Abstract
Julian Earls, former NASA Research Center Director talks about his time at NASA and Cleveland State University’s Nance College of Business Administration. He gives his personal recollections of Carl and Louis Stokes and the Hough Riots. Earls was the first African-American supervisor at NASA and talks about the racism there. He credits Louis Stokes as the reason NASA is still in Cleveland. There are other interesting stories about Civil Rights, Central State University, and Kappa Alpha Si.
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Interviewee
Earls, Julian (interviewee)
Interviewer
Nazelli, Alisa
Project
St. Clair - Superior Neighborhood
Date
7-11-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
49 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Julian Earls Interview, 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 903010_807011.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/405
Transcript
Alisa Nazelli [00:00:00] The date is July 11, and we are interviewing Dr. Julian Earls here at Cleveland State University. And I'd like to hear a little bit about your background, whether or not you're a native Clevelander, where you're from, a little bit about your education and formative years to start out with.
Julian Earls [00:00:17] I'm not a native of Cleveland. I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. That's the Tidewater area of Virginia - Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton. Virginia Beach is where most people gravitate and can recognize. But I went to undergraduate at Norfolk State University, which is one of the nation's historical black colleges and universities in Norfolk, Virginia. Majored in physics, left there, went to the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry for a master's degree in radiation biology, did that under what was then the Atomic Energy Commission fellowship, and left there, came to work for NASA, and after working for NASA a few years, went to the University of Michigan for my doctoral degree in radiation physics and came back to NASA. And after a few years, NASA sent me off to the Harvard Business School for their program for management development. I always worked in Cleveland. My wife is a retired school teacher from the Cleveland public school system. We have two sons, both graduates of Beachwood High School. One is a physician. He finished undergrad at Howard University in electrical engineering, came to Case for medical school, and then went to the University of Maryland. And he's a neurologist. His residency was a neurologist, and he's a pain management specialist. The youngest son went to Norfolk State, my undergraduate school, then went to the American Film Institute in Hollywood, and he's a filmmaker working with Fox Studios in Hollywood.
Alisa Nazelli [00:01:44] Wow, that's great. That's really great. So how was it that you were recruited by NASA? How did you come to Cleveland and begin working for NASA?
Julian Earls [00:01:56] Divine intervention. I always wanted to work for NASA. I was in college and finished undergraduate school in 1964. So I was in high school when Sputnik was launched. NASA was created in 1958, and I decided that I really wanted to work for NASA. So when I finished undergraduate school at Norfolk State, I was offered a position at NASA Langley Research center, which is in Hampton, Virginia, just across the water from my hometown. And I decided I would accept that position. But my major professor in undergrad, Doctor Roy Woods, who became like a second father and anything he said, I just automatically listened to. He said, well, son, before you go to work for NASA, you should go to graduate school. NASA will be there. So I said, okay, went off to graduate school. But as part of my fellowship with the Atomic Energy Commission, I was required to work one summer at one of the national laboratories. So I work at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Brookhaven was where I did work on a Dynamitron electron accelerator. That was the first one being built in the world. The second one being built was being built here at NASA, which was Lewis Research center in Cleveland. So, based on my experience there in Brookhaven, I was offered a position here in NASA and Cleveland. I promised my wife that we would come to Cleveland, work for a couple of years, have my foot in the door of NASA, and transfer back to Langley. Forty years later, we're still in Cleveland. [laughs] But it was because of the work that they were doing there was closely related to my work in graduate school.
Alisa Nazelli [00:03:35] Okay, so then what year did you permanently relocate?
Julian Earls [00:03:39] I moved here in 1965. I moved to Cleveland.
Alisa Nazelli [00:03:42] Okay, so that's two years before Carl.
Julian Earls [00:03:45] Stokes was elected mayor.
Alisa Nazelli [00:03:48] Well, what do you remember about that time period? Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences moving to Cleveland socially and then talk a little bit about what you remember about that election?
Julian Earls [00:04:03] Well, coming to Cleveland was not that difficult, because at that time, the Cleveland public schools were really recruiting teachers, and they had an intense effort. So they actually went around and visited many of the universities and colleges to recruit. So there are several of my classmates who were recruited to come teach here in Cleveland. So when I came to Cleveland, several of us came about the same time. So we kept that relationship that we had built in undergraduate school here in Cleveland. And, of course, it expanded to meet others who were moving into Cleveland about the same time, at NASA, I was meeting people who had finished undergraduate schools at historic black colleges and universities. And there's sort of a bonding, because even though you don't all attend the same school, you play football games, basketball games, and you get to know each other through fraternities, sororities, and so forth. So coming to Cleveland was really exciting. In those days, several of my colleagues worked on the Carl Stokes campaign. They passed out flyers and worked in the office that was located around the city to help Carl win. I did not participate in that. I was so busy trying to get settled into my job with NASA that at that time, I met Louis Stokes and Carl Stokes. Because when I talk about fraternities, there's a fraternity that's Kappa Alpha Psi. It's one of the three major fraternities in the African American male community. Both Carl and Lou Stokes were members of my same fraternity. So when I came to Cleveland, we bonded together as a result of that.
Alisa Nazelli [00:05:48] Okay, good. And so did you have. Who did you know more, Carl or Lou?
Julian Earls [00:05:55] Lou. Yes.
Alisa Nazelli [00:05:56] And what about his election to Congress? What do you remember about him?
Julian Earls [00:06:03] I remember that there was a lot of discussion about whether or not Carl should really have been the one going to Congress. And there was speculation that had Carl not been mayor of the city of Cleveland so recently, that he would have, in fact, been the one that would have gone on to Congress. But Lou had earned a lot of respect, and his experience base was certainly strong within the African American community. So he was a natural second choice, if you will, and he might chuckle a little bit and find out that, well, he probably acknowledges, too, that he was a second choice as far as his brother was concerned. But, of course, Carl was the center of tension. He was the magnet, and people believe that it was because of the magnetism associated with the Stokes name that Lou Stokes was elected to go into Congress. But there was a lot of work and a lot of support for him in the community.
Alisa Nazelli [00:07:02] Good. In that time period, where did you move to first? Where was your first home?
Julian Earls [00:07:11] My first home was right in Cleveland. I lived in Cleveland off 144th and Kinsman. Vibrant neighborhood at the time. Changed quite dramatically now, though, and from there, I moved in another part of Cleveland. And when our kids were in elementary and junior high, we moved to Maple Heights, and moved in Maple Heights in 1969, and then moved to Beachwood in 1976. I've been there ever since.
Alisa Nazelli [00:07:43] Shortly before Carl was elected, in the summer of 1966 the Hough riots took place. What do you remember about that? And do you think that that that incident helped shape his election to any degree?
Julian Earls [00:08:00] I personally, I believe it did, because the Stokes had such respect in the community, such broad-based respect, that the presence of Carl Stokes and the action that he took sort of validated that not only was he, and not only the two of them, as a matter of fact, connected with the grassroots community, but their exposure and the things that they had done at all levels within the community sort of made people look at them with the belief that they were not acting out of a selfish interest, that they were not looking for visibility, they were not looking for publicity, that they were genuinely interested in making peace, and, in fact, building coalitions within the community. So it's just the fact that they had grown up in projects and so forth, so people could relate to that and to come from that background and not forget their upbringing, I think helped make believers out of people when they were trying to convince them that we were not going to achieve anything by burning down our neighborhoods and so forth.
Alisa Nazelli [00:09:21] Okay, what do you remember about those, about that incident, personally? What do you recall?
Julian Earls [00:09:30] I just recall that it was a time of great apprehension, not having grown up in Cleveland but watching what was happening around the nation in terms of civil rights, not supporting or believing that that was the right thing to do but certainly understanding how frustration could so build up that it would explode that way. And in those times, there were any number of problems confronted by the African American community, the black community, civil rights and so forth. And as a matter of fact, even at NASA, there were challenges. And one of the things that Lou Stokes did that we can get into is Lou Stokes was the champion for the black employees who were confronted with any number of problems and issues and, in fact, racism at NASA Lewis Research center.
Alisa Nazelli [00:10:30] Okay. What were some of the instances that you personally encountered, if you don't mind my asking?
Julian Earls [00:10:36] No, no, don't mind at all.
Alisa Nazelli [00:10:38] And good, because it's really, as a teacher, it's really interesting to me. I teach a course called human rights and one of the things that I like to focus on is our issues of race. So this is very informative to me. So if you could speak to that a little bit and how Lou addressed those issues.
Julian Earls [00:10:55] Okay. Really well. Okay. When I started working at NASA in 1965, there were about 6,000 employees total. Of those 6,000, there were less than 50 black scientists and engineers and technicians across the board. So we were very small, percentage-wise, I think the numbers may have got up to around 90 or so a few years after that. So if you really want to define an old boys network, NASA was. If you look back up in the dictionary, you would have seen a photograph of NASA Lewis Research Center. There were whites who had become managers and supervisors. They had brought on their family members who were being hired. When you looked at promotions, we didn't have blacks who were in supervisor positions or any highly visible projects or working on highly visible projects and so forth. When I came on board, I was sort of a catalyst for a lot of stuff going on, if you will, because I noticed what was going on. And as a matter of fact, I became so disillusioned that I left NASA. I started with NASA in September of 1965. In November of 1967, I resigned and went to work for the Atomic Energy Commission in New York City. I left and NASA called and asked me to come back in April of 1968. So I told them, the only way I'll come back is I will come back as a supervisor, as the head of the group within which I had worked. And they agreed. So I came back and became the first black to lead a section in the history of NASA Lewis Research Center. Now, I suppose they thought that I would be what we would call a safe Negro then, because I became a part of management. But that's when I started to discover all kinds of things that were inappropriate. For example, there was a management training course on leadership, and that was provided right there at NASA. During this course, there was a section that dealt with humor. And as you know, many of the leading business schools believe now that humor is a critical factor in being successful as a supervisor. So I'm sitting in this class and they have this list of supposed jokes where you are to pick the punchline to match the joke. And in it they've got these racist stories about Eliza, the old colored washer woman, and Festus and all. And I looked at this and was absolutely appalled. So I went straight to the top within NASA and said, this is unacceptable. This is racist. This is actually being taught in a course for management leadership at this center. That's unacceptable. And fortunately, the individual to whom I went was a fellow named Henry Barnett. Many people thought that Henry would actually dig in as a Confederate under the Confederate flag. And so because he was from Richmond, Virginia, a southerner, but it turns out my being from Virginia, his being from Virginia, we sort of bonded on basically that. And he immediately removed that material and asked me if I would help them by becoming a member of the equal opportunity committee at NASA Glenn. But because of those kinds of problems, lack of supervisors, lack of blacks being hired and so forth, that's when we went to Lou Stokes and Arnold Pinckney was his chief of staff. So my first interaction with that office was when we went to them and asked them if they would help the black employees at NASA achieve a greater level of equality and fairness.
Alisa Nazelli [00:14:47] Okay, I'm just going to interrupt for 1 second. I can hear the.
Julian Earls [00:14:52] Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, forgot. Get my hands in the pocket.
Alisa Nazelli [00:14:58] Okay. So it was part of your work on the Equal Opportunity Commission, was that the name of the commission?
Julian Earls [00:15:05] Equal Opportunity Committee? It was the first one formed at NASA, and it was made up of employees and managers, a committee that was chartered to look at race relations at the center and develop policies, procedures to recommend to management for improving the situation.
Alisa Nazelli [00:15:28] How did Stokes and his office help with that process? And do you think that the committee was successful?
Julian Earls [00:15:35] The committee was successful. The leverage from Stokes was Stokes was a member of Congress, and NASA's budget comes from Congress. So if you have someone sitting there who could in fact impact the budget for your agency, you tend to pay a little more attention to them. So in fact, even today, the Ohio delegation is extremely critical in advocating for a fair share of the NASA budget to come here to what is now NASA Glenn Research Center. But we went to Congressman Stokes as black employees and just laid out the picture in terms of ratings for blacks. By that we mean at NASA Glenn Research center, employees were given adjective ratings. You could be poor, fair, successful, outstanding. And no black in the history of NASA Glenn Research Center had ever received an outstanding rating. And my point was, well, NASA, you take all this pride on not hiring people except in the top of their classes. So we're sitting here with all these honor graduates in science and engineering disciplines who come in at the top, and yet you say that in all the years that they've been working here, you've not found a single one who has been outstanding. And we presented those data to Congressman Stokes. We looked at the average salary levels for the black employees, and there were wide gaps between black employees and white employees with the same degrees, same work experiences, same numbers of years of services. But blacks were not able to penetrate those high grades. So those were the kind of data that we went to Congressman Stokes and presented to the management at the center. We also of decided the. That we needed to get involved with the Equal Opportunity Commission that was here in Cleveland. So this fella named Chester Gray. And Chester was a great friend. He just passed recently. He was a great friend of the Stokes. And we went to Chester Gray and we decided that we would have an Equal Opportunity Day at NASA Glenn Research center to place emphasis on what was being done. The center director at the time was Bruce London. And I remember there was a woman who was Hispanic, who came from Washington with the EEOC, and she was on the program, made the presentation, after which the center director, Bruce London, walked up to the microphone and said, I understand equal opportunity. However, I still prefer female secretaries and male airline pilots in an auditorium full of people. [laughs] So when she finally went up to the microphone, she said, well, that might be your personal preference, but it happens to be illegal to, in fact, act upon that preference. But those are the kinds of things we've confronted. As a matter of fact, when we sat with him in this committee room, there's an, in the administration building, there's a conference room. And I vividly recall that all of us were sitting around the room with the woman from Washington, DC, with the head of the regional EEOC. And he came in and sat on the table at the front of the table. You talk about the ultimate disrespect. And so we were making sure that Congressman Stokes and people were aware of the type of leadership that existed at the center at those times. And he was. He. If I fast forward, the reason that NASA is still there has a lot to do with Congressman Stokes using his influence, because with the NASA administrator who came in, Dan Goldin, Dan Goldin came as administrator. Stokes met with him and Congressman Stokes words were, I am not going to continue to support an agency that does not treat people fairly. I cannot afford in good conscience to have my city sitting up over the hill with people not being treated fairly with all the problems confronted there, and continue to support a federal agency that does not exhibit fairness and equality of opportunity. And there's a lot that goes into the story, but that center director that was there, as a result of some things that happened to me personally and Congressman Stokes' intervention, ended up being removed.
Alisa Nazelli [00:20:34] Really?
Julian Earls [00:20:35] Yes.
Alisa Nazelli [00:20:36] This is very powerful. So you and you had a direct hand in changing NASA Glenn research Center here in Cleveland.
Julian Earls [00:20:47] Well, let me tell you this story.
Alisa Nazelli [00:20:50] Please. Please tell.
Julian Earls [00:20:50] Okay. All right.
Alisa Nazelli [00:20:51] Thank you.
Julian Earls [00:20:53] I went off to Michigan for my doctoral degree and I came back and became then head of an office. So I went from a section head to head of an office, first black to head an office there, went from there to head of division, the first black head of division there. Meanwhile, we are still fighting these problems of equality of opportunity, keeping Congressman Stokes informed. And Congressman Stokes and Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar would periodically come to NASA and meet with the senior management about the problems that we were confronting. I was in what was then the next level of the organization called a directorate. And my boss, who became like a second father to me, really tremendous fellow named Ed Richley, who was white. There were five of us as division chiefs were reporting to Ed Richley. When Ed would leave to go away, he would rotate acting, each one of us in the acting position for him. Well, he only did that a few times. And then every time he would leave, I would be acting. And I questioned why he was doing that. He said, well, Julian, when you are acting and I come back, my inbox is empty. When others are acting and I come back, there's a stack of stuff left for me to do. I don't need someone leaving work for me. The only reason I give you that story is because Ed Richley decided to retire. And when he retired, I was appointed acting in that position. But I had to compete for that position because in the federal government, positions are advertised as competitive process with a panel that selects the top candidates. I was selected by the panel as the individual to get that position. But a group of white employees went to the media, complained that I was dictatorial, that I had discriminated against white employees by promoting unqualified Hispanics, unqualified black employees, that I had taken money from contractors who were minority contractors to give them contracts at NASA. So I was the subject for one solid week with Carl Monday, and I've forgotten the other woman's name on tv. This was in 1987-88. I was on tv with people whose faces were dark and blacked out, voices electronically distorted, accusing Julian Earls of being the worst thing to come along since Hitler. NASA then decided the management there that I would not get the position that I had been selected for by an independent panel. But that's not just the worst of it. In addition to my not getting the position, the division I had was abolished. I'm the first person in NASA to apply for a position not only not get it, but to have the job I have destroyed in the process. They left me with one small little group, the head of which was a physician who was the architect of the conspiracy to keep me from moving to the next level. And that was sort of common knowledge. All right? Congressman Stokes would not settle for that. Congressman Stokes, the broader community, employees at the center of black, white, Hispanic, they started a drive, got petitions, sent petitions to the president of the United States, to all members of Congress protesting about the treatment I received. And the black employees put together a book, a volume of things that are wrong at NASA Glenn Research center in terms of never have had a black in the senior executive service, never have had a black to get an agencywide award, never have had a black female to move into management. And this thing was just a document that to this day, is a historical document within the agency. The administrator of NASA came to Cleveland to meet with the black employees, and the management at the time was meeting with a group of us, taking all kinds of issues at the thing that we were proposing. The employees pointed out that if Julian Earls has a bachelor's, a master's, a PhD as a Harvard graduate, has publications, and he gets treated this way, what will happen to a black employee who is less credentialed? What chance does that employee stand here at the center? Well, I'll fast forward. As a result of Congressman Stokes' interaction, the center director ended up being removed. There was a group that was formed out there, the black women's advisory group. They ended up looking at some of the data and some of the information that's still going on over in the organizational development office that person ended up being removed. NASA promoted the deputy director at the center to the center director's position. And the deputy director was actually a worse person than the center director. They put him in place. Congressman Stokes kept the heat on, the black employees kept the heat on, and that center director ended up being removed. I did not get the position as director of administration computer services. They gave me what was supposed to be a nothing job. But my philosophy has always been, don't look for the job you it want and so concentrate on that, that you don't take care of the job you have. So I took that nothing job and turned it into one such that we got recognized by the Office of Personnel Management as having the best health program within the federal government. Things turned around. I then moved to the next position, which I became a deputy to the director for business resource management development. Then I became deputy director for operations. Then I became deputy center director. And finally I became director of the center. And if anyone had looked at me in 1988, they would have said, his career is over and is dead. But I owe Congressman Stokes more than anybody in the universe for sticking by me, sticking by the black employees at that center.
Alisa Nazelli [00:27:47] It's a very powerful story. I mean, that's within my lifetime that a major program and our country was still facing these sorts of challenges. How did you, were there times where you felt like just saying, you know, forget this, or what bolstered your confidence? What kept you going?
Julian Earls [00:28:10] Well, in reality, it was never a problem for me because first place, I tell people, and people ask that question all the time. People who were still there said, you know, that would have destroyed us. I said, well, the first place, I knew I had done no wrong. So I could look myself in the eye in the mirror, hold my head high, shoulders straight, and I could sleep at night. And since I had operated the way I did, I didn't have to fight that battle. Other people fought that battle for me. There were white employees, Hispanic, when they started signing those petitions and sending them off to members of Congress and to the president. There's a ministerial association here in Cleveland, because I wasn't aware that it would have that impact. But I'd been speaking at churches and going out to schools and so forth. So all kinds of organizations rose up in indignation that that was happening to me. My family was supportive. In fact, what was interesting was, see, I was getting threatening telephone calls at home, and people would call and leave these threatening messages and hang up. And I didn't realize until later that my son was getting my son is Julian Earls Junior. And he had come back to Cleveland and was in medical school at case. And he had a little apartment off Shaker Square. Well, they would look in the telephone director and see Julian Earls and would dial his number, Julian Earls Junior instead of mine, and leave those kinds of messages on his phone. But he never said a word to me. He never let me know that that was happening. They were all supportive. As a matter of fact, when we sat there and watched those TV programs with Carmen, and I can't think of the woman's name on the other TV station watching those, they would actually sit there and would actually laugh at that kind of thing that was going on. Right. But it was much tougher on people who knew me, who were supportive than it was on me. And my conversation with Congressman Stokes during the time, that was another thing that just kept me well grounded, because I knew that here I am sitting as sort of a symbol of the kind of treatment that blacks get at that center. And Congressman Stokes now is sitting on the Appropriations Committee. So he controls the NASA budget. So his influence in Washington was what made things turn around here at NASA Glenn. We were in 1977, NASA opened the program for astronauts where you did not have to be a pilot. So Guy Bluford was selected as the first black astronaut. I applied for the astronaut program in 1977 along with Guy Bluford, Fred Gregory, and that group of. Well, I didn't get selected for the program. And I kid guy to this day, because guy and I were born on the same day in the same year. I tell Guy he was born at 10:00 in the morning. I was born 4:15. So NASA went with the old man. That's why he ended up getting chosen. But I ended up being the keynote speaker for the education conference for Guy Bluford's launch for the first black to go into space. It was the first night launch, and NASA had a policy of having education conferences associated with launches. So I got to. Even though I wasn't an astronaut, I got to speak. And I work with those guys. Very close. In fact, to this day, we're still close. Guy Bluford, by the way, lives here in Cleveland. In fact, he lives in Westlake.
Alisa Nazelli [00:31:49] Okay.
Julian Earls [00:31:49] Yes.
Alisa Nazelli [00:31:51] Great, great. So can I backtrack a little bit about how you first met Carl and Louis? It was through your fraternity.
Julian Earls [00:32:01] Yes.
Alisa Nazelli [00:32:01] And were there. I mean, did you guys have regular meetings? This was a fraternity outside of the university setting, it sounds like.
Julian Earls [00:32:10] Yeah.
Alisa Nazelli [00:32:11] Okay, so it was just a professional fraternity.
Julian Earls [00:32:16] You start off in undergrads and you know how fraternities are in undergraduate school, all right? So. And there. If you at any HBCU anywhere in the nation, and, in fact, non HBCUs have chapters. Now, there's Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. That's the one that Carl, Lou, and I belong to. There's an Omega Psi Phi and an Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. So they are the three major ones. Once you graduate, any city you go into has an alumni chapter. So I came here. As a matter of fact, when I was coming to Cleveland, I didn't know anyone. So I went to the directory and found what was then the leader of the alumni chapter here and called that individual. And that's how I got connected to the right folks here. In fact, that's how I met my first colleague at NASA, who would pick me up and take me to work, because I stayed at the Y down on 22nd street until I found my family here. So it was through that the fraternity meetings were once a month. So I would see them on occasion at those monthly meetings because they got busy in politics and so forth. They weren't able to make many of those meetings. So my association with Congressman Louis Stokes was primarily as a result of our working on the problems with NASA. I didn't have much interaction at all with Mayor Stokes, except that at the time, one of the individuals in my group was an attorney, Raytheo McCallum, and he had worked on the Stokes campaign, and he and Carl were very close. So that was the relationship. My relationship is more with Louis Stokes than with Carl.
Alisa Nazelli [00:33:58] And it sounds like a successful one.
Julian Earls [00:34:01] Yes. Yes. Even to this day. Because when he was getting an award and had to make a presentation about seven, eight years ago, he couldn't come, Congressman couldn't. And he asked me to go speak and accept it for him. I was an honorary pallbearer for Carl Stokes' funeral service, and that was because of relationship with the two of them. But Congressman Stokes was the one who asked me to be an honorary pallbearer for that sad event.
Alisa Nazelli [00:34:32] When did you retire from NASA?
Julian Earls [00:34:35] January 3, 2006.
Alisa Nazelli [00:34:39] Oh, congratulations. So now you're here at Cleveland State. In what capacity?
Julian Earls [00:34:44] Executive in Residence at the Nance College of Business Administration.
Alisa Nazelli [00:34:49] And what do you do in that position?
Julian Earls [00:34:51] Anything Michael Schwartz wants done. [laughs] No, it's. The beauty of it is that I've known Michael Schwartz for years, and I would not have come here except for Michael Schwartz. When Michael asked, I knew it was the right thing to do. He and I go back years when he was president, Kent State, and you may recall when Central State University got into some difficulty years ago and Governor Voinovich wiped out the entire board because he was dissatisfied with the way things were being handled and appointed a reconstituted board to turn things around. Well, Michael Schwartz and I were appointed as members of the board of trustees at Central State to get it back on track. So we really worked together. Then his wife, Doctor Joanne Schwartz, and I go back to something called the Jennings Foundation Jennings Scholar Lecture series. I'm a lecturer on the Jennings Foundation Scholars program, and she was Dean at Kent State University and managed that program. So I interacted with her because of giving speeches for years to master teachers who were Jennings Scholars. So that was the relationship there. So when Michael asked me to come, we agreed that the business administration school was the one to which I should be affiliated. He had offered me engineering, but I wanted to avoid the very appearance of a conflict, because as a NASA center director, I had awarded any number of grants to the College of Engineering here. He thought about the College of Urban Studies as well. But out of the College of Urban Studies, I'd had them do an economic impact statement for NASA Glenn, the College of Business Administration was one that I had not given direct grants to or had direct contract work with in my Harvard Business experience. I thought that would be the right place to be. So I'm doing quite a few things over there with them and also working with the university. As a matter of fact, when Michael was going down to Congress at the beginning of this year to talk about funding for Cleveland State, he and the president of the Cleveland State Foundation called and asked, would I accompany them. So I walk into Congressman, Senator Vojnovich's office, Senator DeWine's office. They look at me and Michael and said, is this about NASA? Because I spent so much time working with them, then as the center director of NASA, but it is worked well. So what I've been doing with that is advocating for funding for Cleveland state. We've been successful in getting a few earmarks for some programs here.
Alisa Nazelli [00:37:37] Good, good. Well, what about DeWine and Voinovich? Were they as supportive as senators, as Congressman Stokes was supportive?
Julian Earls [00:37:50] Oh, absolutely. As a matter of fact, when I became Senate director, even before that, because of my affiliation with Congressman Stokes, I had had opportunity to meet many of the members of Congress, many members of the Ohio delegation. So when I became center director, the Ohio delegation was quite pleased because now they had someone that was homegrown running the center, who was familiar with the culture and the environment in the Cleveland area, I had interacted with almost every chamber of commerce. I don't think there's a school within Ohio, high school, that I haven't given a commencement address. So I was not an unknown to them. Also, they painted a picture of me, of giving them straight answers. They said whenever they asked me a question, my policy was, if I knew the answer, I would tell them. If I didn't know the answer, I would tell them. I didn't know the answer. If I knew the answer, but could not tell them because of the privilege of NASA being in the executive branch, I would tell them that as well. So we developed a great working relationship in Senator Voinovich, because when he was a governor, he had appointed me to Central state University board. I knew him well from that. And I had met Senator DeWine because of programs and policies and issues that we needed passed within NASA. So I would meet with the Ohio delegation and brief them on programs and projects that were going on at NASA, where they needed to advocate, because the Alabama delegation was strong in getting work for Huntsville, Virginia delegation working for Langley, Virginia, and the California delegation for those centers there. So my relationship with them grew to be a very strong one. And that's why I was so readily recognizable when I walked into the office, because I would spend almost every time I went to Washington, I would go up on the Hill and walk the halls with the members of.
Alisa Nazelli [00:40:08] Okay, I have two the more questions. The first is about central State, and then the second is about why it's important to remember Carl and Lou Stokes. So what did you do at Central State? Because things have improved there.
Julian Earls [00:40:26] Yes, they have. Okay. I'm still disappointed, Michael and I am still a little bit disappointed at the progress that should have been compared to the progress that has been made. Well, what had happened was Central State was in trouble because their books were just in disarray. They were not even auditable. The dormitories were in disarray. You would walk through. When we walked through the dormitories, you would see bare wiring. The showers were just uninhabitable. I mean, it was almost condemned. In fact, some of the buildings were at a state of condemnation financially. They hadn't paid water bills to the city of Xenia in months. There were problems with the financial aid, fictitious students who were never really there, and loan payments supposedly going to them, some faculty members names there for registering for summer courses as though we were students and so forth. So it was just complete disarray. So what we did as a reconstituted board was try to bring some order, bringing in people temporarily to do the financial reviews for us, looking at the opportunity to get new leadership by hiring a new president. The previous president had the president's home, and there was artwork in there and things that were gifts to the college. When he left, he took those things with him and so forth. So the courts were handled, the legal system was handling those kinds of issues. So we decided that what we needed to do was to start with a clean slate, okay? And Michael and I worked on that. And finally, I was asked to chair the search committee to find the new president of Central State University. And then I resigned before my term was up out of righteous indignation, because all of a sudden, members of the legislature and the Office of Budget Management for the State of Ohio wanted to come in and tell the board how to do its business. And my response was, if you knew so much about how to do business, Central State would never have been in the state. We found it because there's a statutory requirement that their books be reviewed by the state and that you should have had checks and balances on this institution. If you knew what you were doing, it would never have evolved to the point that it did. Also, the State of Ohio was being sued by the Department of Education because of failure to financially support Central State per capita funding as students at Ohio State and other universities and so forth. So there was a massive suit for HBCUs in every state in the nation where HBCUs were located for inadequate funding. Probably the most notable result was the state of Texas in their resolving that they really did dramatically increase the funding. So we were wrestling with those problems. But when the state decided that they wanted to, in fact, run the college, Michael and I both resigned. I did it more visibly than Michael did. Okay.
Alisa Nazelli [00:44:12] What's the acronym HBCU?
Julian Earls [00:44:13] Oh. Historical black colleges and universities. Okay. All right, then.
Alisa Nazelli [00:44:18] So what was the outcome of that court case, then?
Julian Earls [00:44:21] As a matter of fact, it's still a case for the State of Ohio. In fact, I was talking to one of the members of the board just over the weekend, and that case is still ongoing. The state maintains that it has improved funding for Central State University, and that is still an issue. But I confess to being somewhat disappointed, because when I chaired the search committee, as I left, there were two candidates that I thought were excellent candidates to be president of Central State University and left for the board to interview them. The board did not interview them. As a matter of fact, the person who was selected was a relative of the person who was chairman of the board at Central State, who did not make the cut when I chaired the committee, was not on the list. And I look back and see that person there, and now I'm finding out that academically, there are still challenges at Central State University. And Michael and I just lament over the fact that we thought we had put it on the right track, but it seems to have slipped off the rail again.
Alisa Nazelli [00:45:31] Interesting final question, then. And then. Anything else that you want to share? Why is it important for Cleveland to remember both Carl and Louis Stokes, as well as well as the nation? What's important about that?
Julian Earls [00:45:49] I think you measure a nation. You measure a state, a city, a community, by the people they honor. And it speaks volumes about the quality of the people if they honor quality people. And you can't, in my estimation, find any two citizens that have done more for this nation than those two. I kid Congressman Stokes, and I've been calling him Lou. I never called him Lou. It's always Mister Congressman, and I call him my personal congressman. We kid about that. But he has been an asset to the nation. There are scholarships and programs around this nation in honor of him. There's a Louis Stokes scholarship program for graduate school for students in math and science, technology, engineering professions at maybe over a dozen universities around the nation. He is sought after as a consultant. He sought after as an advisor with Squire, Sanders and Dempsey. I killed John Lewis because John Lewis's office and Congressman Stokes' office are next to each other. And I killed John telling him the value of real estate in a neighborhood went up dramatically when Stokes moved next to John Lewis. But that's why I really think that recognizing those two speaks volumes about the things we, as a community, value.
Alisa Nazelli [00:47:38] Very good. Very good. Any other concluding thoughts?
Julian Earls [00:47:42] I just apologize for running off at the mouth so much.
Alisa Nazelli [00:47:45] I've really learned quite a bit, and this will be valuable, I think, for hopefully, the Stokes exhibit and informing. That and my classroom and the Euclid Corridor Pdroject. Definitely. Okay.
Julian Earls [00:48:01] But I would like to say one thing.
Alisa Nazelli [00:48:02] Okay, good.
Julian Earls [00:48:04] I give a lot of speeches, a lot of talks around the nation. And one of the things that I tell people about equality of opportunity is that we will recognize when true equality of opportunity arrives, when we see mediocre people of color and mediocre females in true policy making positions. The nation will not accept that mediocre white males can become president and vice president of the United States of America. And what I suggest is that you must not let that make you bitter and get angry and filled with hatred, because anger and hatred are assets that can do more harm to the vessels in which they are stored than to anything upon which they are poured. And I tell particularly my black friends that all white folks are not your enemies and all black folks are not your friends. And what we need are the coalitions that guided us through the sixties. We need the coalition that Congressman Stokes form with Mary Rose Oakar and the members of the delegation. Congressman Stokes took the lead, but when he came to NASA Glenn, Mary Rose Oakar was right there beside him, supporting him as he was fighting to turn things around. Glenn so the beauty of the Stokes brothers is that they formed coalitions with people of substance, no matter what the color, no matter race, gender, ethnicity, did not matter if these were people who were doing the right things for the right reasons.
Alisa Nazelli [00:49:49] Thank you so much for your time.
Julian Earls [00:49:52] Oh, that's all right. I'm glad I was able to get over here.
Alisa Nazelli [00:49:54] I really appreciate it. I learned quite a bit.
Julian Earls [00:49:57] I'm going to take this off...
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