English conversation school classes do not typically bring students to tears. But Darrell Gartrell has done it at at the school he founded in Osaka, and he'll do it again.

" One of our biggest hits is the Rosa Parks story," says Gartrell. He shows an acclaimed documentary series in his courses that tells the story of Parks' role in the American civil rights movement. "When they look at that, you can witness an awakening in them, like, 'Where was I? Why didn't we learn about this?'"

" Rosa Parks (whose refusal to yield her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery,Alabama in 1955 sparked a wave of civil rights protest) is one of the key figures that we use to symbolize the struggle for freedom and for equality. And we have a lot of women in Japan who are also facing a similar type of struggle."

 

Talking with Gartrell means coping with his schedule. "Thirty minutes during my work-week may be hard to pull off -- if not literally impossible," he e-mails. "I'm afraid that 11 p.m. is the only practical time for me."

It's not his obligations as current president of Osaka's Japan Africa America Friendship Organization that keep him on the run these days; JAFA, he says, "has been a dismal failure," though he continues it as a labor of love. It's the "phenomenal" demand for Wisdom 21, his new one-of-a-kind business; an English conversation and cultural center with a heavy emphasis on the history, tradition, and culture of African-Americans.

Gartrell senses he's tapped into something big: "We have a totally different market, a totally different niche -- and it is working, man. It is really working." Enrollment at his three centers has grown from 20 in September to over 300, and he plans to expand nationally soon.

Gartrell lived "through hell" growing up in South Central Los Angels, watching friends die and being routinely harassed by police -- something he says has never happened in 10 years here. He says he's found more opportunity here than he could ever have found in America, but it's still unusual for someone with his background to have made it so far from home.

" For black Americans, culturally we are not really taught we can travel," he says. "I know white people jump on planes and go everywhere, but for black people that's something we're not really taught to do."

After a brush with the cosmopolitan life on a trip to Europe, Gartrell set off 10 years ago, at age 29, for Japan -- which was "somewhere near China or Vietnam," as he then thought.

He soon had a buzzing business in Osaka as a private English teacher, and four years ago, he was handed the flailing JAFA when the previous president died in a scooter crash. But Gartrell describes the black population of Osaka(he guesses roughly 600) as too transient and often too "tainted" by petty grudges and internal conflict to build a stable organization.

But "as far as Japanese population is concerned," he says, "JAFA is a hit." At the party for December's "Kwanza" holiday, 200 people showed up -- five of whom were black. However, he is concerned that Japanese ideas about blacks are mostly shaped, for the worse, by music and entertainment.

" Nobody knows Jesse Jackson over here, or Colin Powell. Nobody even knows (Nation of Islam leader, Louis) Farrakhan," he days. "They know Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, they know Muhammad Ali, but that's it -- and I can't honestly see that changing."    Gartrell, who wears "a tie and suit wherever I go," says blacks who dress and act in ways that reinforce media stereotypes -- "a hat and dark sunglasses" -- can't expect to avoid discrimination.

" I've had the experience with JAFA, and one of the main complaints is, "Man, they don't sit next to me on the train. And the taxi doesn't stop, man." And then when you look at that person, you can tell by the way they carry themselves. Why should I want to ride in an elevator with you?" he says.

" We have to look at black people the way that Japanese people look at black people. They don't have any direct experience, so what does the media tell them? We're either dancers, singers, athletes or criminals, and there's no in-between. That's not their fault."But if Gartrell's plan for a nationwide network of Wisdom 21 centers pans out, he might get his shot at reversing the trend. "We're about raising the consciousness level of our students," he says.

 Asahi Evening News, Kansai Edition, March 5, 2000