San Francisco Chronicle

Bright futures await, along with lessons from the past

Mays Scholars to tour Birmingham to learn about civil rights era

‘It will mean a lot to learn about history.’ Arianna Cade, Willie Mays Scholar

Perhaps nobody has been prouder to wear a personaliz­ed San Francisco Giants jersey than Arianna Cade. It features a Willie Mays Scholars patch. A name on the back, “CADE.” And a number, 25: the year she will graduate from high school.

“I look at my jersey and am, like, ‘Dang, I really did this,’ ” Cade said. “I have a scholarshi­p. I can go to college. Being a Willie Mays Scholar basically gives me hope that I can actually make a name for myself and do bigger and better things, and that gives me joy and hope for my mom and family.”

Cade, 16, will be in Birmingham, Ala., the week the Giants and Cardinals play their June 20 game at Rickwood Field as a tribute to the Negro Leagues. She and six other Willie Mays Scholars will go on civil rights tours, visit Historical­ly Black Colleges and Universiti­es (HBCUs) and be treated to the game at Rickwood, the nation’s oldest profession­al ballpark.

The Willie Mays Scholars program is in its third year supporting Black youth in San Francisco. Mays, the Giants Community Fund and two city-based organizati­ons (100% College Prep and Alive & Free) have partnered to help high school students on their road to college with scholarshi­ps, academic programmin­g and holistic support.

“It will mean a lot to learn about history,” Cade said of the Birmingham trip, “learn where we came from, how much effort and time and dedication we put in just to get where we are, knowing we had big odds against us, people praying for our downfall, having control over us, saying

you’re nothing but a speck of dirt, but in reality, we have all this rich history and background that’s not appreciate­d until fully examined.

“I think the Birmingham trip will give us a point of view that we didn’t have because school didn’t teach all of it. We hear about Black history and Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks, but there are also a lot of other people who don’t get the recognitio­n that they deserve.”

Mays said one of his big regrets in life was not attending college, which hardly was an option for many African American teenagers growing up in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era. Mays turned to baseball, playing with the renowned Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues and signing with the New York Giants after his graduation from Fairfield Industrial High School, just west of Birmingham.

Mays became arguably history’s greatest allaround ballplayer, reaching the highest levels in hitting, hitting for power, fielding, throwing and baserunnin­g. Through it all, he received honorary degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, Ohio State University, Miles College (in Fairfield) and San Francisco State.

He now oversees his Say Hey Foundation, which benefits underprivi­leged youth — which he once was — and keeps a hand in the Willie Mays Scholars program that inducts five high schoolers every year. The first two of the three induction classes were invited to Birmingham, and seven scholars will make the trip.

“The big thing is access and opportunit­y,” said former Giants outfielder Randy Winn, the vice chair of the Giants Community Fund and part of the committee that selects the Willie Mays Scholars. “Birmingham has a very complicate­d history with race and segregatio­n and culture. It’s one thing to read about some of these things in a book, it’s something different to be in the cities and hear the stories that’ll have a totally different impact on these kids.”

Winn said he was thrilled a few years back to accept the Giants’ offer to become a board member for the Giants Community Fund, especially because it meant helping to launch a scholarshi­p program benefiting San Francisco Black youth. Out of San Ramon Valley High School in Danville, Winn played baseball and basketball at Santa Clara University but didn’t receive an athletic scholarshi­p.

Winn ultimately focused on baseball and was drafted by Tampa Bay in 1995, but his mother made certain that “graduating from college was non-negotiable.” So after his first season in the minors, he returned to Santa Clara to complete his studies and earn a degree in marketing, then headed to spring training to begin a new season.

Three decades later, Cade has her mother, Yvonne, in mind when speaking of attending college and graduating.

“With this scholarshi­p, even if I have to do stuff to maintain it, they can work with me to help me be one of the first in my family to graduate from college and give my mom the dream she wanted, to have both her children be college graduates,” said Cade, who first attended Lowell High School and now is at City Arts & Leadership Academy.

The scholarshi­ps don’t come close to funding the entirety of college costs, but they’re a significan­t start. The program’s financial commitment is $20,000, but that’s part of $70,000 “worth of support through high school and college that includes hands-on mentoring and tailored wraparound support services.” Those include, among other things, transporta­tion, laptops, college visits and college applicatio­n fees.

It also includes funding for 100% College Prep, which provides the students academic resources for eighth to 12th graders in the city’s underserve­d communitie­s to achieve high academic goals and earn post-secondary degrees, and Alive & Free, which works to keep youth free from violence and support them on their path to college.

Khalil Cohen, 18, is another Willie Mays Scholar looking forward to the Birmingham trip. He’s graduating from the Academy San Francisco at McAteer and will be attending San Jose State to study biology with the hopes of becoming a surgeon.

Cohen said 100% College Prep “helps with college applicatio­ns, helps you apply for other scholarshi­ps and helps with internship­s and other programs” and Alive & Free “teaches us a lot of life skills and valuable lessons about getting through college and not making big mistakes. Their whole purpose is to keep kids alive and free, and they do stand on what they say.”

On being a Willie Mays Scholar, Cohen said, “I’m definitely grateful for Willie Mays. It’s much more than just the scholarshi­p money. It’s a lot of other things such as connecting you with other opportunit­ies and getting a laptop. The people and community are all so nice and have a lot of connection­s.”

Lindbergh Porter Jr., co-chair of the Giants Community Fund, said the programs are designed to enhance and broaden the students’ lives throughout high school and college and added, “We stay with them and pair them with others to push them, challenge them and pat them on the back. Sometimes it’s a hug.”

These scholarshi­ps hit home for Porter, a retired attorney who was able to take advantage of a similar opportunit­y growing up in segregated schools in rural Mississipp­i. The University of Illinois granted scholarshi­ps in the wake of King’s 1968 assassinat­ion, and Porter embraced his to initiate his college career, ultimately graduating from USF’s School of Law.

“I have firsthand experience with that area of the country,” Porter said of the Deep South, “and the importance of seeing a broader vision and view of life to at least dream of what’s possible. To get an opportunit­y to go to college, that changed my trajectory. When this opportunit­y came up following George Floyd’s murder, we were inspired to push very hard to make this available for another group of kids that will contribute to building a better society.”

The scholars will spend several days in Alabama and go on civil rights tours in Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery before the Rickwood game June 20. One of the stops in Birmingham is the 16th Street Baptist Church, site of “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrate­d against humanity,” in the words of King, explaining the 1963 bombing of the church by the Ku Klux Klan that killed four young girls. Turmoil in Birmingham in those years helped pave the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

At the church, the scholars will meet with Revs. Arthur Price Jr. and Bill Greason, 99, a former pitcher who was Mays’ teammate on the 1948, ’49 and ’50 Black Barons and still gives Sunday sermons at his beloved Bethel Baptist Church.

Among other stops during the week, the scholars will visit the Negro Southern League Museum in Birmingham where Mays, his Black Barons teammates and other Negro Leaguers are showcased, and Miles College, an HBCU that’s not far from Mays’ old home in Fairfield.

Closer to home, the scholars were invited to Friday’s African American Heritage Night at Oracle Park, including a pregame event featuring a panel discussion moderated by Winn and involving Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick and director of the Hoover Institutio­n and former secretary of state Dr. Condoleezz­a Rice. The discussion will explore African American representa­tion in sports and the community and touch on the importance of the Rickwood game.

Also, the Giants are involving Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco in the Rickwood experience. On June 14, kids from different Boys & Girls Clubhouses across the city can attend (along with a number of Junior Giants) an event at the Willie Mays Clubhouse in Bayview/ Hunters Point that will focus on baseball and softball skills developmen­t and education activities focusing on the Negro Leagues, the Rickwood game and Mays’ career and life.