>> hinojosa: he's inspired thousands to dream bigger and achieve the extraordinary. with his high-level job training centers and after-school art programs, he's revitalizing crime-ridden neighborhoods and redefining social enterprise in america-- visionary community leader and social architect bill strickland. i'm maria hinojosa, and this is one on one. ( laughter ) bill strickland, it's great to have you on the show. >> it's nice to be here, maria. >> hinojosa: we're already laughing. ( laughing ) so many people might not know your face, and they might not even know the organization that you run, which is manchester bidwell in pittsburgh, but what

you have done, essentially, is dedicated your life to looking at poor, disadvantaged communities and people and saying, "i see amazing potential." >> correct. i believe that most people are born into the world as assets, not liabilities. it's all in the way you treat people that drives behavior, so on the basis of the insight-- which is largely autobiographical-- i built a center in pittsburgh beginning in the 1960s to work with kids in the streets during the riots and unemployed adults during the early 1970s. and i redefined the strategy to work with public school kids who are at risk by using the arts as way of redeeming their souls and creating opportunity for life, and recovering unemployed individuals largely on public assistance by putting them in world-class technology facilities that can actually teach them the skill sets that they can use. >> hinojosa: okay, so, so, so, so... let's just take it one step at a time. >> sure. >> hinojosa: so one of your fundamental philosophies that you have written about in your

book is that if you expose people in general-- and disadvantaged people, specifically-- to art, to all forms of art, that their lives can be profoundly transformed. >> you can cure spiritual cancer with the arts. that's what i discovered. trial and error; over 25 to 30 years. >> hinojosa: and it started with you, right? because you were this kid-- young african american kid-- in a really poor neighborhood in pittsburgh. >> art teacher saved my life, a guy named frank ross. he got me excited about ceramics when i was in tenth grade. i got pretty good at it. >> hinojosa: but it was more than that. it was that you, you know, you're here with this high school teacher, right? >> oh, he was cool guy, man. >> hinojosa: really cool guy, but you walk by and all of a sudden, there's a room... >> yes, our art room. >> hinojosa: ...that is open... >> one potters wheel. >> hinojosa: ...and there's music coming out? >> yeah, he has jazz music on, he's got a coffee pot-- most important-- and he makes a great, big, old ceramic bowl, and i'd never seen that done before. it was magical.

>> hinojosa: now, you were, at this point, a kid who was, like... >> drifting. >> hinojosa: ...drifting. >> yeah. >> hinojosa: you could have easily gone down the wrong road. >> an african american male drifting in america is highly in danger. you're either going to get yourself killed, or you're going to go to jail, or something in between. >> hinojosa: and part of the reason why you were drifting is because the messages that you were getting... this is 1960... late 1960s. >> correct. >> hinojosa: so as a young african american man... >> the streets are on fire, riots are going on, dr. king was assassinated. these were very turbulent times, and people were in deep rebellion. and so what i saw was rebellion, drugs, violence, a lot of really regressive behavior that surrounded everybody in that community 360 degrees, 24/7. and so there was not much of a way to visualize an opportunity to get out of that circumstance that became available to me, and i got lucky and met frank who

opened up a new vista of opportunity. >> hinojosa: who was doing pottery. >> doing clay. >> hinojosa: and the last thing that you imagined at that moment in your life is, "hmm, if i see some guy doing pottery, this is going to transform my life." >> it's one of those accidental events in life when your guard's down, so i didn't have any protection against the image, so the image got right through. and he turned around and says, "can i help you?" i said, "what is that?" he said, "that's clay." i said, "i want you to teach me how to do that." so i cut classes for two years, gave the teachers my pots, they gave me passing grades, and frank drug me out of the pit... >> hinojosa: but wait; i'm going to stop you right there, because you had the capacity-- even at that moment when you say that you were kind of teetering where your life was going to go-- but you had enough kind of inner wherewithal to say, "yo, how do you do that? i want to learn how." not everybody, you know, would immediately say, "i'm going to ask the question," or "i'm going to allow myself to be curious." where does that come from in... >> my mother. that was my mother's contribution-- one of many. she prepared me by the way that she ran her home to be open to

people of different races, different cultures, different backgrounds, because she... >> hinojosa: how did she do that? >> well, our neighbors were always there. we were in what they now call a multicultural neighborhood. back then we called it a neighborhood. there were italian people, and slovak people, and there's irish people, and german people, and i got to eat at all of their tables; i went to school with their kids. and so we were... >> hinojosa: that was your mom's... that was your mom's essential predisposition to, "i am your equal; i may..." >> "i would treat everybody the same. all of us are human beings; we're all built about the same, and i'm going to treat my kids that way." and so that predisposed me to being receptive to mr. ross, the italian art teacher in our high school, because i had no reason not to accept him emotionally and psychologically. so the image got right through to my heart. >> hinojosa: you're working with clay for the first time in your life, and what happens at that moment? >> magic. i started to be... understand that i could actually take an inert form and turn it into a

vessel with my energy, my input, my ideas. >> hinojosa: and what did that... what did that mean, you know, profoundly? >> well, it meant that i could control something; i could be celebrated for my creativity and my ideas, because it was my pot-- not somebody else's pot. and i also figured out that people valued my ability to demonstrate that i had capability in the form of ceramics, because you made the vessels , you presented them, you gave them as gifts, and so forth. so i began to receive applause and accolades for something that i had learned how to do on my own, and i was being celebrated for my "talent." i liked that feeling a lot; that was pretty powerful. >> hinojosa: you end up going to college... >> yup. >> hinojosa: ...even though you're essentially put into college on probation? >> correct. >> hinojosa: by now, you're having people who are essentially supporting you... >> frank ross supported me. >> hinojosa: ...and you're allowing them to support you. >> yeah, well, frank drug me out the pit. he says, "fill out this application; i don't want you dying on the streets like the rest of these kids-- you're going to college."

so i get to pit, fill out the test-- the sat test, because i've never seen a test before. so i get in on probation, i graduate with honors, now i'm a trustee of the university of pittsburgh. i'm the commencement speaker-- 13,000 people-- and i got up and said, "don't give up on the poor kids, they might end up being the commencement speaker some day." so the point of the story is environment drives behavior. you create world-class environments for kids, you get world-class students. you build prisons, you get prisoners. and frank created the whole world of possibilities in his classroom in that inner city high school. he brought in jazz albums, he brought in books on architecture, he took me to see a house built by frank lloyd wright, the architect of south of pittsburgh. he allowed me to read haiku poetry, which i got excited about. so i created my own independent study at oliver high school as a 16-year-old kid, and that set the stage for my emancipation. >> hinojosa: you see it as that? >> oh, yeah. absolutely. >> hinojosa: prior to that, you

were... >> enslaved to fear and hopelessness... >> hinojosa: ah! >> ...and not clear about what the future looked like. >> hinojosa: so part of the fear is an internal fear of, "i can't succeed; i've been told i'm always going to fail"? >> people are a function of their experience. if your experiences are always failures, you conclude that that's all that's possible. if you begin to achieve some success, you begin to comprehend that that is part of your vocabulary and therefore can be part of your life. so it's a cumulative experience. so the strategy with the kids we work with is to change their experience from failure to success by doing this in many of the ways that frank taught me. >> hinojosa: so right now, you have, from this little idea of "i can work with young people; i can transform them," you're now a ceo... >> correct. >> hinojosa: ...and you have how many people who you're overseeing just in the pittsburgh version... >> we have 140 staff everyday,

i've got 200 vocational students and a couple hundred art students every week in this training center that's now 160,000 square feet of real estate, got a 40,000 square foot greenhouse and a 60,000 square foot office building, and a 62,000 square foot training center with a music hall that does jazz presenting... >> hinojosa: and we're going to get to the jazz in a minute. and now... and essentially, the manchester bidwell model has been replicated in how many cities? >> three cities. >> hinojosa: three cities. >> cincinnati, grand rapids, san francisco so far. they're getting comparable results to pittsburgh, and they're spectacular examples of the par of the human spirit to cure unhappiness. >> hinojosa: and essentially, you're saying, "look, if we... if you allow us to put a state-of-the-art institution that offers free art classes, exposure to the arts, an extraordinary visual experience just walking in, and job training, you can actually

transform an entire community." >> one step at a time. you start by building the training center, you demonstrate results, you get unemployed people to work-- not make work, permanent work around technology and service. you take the public school kids who are at risk-- in our case in pittsburgh, we graduated 92% of them. we're also doing that in the other cities, by the way. and that way, you can redefine what happens to these children. so public school kids go to college, the adults go to vocational education-- they get jobs, they work for industry-- and you can begin to develop a strategy to change a whole world one adult and one kid a time. that's the plan. >> hinojosa: so let me be a little bit of a skeptic, though, because you've been doing this since 19... >> 68. >> hinojosa: ...68, and you're obviously an optimist-- you always look at the glass half-full-- but if you look at it half-empty and said, "well, wait a second. bill strickland has this amazing program that has been proven to work. how come, you know, 40 years later, we actually don't already have not hundreds but thousands

of the manchester bidwell model? why is it that it still hasn't, if it's been so successful? >> just because it makes sense does not mean that people are going to support it. the two have no relationship with each other! ( laughs ) >> hinojosa: you have to come to understand that at some point, right? >> sure. there are many things that work against the poor; that keep them in those conditions economically, politically, and so on. and so simply because i came along with an idea that seems to have some traction does not mean that people are going to get out of bed in the morning celebrating my genius for solving problems with the poor. that's not how it works. you've got to put left foot in front of right probably for the rest of your life just to make gains of inches, not miles. and you've got to keep saying the thing over, and over, and over until enough people listen to you that you begin to get some scale. that is what i've dedicated my life to. now, people like dr. king were making sense his whole life, but the country didn't decide all of

a sudden they're going to treat black people and hispanic people fairly because of this extraordinary, nobel peace prize man who gave the greatest speech probably ever in the march on washington. the country did not decide to treat people justly because he gave that extraordinary speech. they didn't treat gandhi with respect; in fact, he was killed for some of his genius and some of his insight. so the point of the story is just because you have ideas, and just because you maybe somebody who's innovative, does not mean that the world is going to stop and celebrate your cause. and it's very important to me that you do not need the applause in order to do your job. >> hinojosa: but... but... but... with someone like you, you actually need the applause, because the applause actually gets you the recognition. the recognition helps you to find the funding so that you can do this kind of stuff. >> but i don't need the applause to inflate my ego, i need it so i can so i can convert that into political opportunity to build centers. i will do this work whether i'm being applauded or not. so it's not a requirement to enter my center that you think

that i'm this extraordinary guy. what the requirement is is that you take advantage of the resources we've put together to make something out of your life. and i've developed the ability to actually care for people who have been successful in their life. that's how i measure the quality of my life, is by how they've measured the quality of theirs. >> hinojosa: so this notion of art, again, is something that you and i have been talking... even before we started recording, because it turns out that we're both huge jazz aficionados. and you talk about jazz... well, not only did you say, "wow, i love jazz; i think i'll become a record producer," and you, in fact... manchester bidwell now has its own grammy award winning record label... >> correct. >> hinojosa: ...but for a second, talk to me about why jazz is so central to who you are and how you see your relationship to changing lives. >> well, first of all, mr. ross brought in jazz albums. he said, "you need to know about this music, because your people largely created it," so that was new. but i found that by listening to cal tjader, and miles davis, and

wes montgomery, and shirley horn, and nancy wilson, it opened up a portal of light that created the sense of possibility that didn't exist before. and it never occurred to me that i could think differently about the same set of events, but with the imposition of this music, it became a form of hope. and i learned to translate the music into sugar, like a flower converts light into sugar. that became food for me. >> hinojosa: and you know what? you've actually changed me, just in your whole analysis of jazz. i mean, i think i always knew this, but you've essentially said, "look, the amazing thing about jazz is that you have silence, and then you have the ability of jazz artists to actually fill that silence with multiple layers of something experiential . >> and complex, and enriching, and affirmative, so that i learn to take the music of cal tjader and miles, nancy wilson, and it actually colored the picture that was in my head.

so i could be looking at this cup, for example, in black and white, and i could hear this music and i'd look at it in color. and i said, "wow, i can actually change the way that i feel about current reality based on the imposition of this music; brilliant." >> hinojosa: so now, translate that into... okay, here's this amazing guy who understands the impact of cultural experience, but then you make it real how? how do you transform that to... >> by building a center based on those principles. you hire a student of frank lloyd wright, the architect, you build a frank lloyd wright school. >> hinojosa: but before we get to the student of frank lloyd wright... >> okay. >> hinojosa: ...so i'm a young man or a young woman in your community ... >> right. >> hinojosa: ...in pittsburgh. and there is a tremendous amount of poverty... >> yup. >> hinojosa: ...violence... >> yup. >> hinojosa: ...crime... >> agree. >> hinojosa: ...i'm going to a school where i'm really not getting any kind of attention... >> right. >> hinojosa: ...and i walk by your center, which is gorgeous... >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: ...and somehow, you're believing that if i'm

about to be a drop-out, that somehow i can come into your center and something is going to be transforming. >> well, i have 500 of them now a week to do exactly that. now, there's a 20-some year history behind all of this. >> hinojosa: and so they come in... so these are, like, high school students? do they get credit for what they're doing? >> some do, most don't. it's after school-- 2:30 in the afternoon. they walk into a place with no metal detector; they walk into a place with no cameras, no anti-theft system. the first thing they see on the front desk is an orchid that sits on the front desk. >> hinojosa: a fresh orchid? >> a fresh orchid that we've grown in our greenhouse... >> hinojosa: in pittsburgh... >> in pittsburgh. they look around and see hand-crafted quilts. the building is flooded with sunlight from the skylights, and they are in, by definition, a safe and nurturing environment. they smell the food that's done in our gourmet kitchen. they see clay objects, they see hand-crafted furniture, and this is in their neighborhood. and the emotional impact of that gets their attention, and the kids call it being in a safe haven.

that's the name of the study that we did on the kids-- they called it a safe haven. we get them in clay, we get them in photography, they listen to jazz, and all of a sudden these kids like what they feel, they like what they hear, and they like the way that they're being talked to. the only question i ask kids when i bump into them in the hallway is, "what college are you going to-- not if you're going to college, but when you're going to college?" >> hinojosa: the whole notion of "they like the way that they're being talked to"... >> yeah. >> hinojosa: ...you say that if you treat these young people with respect, and you give them an immensely beautiful place to be, that they will, in turn, give that back. >> absolutely. 24 years of operation in a high-crime neighborhood in pittsburgh, we've never head a drug or alcohol incident, a fight, or a police call-- zero. >> hinojosa: not even a fight? >> nothing-- no racial incidents, no drugs, no alcohol, no police calls, no theft, and they have no anti-theft system in the building. now, come on. >> hinojosa: are you kidding? with all that... >> no, i'm not kidding. i have no reason to kid anymore. 24 years of experience in this

tough neighborhood. >> hinojosa: and now you end up, actually... you're working with a lot of poor african americans, which has traditionally... you're working with immigrant community, and you've got poor whites. >> poor whites, and from what i can gather, poverty's poverty. it effects everybody just about the same, but the antidote is the same-- quality, affection, excellence, world-class leadership, powerful architecture, sunlight, flowers, food-- you can cure cancer. >> hinojosa: music. >> that's why i won the macarthur fellowship, because i figured out the cure for spiritual cancer. it's called treating people with dignity, and with hope and human possibility, we can actually cure the disease. >> hinojosa: and the training center...so let's move into... all right, so these kids, some of them have their parents who have lost their jobs... >> yup. >> hinojosa: ...and you have a training center that then... >> vocational education. >> hinojosa: they're learning pharmaceutical... >> correct. >> hinojosa: ...horticulture... >> correct. chemical technology... >> hinojosa: chemical technology... >> ...medical coders, medical billing people, medical

transcriptionists. so we have state-of-the-art, industry-specific training on behalf of poor folks. and so you can come to our center and see a welfare mom or an unemployed person doing analytical chemical applications in ten months with no background in science-- just as sure as i'm sitting at this table. >> hinojosa: and you've had several corporations that have now partnered with you. ibm... >> oh, no, a lot of corporations. >> hinojosa: name them, just a few. >> hp, ibm, bayer, calgon, carbon, university of pittsburgh medical center, blue cross, bny mellon, p and c... >> hinojosa: because essentially, what your workers-- what you're able to do with your workers-- is, in terms of these companies, you're delivering workers who... >> are competent and trained, and they get the job because they know what they're talking about. see, i had this brilliant idea. i went out to the employers and found out what they needed in an employee, and started teaching it. >> hinojosa: and what did they say? they said, "we need employees who are..." >> "...competent, who understand the technology that we're using, and who are already trained by

the time they get here. we're not in the education business; we're in the business to make money. if you can deliver to me competent people, i will hire them." guess what? our guys are outperforming most of the employees from most of those companies, and these are poor people who supposedly can't learn technology, have no ability to perform and do advanced math. well, they're doing advanced math, they're doing advanced calculations, and i've got a ton of them working for industry in southwest pennsylvania. >> hinojosa: so you work... now everybody's talking about social enterprise. >> right. >> hinojosa: you were kind of ahead of the curve on this. >> yeah, i was the first kid to show up at the harvard business school... >> hinojosa: that's what i was going to say. so they... so harvard business school has studied you... >> 15 years, three cases. there's another fourth case just getting ready to be written. >> hinojosa: and essentially, they're saying, "okay, this is what social enterprise can look like. this is where you can do the community after-school program that maybe is not immediately generating any income, but if you're doing a training program where you're making, you know, agreements with other companies, and you're... then there's

actually money to be made? >> what i've basically demonstrated is that i can generate a positive cash flow by taking people who are liabilities that cost the social order a lot of money-- locking people up in jail, having anti-drug programs, and anti-crime programs and so on, which is very expensive. it's very expensive to keep people poor. we figured out a strategy that we can turn them from liabilities to assets, and the community makes a lot of money by the money it does not spend, as opposed to the money it does spend-- and that's a business. and the harvard business school said, "your business is building educational centers. that's a brilliant business." and i sort of finally figured out what they were talking about, and in fact, it is a social enterprise. and then you start to get orchids being grown and the jazz label being created-- we have a small real estate division-- and all of a sudden, you become an economic engine for your community. >> hinojosa: now, you are... you're a wild dreamer. >> correct. >> hinojosa: you really are. i mean, i love the story... >> they call it a visionary,

but... >> hinojosa: before we go, we just have to tell the story quickly of how, when you were a young man and you finally get into an airplane, and you had your first flight, and you suddenly say, "hmm, i want to become a pilot," and you become a pilot, and you fly 727s for braniff airlines. >> that's right. 1980-1981. >> hinojosa: so for you, this whole notion of hearing over and over again, "you can't do it; you're a young black man from a poor neighborhood in pittsburgh-- don't even dream. >> exactly. life is about exposure. if you're exposed to opportunities, you can begin to conceive of them. but if you never know what the world looks like in terms of possibilities, you can't imagine it. so by getting on the airplane-- physically going from pittsburgh to boston-- somewhere over whitestone bridge in new york at 31,000 feet, i said, "this is cool; i'm going to do this." i asked the pilot how you become a pilot, he says, "go to the county airport and go up in a plane, see if you like it," which i did. bought a plane, flew the plane for seven years, went off to 727 school, got rated on jets and got on with braniff airlines,

and it was a great ride. >> hinojosa: so as a visionary, how do you know when you've reached the dream? i mean, you have done so much, bill strickland. yes, you have won the genius grant from the macarthur foundation, you have... you know amazing, multibillionaires like jeff skoll who can fund you. >> sure; a good friend. >> hinojosa: you're hoping to meet the president, right? >> yes. >> hinojosa: but how do you know, "okay, i've reached the dream," or, "i'm done dreaming," or "there's another dream," and how do you kind of keep it all under wraps? >> well, you don't; that's the point, that the dream is constantly evolving. the dream is not a physical place, it's a process, and as you become more successful, the range of possibilities begins to expand-- it doesn't limit; it opens up. that's the nature of the improvisational temperament. that's what dizzy gillespie and herbie hancock and these people do-- they demonstrate that you can take the same tune and play it 1,000 different ways and create 1,000 new opportunities where only one existed before.

i am living that. dizzy gillespie said, when i met him, "you are one heck of a jazz musician." i said, "i don't play jazz." he says, "oh, yes, you do. anybody that can fly jets, and grow orchids, and is a ceramic artist, and understands something about technology and architecture is a jazz musician. you think like a jazz musician-- you're the first one that's put art and business practices together in the same mind." which is exactly what quincy jones said on the cover of the book i have out, making the impossible possible. quincy said, "this guy is an entrepreneur and a jazz musician in the same body-- fascinating." >> hinojosa: all right. ten seconds-- someone watching, feeling helpless. bill stickland says to them... >> come to pittsburgh, visit the center, email us so we can begin the conversation about building a center in your community, because we want to build 200 in the world yesterday, and there's no reason to think that your city can't be one of them. >> hinojosa: so you actually want... you're saying to somebody, "dream and you make this real, and i'll help you

make it real." >> yes, that's the beginning of the conversation, and if i ever get lucky enough to meet the president and/or oprah, i think both of them would be excited about this idea. we might be able to leverage those relationships into a great, big, national conversation, and potentially, someday, an international conversation. >> hinojosa: all right, well, then we'll have you back when it moves to that level then. thank you so much, bill strickland. >> con mucho gusto. >> hinojosa: thank you. continue the conversation at wgbh.org/oneonone. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

- [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. also, by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. - i'm evan smith. he's a celebrated academic, author, and critic, an emmy-award-winning film maker who's latest pbs documentary series is and still i rise: black america since mlk. he's henry louis gates jr., this is overheard. let's be honest, is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly? how have you avoided what has befallen of the nations in africa? you can say that he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem and over time took it on. let's start with the sizzle before we get to the stake, are you gonna run for president? i think i just got an f from you actually.