News :: GLBT
Stewart could become Brockton’s first openly gay City Councilor by John Thomas
Bay Windows contributorFriday Oct 30, 2009 As he leans forward at his desk in an executive office suite in downtown Boston, Jass Stewart said, "Donuts, life, you name it, are all shaped by your imagination."
Recalling his grandfather, Stewart said, "I was taught that the only thing that would limit me is my imagination." Well-dressed, six feet tall with a runner’s physique and shaven head, Stewart speaks softly as he describes the spirit his family instilled in him while growing up poor in a housing project in Dallas, Texas. He has traveled very far since then.
Stewart is a thirty eight year old openly gay African-American running for councilor-at-large in Brockton, Massachusetts. If elected on Nov. 3, he will be the first African-American and the first openly gay member of the city council in its 128 year history.
With the decline of its once flourishing shoe and leather industry, Brockton has endured hard economic times for the last several decades. While in the past the population had been predominantly white, an increase of immigration from Haiti, Cape Verde and Vietnam in the last few years has made the nonwhite population close to 50%. Like most economically depressed cities, Brockton has significant rates of unemployment and crime.
In 1989, at 18 years of age, Stewart came to Massachusetts to study at Boston University and earned a bachelor’s degree in Communications and a master’s degree in education. He spent two years at MIT as a senior research fellow in the Department of Urban Planning. In 1999, with indefatigable energy, he moved to Brockton, bought a house, adopted a seven-year-old child, and founded Invent Media, a social media and technology firm, all within a few months. Brockton appealed to him because of its multicultural diversity. Stewart and his partner Denzil Paul, a computer analyst originally from Trinidad, were married in 2004 when Massachusetts became the first state to recognize gay marriage. He is currently Vice President of Communications at Jobs for the Future, a non-profit organization that does research, practice, and policy around educational reform and work force development.
What is remarkable about Stewart is that in spite of the obvious barriers he has had to overcome -- growing up poor, being African-American and being gay -- his passion is to improve the lives of his fellow residents in Brockton, the city he calls home.
Stewart became involved in the civic issues of Brockton when his son started school there ten years ago. "It is when you have a family that you actually become rooted in a place and your children are what really move you," he said. He was on the Mayor’s task force on after-school programs, on the board of Brockton Neighbors United, a member of the Cable Advisory Board, on the board of the Boys and Girls Club of Brockton, a Crime Watch leader, on the board of Brockton Area Multi-Services, Inc., a member of Brockton Peace Crusaders and founded My Enterprises, a summer program to help Brockton youth use their creativity to become entrepreneurs.
Having established his business in downtown Brockton, he was meeting local residents every day. Over time, he observed a disconnect between them and how city hall seemed to be functioning. "The people I met in the community and in organizations like Brockton Neighbors United were optimistic, hopeful and had great ideas about how to move the city forward, but there was no bridge between them and city government," he said. It was then that Stewart, a registered Democrat, decided to get involved in local politics.
Having never held elected office before, Stewart ran for mayor of Brockton. In the 2007 election he was defeated by James Harrington, the current mayor, by just 700 votes. It was a hard-fought election involving gay smears and false allegations of Stewart’s educational credentials.
When asked why he is running for city council this year, Stewart replied, "Because there has been little or no progress on city issues since my last political run."
"He has the kind of vision and inventiveness to bring good things to the city, a knowledge of national and state resources and the knowhow to bring them to the city," said Ted Giovanni, a Brockton resident and Stewart supporter. Stewart’s campaign website lists his solutions for Brockton’s problems. He addresses the lack of accountability of city officials, the shortage of well paying jobs, the high school dropout rate, the high rate of crime, and environmental problems the city faces.
Two specific areas in which Stewart could bring his professional expertise to help serve the interests of the city are the lack of well-paying jobs and the high dropout rate from Brockton High School. It is in relation to these areas that his work at Jobs for the Future is pertinent.
One of the workforce initiatives at Jobs for the Future that would benefit Brockton is the National Fund for Workforce Solutions. It is a $50 million fund that invests in communities to rebuild their workforce around local industries so that residents of the city can get higher paying jobs. Most of the higher paying jobs in Brockton are now occupied by people who don’t live in the city. The front line workers who have lower paying jobs at these facilities are usually Brockton residents. "We bring the strategies, the knowhow, and lessons learned from other communities about retraining a workforce, so that these workers can move up in their education and get paid more," said Stewart.
Stewart is also involved with the Early College High School Initiative, one of the educational initiatives implemented by Jobs for the Future in 200 high schools around the country. These schools are located in areas where the typical graduation rate is about 35%. "We researched why students were not succeeding in these high schools, identified some best practices and strategies, and then implemented the research," said Stewart.
The initiative established an accelerated curriculum that enables high school students to earn an associate’s degree while still in high school. Stewart was visibly excited when he said, "We have a very high rate of success among kids who were not very likely to graduate. Graduation rates have increased to 90% at these schools, with 40% graduating with a year’s worth of college credit and 11% graduating with an associate’s degree."
This means that these schools provide a better trained work force to the communities in which they are located and parents pay less for college tuition. Stewart mentioned that there is more than $100 million available from the Federal government for states that want to implement the Early College High School Initiative. It appears that Brockton High School, which in 2007 was reported as having a 30% dropout rate, would benefit from such an initiative.
How does someone who grew up economically disadvantaged, become knowledgeable and civic-minded? Stewart credits his parents. His father loaded trucks for a living and his mother, who was the first in her family to attend college, was a teacher. At a time when teachers were paid very little, his family lived in a housing project where crime and violence were common. Although his parents provided the basic necessities, there were very few frills. Stewart remembers drinking sugar water because there was no money for soda, and eating mayonnaise sandwiches.
However, unlike in many disadvantaged homes, his mother read to him, made sure his homework was done, and limited the amount of TV he watched. He described his parents as being very supportive, uncompromising about hard work and forward looking. As an example of how especially forward-looking his mother was, Stewart says she always told him that he was going to college and that it would not be in Texas.
It wasn’t that she thought the local colleges weren’t good enough for Stewart; it was because she knew that there was a world beyond Texas that her son needed to discover. Being a good student, he attended a magnet school in Dallas and was commencement speaker at his graduation. He then came to Boston for college.
When Stewart realized as a teenager that he was gay, he told his parents. To his surprise they were very supportive. It turned out that his mother had her suspicions even before he mentioned it. He was more concerned about the reaction his father would have, but he said, "My father took a deep breath, looked at me and said, ’You’re my son and I’m behind you.’" He continued, "My parents never ceased to amaze me in terms of their ability to cope."
"Now I can look back and see the ability that my parents had, with pretty limited means, to see the bigger picture and how they wanted their kids to move forward and experience the world," he said with gratitude.
It seems the recipe of unconditional love and high expectations gave him a strong sense of self. This in turn helped shape his life by giving him the confidence to overcome significant challenges.
Stewart’s grandfather, who owned a bakery, showed him how to make donuts of any shape and told him that the only limiting factor in life was his imagination. It was a lesson he never forgot. It gave him a passion for shaping not only his own future, but that of his community.
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