A chance encounter between one of her students, Vidal Chastanet, and photographer Brandon Stanton thrust Lopez onto the national stage. Stanton travels around New York City, snapping pictures of ordinary people and asking them about their lives. He posts the image and comments to his site, Humans of New York.
Well, this encounter between 13-year-old Vidal and Stanton when viral. Here’s the teenager’s response when the photographer asked him to identify the person who’s been most influential in his life:
“My principal, Ms. Lopez…When we get in trouble, she doesn’t suspend us. She calls us to her office and explains to us how society was built down around us. And she tells us that each time somebody fails out of school, a new jail cell gets built. And one time she made every student stand up, one at a time, and she told each one of us that we matter.”
Brownsville, a neglected neighborhood with a heavy concentration of public houses, is one of poorest communities in the city. It’s no wonder that Lopez’s determination to see her middle schoolers succeed won her accolades, a book deal, and a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House.
NewsOne spoke with Lopez to discuss her initiatives, which are setting young lives on a track that leads to college and personal success.The principal’s “I Matter” initiative focuses on her male students. Lopez launched that program after mentors in the My Brother’s Keeper program routinely failed to show up to support the boys. Part of what inspired “I Matter” was a disturbing string of shootings, which included Trayvon Martin and several kids in Brownsville.
Lopez met with her staff and they decided to create “I Matter” as a way for the boys to “reaffirm to themselves that they indeed matter, even when society tells them they don’t.”
The principal, who grew up in a more middle-class section of Brooklyn, recalled consoling students after a grand jury decided not to indict a police officer in one of the cases that roiled the Black community.
“I told each of them to get up, individually, and say ‘I matter,’” she recalled. “I wanted them to know their place and their value in this world.”
Under the program, Black men working in the criminal justice system, entrepreneurs, and professionals meet with her male students. She has now taken the program into the local community so that more young Black males can benefit.
The principal also organized a mentorship program around the girls called “She is Me.” Women, from celebrities to local business owners, meet with the girls to share stories about their personal struggles and triumphs. The aim is to empower the girls by letting them know that women who appear polished and successful today once faced similar obstacles as they do.
More at Black America Web