Richard Hollerman

Do you read? Do you encourage others to read? Is your reading good or bad?

These are questions that we should and even must answer. Today, as I perused the news on my cell phone, there was an interesting article and let me tell you about it at this time.

A black teacher in New York City (I think it was the Bronx, but I don’t know his name) came to a barber shop where he frequented. He saw a young black boy sitting on the sofa, waiting to be worked on. He began to think.

Actually, he had the thought that many of these young people had no reading materials or interest and he chose to do something about this. He said that black barber shops (he was speaking of New York) but this would be true across the country are a sort of gathering grounds. Thus, this “teacher” chose to begin buying books meant for young people and children, then make these books available for those who came for hair cuts each month.

He then gave some of the background. He said that 83% of black youths can’t read. We are referring to 4th (or 5th) grades. It is true that we are referring to a short period of time each month but it all counts, doesn’t it! The proprietor (the barber) chose to remove the video games and retain the picture books that he supplied. In time, this distributor (the teacher) went to 200-300 different black barber shops—in New York and around the country. And he found ways to choose and buy the books for distribution in these shops.

Of course, we see that there are massive amounts of compromises with this arrangement. From what we could see on line, many or even most of the books were non-Christian and worldly. If we were to do this, we would need to find books that were good, pure. and worthy to be distributed and read. We wouldn’t say that they would necessarily need to be “Christian” in content, but at least there would need to be a “weeding out” of objectionable matter. We refer to worldliness, evolutionary thought, sports, selfishness, fleshliness, carnality, and the like.

But, with these caveats, we would think that there would still be a sufficient number of books available for young blacks (and whites and others) to make reading available. Further, we know that there would also be the question of what were to happen if the child did not finish the book (the picture book). Does he take the book home? And what if he did not bring it back? I suppose that this online article pertained to those children about age 3 to 8 or 10. What of those younger or older? And what of girls of this age bracket? Are they left out?

We believe that this article does have something for us to consider. We might be able to implement this without too much deviation. In this way we could reach a generation of young people with truth—a truth that would change them and lead them closer to God!