David Caldwell Jr. - On HBCUs (clip)
Interviewed by Blanche Brown on April 24, 2012
David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): That’s why I think that these young people that we have now is – how old is children are our future? Forever, [laughs] you know, it’s been around for a long time. And we got to start listening to it, you know, we got to save them. We got to bring them out, let them know what they can do. Just let them know the possibilities. Just simple things we do here, like we try to set up to let the kids go to the different campuses. Not just, you know, Carolina, State, and Duke. But you got Central, you got Charlotte, you got St. Augustine, Fayetteville State, all these HBCs. And when you go to an HBC, it’s totally different.
Blanche Brown (BB): Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
DC: Totally different. To just get to see one. Every year we take all of our kids and grandkids in a group to Midnight Madness at NCCU. ‘Cause that’s where I played basketball there. And the kids would come in and I had all my grandkids there, my nieces and nephews. And they had seen all of the things, you know, they’ve seen Drumline on TV, and they’ve seen all these things. But they’ve never seen it for real.
BB: Yeah, and it’s something, yeah.
DC: One of my nieces looked up, she said, “Big Dave,” I said, “Yeah?” She said, “There are no Caucasians here.”
BB: [laughs]
DC: And I said, “No, sweetie, [laughs] no there’s not.” [laughs] I said, “This is a different world, right now.” And I have one that’s a little cheerleader. She had a little cheerleader outfit on, of course, when the cheerleaders came out and started doing their thing, she stood up the entire time with her mouth open like “ah!” You know, and not to say that the ACC’s not –
BB: [laughs]
DC: But it’s a different dance, different style, and everything.
BB: Completely, completely.
DC: They do a battle of the bands. And if you jump out on the floor, and you start getting the feeling, the cops aren’t throwing you down – “Get off the floor!” type deal. Yeah, they’re enjoying the show just as much as everybody else. So they enjoy that, and we try to get as many kids out and around to see that kinda stuff. To know what it is, just to get a part of it.
BB: Yeah, perspective. Yeah, for sure.
DC: So it’s just a simple thing. We have a men’s breakfast up at the church once a year, and we were there and we were talking about the things we were doing, and what we wanted to do as far as camping trips and fishing trips. I had a young man say, “Mr. Caldwell, I am nineteen years old and I have never been camping. Please let me know when you’re gonna do it because I wanna be a part of it.” And I said, “I most definitely will.” And these kids just haven’t had anything like that. I mean, we were in the Cub Scouts, and the Boy Scouts – all the guys we grew up with from elementary school to junior high school. Pack 107, I remember that [laughs] First Baptist Church. We were doing it all. Just to remember those things.
