DR. JOHN TELFORD IN THE NEWS

The Detroit Teacher: Recommended Reading A Life on the RUN – Seeking and Safeguarding Social Justice

Dr. John Telford has led more lives than a cat and survived more setbacks. A Detroit teacher 50 years ago and again in this century, he bled in the amateur boxing ring, broke bones in football and fights, was incarcerated as a teen and expelled from a Detroit high school, sired a son with another man's wife, and tore his hamstring muscle in the 1956 Olympic trials. Decades later, skinheads riddled his Rochester house with midnight gunfire when as deputy superintendent he pioneered the hire of black administrators in that 98 percent white district. He endured a messy divorce he admits was his fault. He was fired from two DPS executive directorships for whistle blowing and from the Madison District Public Schools superintendency for bringing in hundreds of Detroit students against the wishes of white residents. Read more starting on Page 9...

Detroit Free Press: Author tells of fight for justice as teacher, activist by Ron Dzwonkowski

John Telford has been fighting all his life. As a kid, he brawled on the streets of Detroit and boxed in the ring. As an adult, he traded his fists for words and actions that were no less combative. Like all fighters, he's a hero to some, a real pain to others. Read more...

John Telford interviewed by Connie Martinson on Connie Martinson Talks Books

Veteran Detroit educator Dr. John Telford discusses his new book, "A Life on the RUN" with host Connie Martinson. Telford's intensely personal and no-holds-barred autobiography deals frankly with his successes and failures as a crusader for justice and civil rights in the Detroit Public Schools as well as his experiences as a world-ranked quarter-miler. Watch the video...

Senator Hansen Clarke presents
a copy of Dr. John Telford's
A Life on the RUN to Michigan
governor Jennifer Granholm

The Macomb Daily Living: Retired Shelby man pens autobiography

"Telford said he has always stood for the rights of children, especially impoverished African Americans living in the city's roughest neighborhoods. He lost jobs and was even attacked, he said. Still, he remains vigilant. A few of his solutions — including the establishment of stiff anti-nepotism clauses in hiring and promoting instructional and administrative staff, the elimination of public charter schools and providing more money to traditional public school districts with the greatest social needs — are listed in the book." Read more...

Michigan Chronicle Living: The Best Teacher Detroit Ever Produced

"Contained within the pages of Telford's book are enough colorful stories to embellish the lives of several characters. Some are hilarious, others gut-wrenching, while still others are extremely thought-provoking, but the common thread that bind all of these stores together is that they are all true and they all happened to one man who, by almost any measure, is quite simple an extraordinary individual." Read more...

Dome Magazine: Detroit’s Fiery Schoolhouse Crusader

..."a fascinating 'tell-all' autobiography by Dr. John Telford, a long-time Detroit area schoolteacher, administrator and social activist. Pulling no punches (he’s a former boxer) and pushing his 'tell-it-like-I-see-it' philosophy, Telford describes his five-decades crusade to save Detroit kids from educational neglect and mismanagement." Read more...

PRESS RELEASES:

April 2010 • Celebrated Education Reformist Responds to CNN’s Perry’s Principles

March 2010 • Retired education executive applauds Robert Bobb as doing "terrific job" in reforming Detroit’s failing education system

January 2010 • Over 69% of 4th Graders in Detroit Scored Below the Basic Level in Math & Dr. John Telford Demands the Detroit Public Schools Take Action Immediately

December 2009 • Dr. John Telford Defends Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, on “Ground Zero” Charge in the Detroit Public Schools

November 2009 • Don’t All Children Deserve Schools that Work: A Teacher’s Perspective

September 2009 • Urban Schools in America Are Broken—Can They Be Fixed? Dr. John Telford Says Yes

September 2009 • Activist Educator and Former All-American Sprinter John Telford Pens an Electrifying Tell-All Memoir about the Down-and-Dirty Fight for Racial and Social Justice in Schools

PRAISE FOR A Life on the Run

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to these many contributors of these celebrant testaments for my memoir and for me:

“Dr. John Telford’s A Life on the RUN is a dazzling story of ardent dedication to racial equity and the best education for every student—and of a rare man in turbulent times.”

—Dr. Deborah Anthony, former director of technology,
Rochester (Michigan) Community Schools

“A Life on the RUN is a spellbinding book that lays it on the line—John Telford is the champion of the underdog!”

—Dennis Archer, Mayor of Detroit, 1994–2001, and a former
Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court

“The legendary legacy of a legendary leader.”

—Lloyd Carr, head football coach,
the University of Michigan, 1995–2007

“John Telford’s crusades for social justice truly inspire mine.”

—Geoffrey Fieger, celebrated trial lawyer

“This great book is the legacy of a great teacher—a lasting (but hopefully not a last) legacy. Some day the misguided Madison school board will be sorry they didn’t keep him as their superintendent, but the misguided and failing Detroit school board will regret even more bitterly that they didn’t make him their superintendent when they had the chance to do it. John Telford has taught, coached, guided, and inspired me and countless others like me for fifty years, and he is still doing it today.”

—Reginald “Reggie” Bradford, educator;
former quarter-mile star, Detroit Pershing High School
and the University of Michigan

» Download the Entire List of Testimonials

TALKING POINTS, Key Milestones in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States:

1. Dr. John Telford was born in 1936, 11 years before Jackie Robinson would become the first African American major league baseball player.
2. As a young man in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Telford lived through a tumultuous period in race relations in this country and his professional career was shaped by these events.
3. 1954 - Brown vs. the Board of Education. The U.S. Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional after a Kansas school board refused to let a black child attend a nearby school for whites.
4. 1955 - Rosa Parks, a black seamstress from Alabama, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white rider.
5. 1956 - The Supreme Court asserted that the segregation of public transportation was as unconstitutional as school segregation.
6. 1962 - James Meredith became the first black student to attend the all-white University of Mississippi.
   — His enrollment sparked riots on the Oxford campus and required President John F. Kennedy to send federal troops and marshals.
   —James Meredith graduated in the summer of 1963.
7. 1967 - President Lyndon Johnson appointed the National Commission on Civil Disorders and charged it with investigating urban riots in the United States.
8. 1967 - In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional.
   —Sixteen states that still banned interracial marriage at the time were forced to revise their laws.
9. 1968 - The Commission on Civil Disorders released its report and its finding were that the riots resulted from black frustration at lack of economic opportunity. It warned: ”Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white–separate and unequal.”
10. 1968 - President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing
11. 1968 - Martin Luther King, political activist, Baptist minister and leader of the American Civil Rights Movement was assassinated
12. 1971 - The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. Although largely unwelcome (and sometimes violently opposed) in local school districts, courtordered busing plans in cities such as Charlotte, Boston, and Denver continued until the late 1990s.
13. 2003 - The Supreme Court (5–4) upheld the University of Michigan Law School's policy, that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges when selecting their students because it furthers "a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.”
14. 2008 - Senator Edward Kennedy introduced the Civil Rights Act of 2008. Some of the proposed provisions include ensuring that federal funds are not used to subsidize discrimination, holding employers accountable for age discrimination, and improving accountability for other violations of civil rights and workers' rights.
15. 2009- Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States.

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QUESTIONS FOR THE MEDIA:

1. You call yourself a teacher/activist. What does that term mean to you?
   
   I am both an educator and a social activist. As a teacher, I have taught my students righteous activism and to become righteous activists, as well as instructing them in the relevant academic discipline. As an activist, I have used my classroom and my administrative positions and my newspaper columns, radio show, and now my book to inspire my students, colleagues, constituents, and readers/listeners to become socially aware as well as—in my students’ case—academically grounded.
2. Tell me about the influences of your father on the direction that your life has taken and the choices that you have made.
   
   From an early age, I was in awe of my fighter father and grandfather and followed their ancestral Celtic code without question. They were lifelong egalitarians and fought for the underdog; thus, I became a lifelong egalitarian and fought for the underdog.
3. Who are your heroes and why?
   
   Over the span of seven decades, some of my greatest heroes have been my father, Robert F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Emiliano Zapata, Mohandas Gandhi, Audie Murphy, Wayne State University track coach David L. Holmes, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jesse Owens, 1952 Olympic 400-meter champion George Rhoden of Jamaica, and 1956 Olympic 400-meter champion Charley Jenkins of Villanova.
   
   Why? In the case of the first nine, including Ali, they fought indomitably for what was right. In the case of the athletes, including Ali, they had only themselves to depend upon in the arena, and they were very nearly invincible there—to the extent that even though I was one of the world’s best quarter-milers, I found the last two very hard to beat (although I did beat them). Owens, Robinson, and Rhoden were my high school idols.
4. You have often been considered a lightning rod for controversy in your role as superintendent. Recently, you were dismissed from your job as interim superintendent of the Madison Heights Schools. What precipitated this action and did the school board err in firing you?
   
   This action was precipitated by my aggressively recruiting hundreds of black students from Detroit and hordes of racist residents resultantly converging on the board demanding my dismissal. The school board unquestionably erred, because not only was I offering Detroit kids an avenue of escape from their failing home district and at the same time fostering racial integration, the insolvent Madison district needed the state funding that the Detroit students brought with them, and the state superintendent is now threatening the board with jail and fines for being in deficit spending for the past sixteen consecutive years.
5. How do you feel the election of Barack Obama has changed race relations in the United States?
   
   It’s not so much a cause as a positive result of that change. The millions of white Americans who voted for Obama clearly realize that judging a person’s abilities by skin color is absurd. To the extent that Obama’s election has changed race relations, that change may actually be more negative than positive, because it has galvanized some of the hate groups to step up their activities.
6. What 5 things would you like to see changed about public education in America today?
   
   My main focus in my book is on urban education, so that’s where I’ll concentrate my five answers (not in preferential order): first answer: eliminate the public charter schools; second answer: redirect more money proportionally to traditional public school districts with the greatest social needs: third answer: isolate misbehavers in special classes until their grades and behavior improve and squeeze the financial balloon to surround them with remedial and behavioral support systems; fourth answer: establish stiff anti-nepotism clauses in hiring and promoting instructional and administrative staff; fifth answer: test administrators before promoting them and evaluate them annually once they’ve been promoted. Of course, I have a lot more to say regarding this, and I do so in my book.
7. 7. You have lived a full life, you have been a world class runner, you have taught in some of the most troubled schools in America, you have been a poet and a lover to many women, it is not surprising that you wrote a book, but tell us a bit about the process that you went through to write this autobiography.
   
   I am almost 74 years old and have been meaning to write my memoirs for a long time while I am still able. When I left DPS in June 2008, I had time on my hands and decided then to commit my life story to paper. I have included excerpts from my students’ writings in the book, plus snippets from my newspaper columns and treatises when I needed to use them to emphasize a point.
8. Do you have any regrets or any unfinished business?
   
   Yes – I want to make my panoramic saga known, and set forth my ideas for reform to a wider audience.
9. You are married to a black woman, has this given you a different perspective on being black in America and if so how?
   
   Not really, now in the twenty-first century – but it did in my earlier relationships with black women in the 1950s and 60s. The hate stares, and often the remarks we heard directed at us in public were vicious, and sometimes they got me into fights.
10. Many people would be surprised to learn that you are white. Why do you think that you have such an affinity for black causes?
    
    Many people have been surprised to learn I’m white, because most world-ranked sprinters are black. My affinity for black causes originated with my father, who taught me to fight injustice as he did, and they originated with prejudicial and discriminatory incidents I witnessed over the years that were directed toward my black schoolmates, teammates, students, athletes, and friends—some which I describe in the book.
11. If you could be known for just one thing, what would it be and why?
    
    That I tried all my life to right wrongs, particularly in regard to the under-education of black Americans.
12. You have witnessed racial hatred up close. Why do some people become racists and others not? What are the roots of prejudice?
    
    The roots of prejudice in this country lie embedded in the ancient greed of the slave traders and in the rapaciousness of the Europeans who stole this land from the native Americans—and now, in current child-rearing in some families transmitting racism and other forms of bigotry. Babies aren’t born with prejudice; they have to be taught to hate.

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