seven years old, the Call Me Mister program has placed 20 Black male teachers in South Carolina schools. . . . Call Me Mister focuses primarily on the lower grades. The name is borrowed from a line in the 1967 Sidney Poitier movie, “In the Heat of the Night.” In the film, Poitier, playing Black Philadelphia homicide detective Virgil Tibbs, is confronted by a Southern sheriff played by Rod Steiger. When Steiger’s character asks what the Philadelphia police called Tibbs, he responds with the now-classic line. The line later became the title of the 1970 sequel, “They Call Me Mister Tibbs.”

The program is the brainchild of Dr. Tom Parker, an education management professor at Clemson University, where the program is headquartered. Parker, who is White, made the argument 10 years ago that more Black male teachers were needed.

“Dr. Parker believed that the greatest impact could be made by recruiting, training and finding ways to retain Black male teachers for elementary school children,” says Roy Jones, the program’s director. Jones, who previously was dean of education at Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C., is a teacher-training specialist.

The State Of . . . Brothers in the classroom. With this program, let’s hope it increases. My (rich) first black male teacher in the school was a band teacher in the 7th grade. All the teachers before were women (both black and white) and a white man. Who was your most memorable black male teacher? Have you ever had one?