Mary Staes

NEW ORLEANS – As they walk through hallways of their old high school, everyone knows them as a group they call the Super Seven; seven Warren Easton seniors who graduated not once, but twice, in two days.

 

The young men finished with their high school diplomas, and the next day received a certificate of technical studies from Delgado Community College for residential electricity. Out of approximately twenty students that started the program in their junior year, only seven graduated with certifications.

 

“We’re the first group to finish,” explained Darius Martin. “They just looked at it like, ‘Oh this is early release’, they didn’t look at it as an opportunity to do something big.”

 

The boys attended Easton for the first half of the day, and would find ways to get to Delgado for the second half. They began taking classes at Delgado’s City Park campus, but many days they would have to find a way from Mid-City to Delgado’s Jefferson campus.

 

“It was kind of tough getting back and forth to Jefferson sometimes, but we all put in together,” said Lindsey Moore. “The school provided bus and street car coins for us, sometimes we would all put in for gas money, and we made a way.”

 

While juggling both schools, the boys found a way to get together and study.

 

“We worked together, we had many study groups,” explained Moore. “We would just link up in the library, sometimes we would study at my house, and sometimes we would study at my friend Darius’ house.”

 

Breaks at Delgado and breaks at Easton often didn’t match up, so even if the group was off at one school, they’d still have to attend class at another.

 

“We’d know it was spring break in college coming up, but we’d still be in regular school,” said Kainta Lefort. “So over those breaks we’d get the college work ready, and over our school breaks, we’d get the other work ready. So it was kind of challenging.”

 

Many of the seven have siblings, and know their families, and even the students in the grades below them see them as examples.

 

“I do see myself as a role model,” said Adonai Washington. “It’s exciting but it’s a weird feeling at the same time. I know you don’t hear of too many African American men of my age graduating high school and college at the same time especially with a certificate for what we have from Delgado. It’s a feeling you can’t put in words.”

 

For some in the group, graduating twice was something they, and their families hadn’t thought of.

 

“My family, they were happy,” said Elijah Hall. “They’ve never seen that before, it was something new in the family. The first seven, I mean it makes us proud, look where we’re at now.”

 

Others said they had examples before them, and knew they had something to achieve themselves.

 

“I feel like my brother just graduated for being an architect and I’m following in the right footsteps, I’m making my household smile,” said Moore. “After my older brother achieved a college degree at Hampton, it really inspired me to do something to make my mom and dad smile like they smiled once before. So I took the time out and worked hard so I could get my college degree early, and I’m also going to get another one so I can see them smile twice.”

 

All of the young men talked about their parents.

 

“My mom can’t seem to stop smiling every time she walks past the mantelpiece and sees the diplomas,” said Washington.

 

The certification offers something many don’t have the day they walk out of high school.

 

“A lot of children, when they get out of high school they don’t have anything to do,” said Lefort. “They’re bored. They don’t have anything to look forward to, it’s only the streets you can go to. But we have a way, we have a degree. We know if we want to work and hustle to get something, we know we can hustle and get a job from that degree or get into a school to finish our education. You know, they have a lot of negative things you can do to make money, we just want to do the positive and make everybody proud of us.”

 

All of the young men have a plan after graduation. Some of them want to return to Delgado to get their certification in commercial electricity. Others want to go to college for electrical engineering. One even wants to open his own business.

 

“I really look at this like a blessing for us and like that we made history,” said Jamon Williams. “I feel even more proud of my classmates because we’re African-American men and a lot of us are only looked at like a statistic.”

 

“The wrong statistic,” interrupted Moore. “We’re looked at like a negative statistic, and I’m real proud of my friends, because they don’t know, it wasn’t easy to get this at all.”