Giving and Caring Volumes

Of all the things Akosua Hobert saw while visiting South Africa, it was what she did not see that haunted her most.

Students packed the classrooms of the five-school complex in the rural community of Riba Cross. But there were no books.

Teachers taught without them. Children learned without them. And the entire town lived without ever experiencing the joy of stepping inside a building dedicated to books; the nearest library was miles away.

Unable to shake the memory of a town without books, Hobert returned home and got busy.

“Being an educator, I felt like I had to do something immediately,” said Hobert, 54, who teaches math and science at Bret Harte Middle School in Los Angeles.

“I know if these kids had the opportunity, they’d be able to be successful. The poverty is so severe. They still struggle in spite of that. . . . I just want to make their lives a little easier.”

Started four years ago, the book collection has helped put at least 3,000 volumes into the hands of students and on the shelves of a new library in Riba Cross--a library built with the help of Lincoln Law, a math teacher at Curtiss Middle School in Carson.

How two local teachers helped bring books to a small town thousands of miles away is a tale of tenacity--and of a love of books and learning.

It began in 1997, the year Law, who had been an adult school teacher, went to South Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. His assignment was to train teachers in Riba Cross.

The town is about 260 miles northeast of Pretoria--centuries away from life in Los Angeles: dirt roads, no running water, no electricity, no modern appliances.

But Riba Cross is not far from the memories Law holds of growing up as a sharecropper’s son near Eufaula, Okla., 35 miles south of Tulsa. The desire to get ahead, the push to learn--and lack of opportunity--were all achingly familiar for Law, 63.

“The only way we got light at night when I was growing up was through a kerosene lamp,” Law said. “For me, to use a candle was just a reminder of my childhood.”

When he shared those experiences with residents of Riba Cross, some did not believe him. In the United States, they said, everybody is rich and happy.

“And they definitely don’t believe you if you tell people that there are people in the United States that don’t know how to read and write,” he said.

Growing up in Eufaula, Law attended a one-room schoolhouse with other children of sharecroppers. The school never had more than two books, but it did have one very dedicated teacher--Ms. Williams--who came out to “the country” to teach, he recalled. When it snowed, she parked her car far away on a hill and walked down a long dirt road to reach the children.

In that schoolroom, warmed by a wood-burning stove, the children hung on every word from Ms. Williams. The two books were not new, and pages were missing, but decades later Law still remembers: The little dog said bowwow. Dick ran. Jane ran. They ran and ran and ran.

“Since I’ve been grown, I always thought, ‘What would have happened to us if Ms. Williams didn’t come out there to teach us?’ ” said Law. “We didn’t have any access to education other than that.”

Later, he would devour history books such as “To Be a Slave” by Julius Lester and “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” by Walter Rodney.

Years later, he found in Riba Cross another place where books were a luxury. Although apartheid has been abolished, its legacy remains fierce: substandard schools and poverty for black families.

During the apartheid era, the black residents of Riba Cross could not set foot inside the nearest library, 15 miles away. Law said most didn’t even know it existed.

When he asked residents what they most needed, they said a library. So, Law wrote a proposal that was sent to the Peace Corps, which provided most of the money for the project. The town’s residents paid for a third out of their own pockets--and with their own labor.

“A lot of people in that area are illiterate, but they are able to recognize the need for that type of facility for their children,” Law said.

One of his friends from Cal State Los Angeles was Hobert, who grew up in Harlem. She was not an avid reader--until she read a book that she simply could not put down, a story about a Brazilian woman’s fight against poverty.

“This is the book that got me started,” she said, holding a copy of “Child of the Dark, The Diary of Carolina de Jesus.” At Cal State Los Angeles, she developed an appetite for the works of Zora Neale Hurston and Chinua Achebe.

Her 1997 visit to Riba Cross left Hobert dedicated to giving its students the same opportunity to fall in love with books.

Hobert, with the help of longtime friend Carolyn Connor, mailed hundreds of letters to athletes, entertainers and publishing houses. They asked for books, money and sponsorship by organizations willing to donate books.

“The response was dismal and it was really disheartening,” said Connor, who reads more than 50 books a year. Only a few companies, including Scholastic and McGraw-Hill, donated books.

They didn’t give up. Where big companies and big names failed them, everyday people have come through, searching their bookshelves and garages and uncovering gold.

Patrons of James O’Leary’s barbershop at 98th Street and Normandie Avenue donated books and contributed nearly $1,000 to help ship them. Hobert managed to retrieve books from local schools that were tagged to be discarded.

People bring her boxes of books. She accepts them all, except math and science texts more than five years old.

Collecting the books is only half the battle. There also is shipping. In the past, Law and Hobert have often paid for it themselves, or with help from family and friends.

The effort is not rare for the two, who have a long history of community work: tutoring, teaching black history, helping young people.

They are creating a nonprofit organization that will also donate school supplies, furniture and--they hope--enough computers to “bring the classrooms into the 21st century,” Hobert said. Riba Cross also needs a librarian to train a resident in library science.

What has driven the two teachers is a simple idea. Students who want to learn should be able to do so. “It’s important to at least make information available. I think that’s the least I can try to do,” Law said.

On each Saturday in February, Hobert and Law will hold a book collection in conjunction with the African American Firefighters Museum. Books will be collected from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the museum at 1401 S. Central Ave. Monetary donations are tax-deductible. For information, call (213) 744-1730.