In Step With Clinton : Jordan Students to Join Inaugural ‘Bells for Hope’ March

Talk about taking the show on the road.

When the Living Literature/Colors United troupe at Jordan High School premiered “Watts Side Story” 18 months ago, few members guessed that their efforts would land them an audience with President-elect Bill Clinton.

But the play--an urban rendition of Romeo and Juliet--and the troupe’s other performances caught the eye of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which invited the cast to next week’s festivities in Washington.

On Sunday, 25 students from the group will join Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore during an inaugural “Bells for Hope” march and ceremony. Five hundred youths will lead an estimated 30,000 people on a half-mile route from the Lincoln Memorial to the Lady Bird Johnson Circle at the gates of Arlington National Cemetery, where Clinton and Gore will ring a replica of the Liberty Bell.

The young thespians, who performed for candidate Clinton during a September rally in Santa Monica, said they are eager to again share their views with him.

“Clinton probably has an image of Watts as a cold place. I want to tell him to come down here and live a while,” said Jordan High senior Michael Santos, 17. “Sure, there’s a couple of drive-bys. But I’d like for him to come see what it’s really like.”

About 15 Colors United members will take part in a bell-ringing ceremony at Will Rogers Memorial Park in Watts, one of 10 sites nationwide that will be linked by satellite to the Washington event.

Nearly two dozen local organizations and leaders--including the L.A. Conservation Corps and Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--will participate in the afternoon event, which is expected to draw 1,000.

Bells also will be rung at hundreds of other sites across the country, including Times Square, San Francisco’s Chinatown and among the Inupiat community of Alaska’s Arctic Slope. Members of the space shuttle Endeavor will participate through a taped ceremony.

Organizers in Washington said they invited the Colors United troupe because of the example it has set for other youths.

In the 2 1/2 years since the after-school activity was founded at Jordan High, 21 of 23 seniors have gone on to college on scholarships, said founder Phillip Simms. Participants--who come mostly from Jordan High but include students from throughout the city--must maintain a C average. Jordan High officials say the group has helped reduce racial tensions at the school, whose student body is mostly Latino and African-American.

Colors United members combine literature, history and the social sciences with stage work in what Simms calls “Edutainment.” The troupe researched and wrote “The Life and Times of John Steinbeck,” then performed the play in August, 1991, at the 12th annual John Steinbeck Festival in Salinas.

“The only lethal weapon is the power of the mind,” Simms said. “Our youngsters have walked away from gang activity, from drugs, from unwholesome behavior. They have become ambassadors of goodwill in Watts.”

The troupe of 60 to 70 core members has been designated the official choir of the Rebuild L.A. anthem “Stand and Be Proud.” Its members will join other youths to back up Michael Jackson during the halftime show at the Super Bowl on Jan. 31 in Pasadena.

Colors United is one of only three groups outside the Washington area invited to lead the inaugural march on Sunday. The others are 30 Southern California youths from Camp Ronald MacDonald for Good Times and 50 Special Olympics participants from cities across the country. “We wanted to pick groups that signify the best in the human spirit,” Bells for Hope executive producer Bonnie Reiss said. “These are children who have faced adversity, dealt with it bravely and with hope for their future. These children symbolize inspiration.”

In honor of the march, the Watts group has prepared a series of “fraternity walks,” snappy steps combining clapping and dance moves that are common among groups of fraternity pledges at African-American universities, said Colors United executive director Kingston DuCoeur.

Impressed by the students’ ability, numerous corporate and nonprofit organizations have stepped forward with funding, food and clothing for the trip to Washington. EC2000, an umbrella group for children’s organizations and co-producer of the Bells for Hope event, helped arrange the invitation and has coordinated much of the assistance. Show Coalition, a nonprofit political network in the entertainment industry, arranged plane tickets through the Revlon Foundation.

In addition, Sony Pictures Entertainment paid for hotel rooms and provided wool jackets. Marriott is providing lunches and the Permanent Charities Committee of the Entertainment Industries has provided a grant for food and clothing. Adidas, Guess Jeans, B.U.M. Equipment and Cross Colors also are providing warm clothing and bags. Alan Berliner Studios is providing a photographer to document the event. The Jordan High booster club and alumni have contributed funds for spending money in Washington.

“This is a hot little group,” said Sue Jameson, senior vice president of corporate affairs at Sony. “They use the medium of entertainment to focus on education. They’ve done a terrific job at Jordan High with eradicating graffiti and racial tension.”

The students say they hope to discuss their accomplishments with the President-elect. Javier Nungaray, 16, said he wants to ask Clinton to provide education opportunities that are the “keys to open the many doors of life.”

On Monday, Nungaray and the others will probably get their chance to talk with Clinton, who is expected to visit the site of a 60-year-old theater in northeast Washington that the students will help refurbish with the Habitat for Humanity organization. The troupe will perform during a reception that night to celebrate the opening of the building, which will house public service groups.

“I want to tell (Clinton) to look at the young people as investments,” Nungaray said. “We should never be neglected. Everyone should be treated equal, just as the Constitution says: All men are created equal.”