Fall 2010 The Literacy Project.

RICHIE ROBERTS AND THE AMERICAN GANGSTER

Russell Crowe (above right) and The Roberts-Lucas family Richie Roberts (above left) pose on the set relationship began when was of American Gangster. The movie in prison. The elder Lucas was released chronicled the rise and fall of Frank Lucas after serving seven years of his 70-year (played by ), a Harlem prison term. He agreed to provide drug lord who boasted he made information against various associates, $1,000,000 a day selling he including corrupt cops. imported from Southeast Asia. Roberts said he wanted to make sure Roberts, now a defense attorney in that Ray Lucas did not recreate the drug Newark, , was an assistant life of his father. Essex County (N.J.) prosecutor when he “He is a good kid,” Roberts said in an led a task force that brought down the interview on Conversations with Allan Lucas drug distribution operation. Wolper. Roberts, born in , moved to Lucas never mentioned his son’s Newark when he was eight years old and relationship with Roberts in his graduated from Weequahic (pronounced autobiography, Original Gangster: The week-wake) High School, starring on the Real Life story Of One Of America’s Most football team. Notorious Drug Lords, a book that was co- He received an undergraduate degree authored by Aliya S. King. In that book from Rutgers University and a law degree Lucas said: “Thank you, Richard, for from . everything that you have done, did, and Incredibly, Roberts is the godfather of still do for me.” Ray, the 13-year-old son of Frank Lucas However, Roberts will most likely and is paying his private school tuition. provide more details of that relationship Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe: the when he publishes his own autobiography stars of American Gangster. next year.

Richie Roberts Curriculum Guide...... 3 Columns on Listening, Profile...... 1 Coming up on Researching, and CONTENTS conversations with Allan Writing...... 5&6 The Project...... 2 Wolper...... 4

[1] There is no question that writers love to use CONVERSATIONS The hyperbole -- as Joanna Wolper does in her column on being consumed by consumerism. Or report on WITH ALLAN Project. a humorous exchange with a cab driver as Emeritus English Professor James Reiss does in WOLPER his piece. And both pieces were carefully Good writers are good constructed for maximum effect. WBGO-FM 88.3 FM salespeople. They write In their columns, Christine Redman-Waldeyer 54 Park Place for their readers. They Allan Wolper of Passaic County Community College and Pat Newark, NJ communicate. They want Winters-Lauro of Kean University explain the best 07102 you to understand what they’re saying and what way to achieve clear, understandable prose. they mean. They have a point of view, but they -Rutgers Newark Professor Allan Wolper has don’t disguise it with fancy language. You know won some of the most prestigious prizes in where they stand and what they’re all about. Allan Wolper journalism – including the Alfred I. duPont- Movie producers are in the selling business, Host/Producer Columbia University Journalism Award – the too. But they’re mainly in the entertainment Pulitzer Prize of broadcast news. [email protected] business. So facts are fudged, scenes are created out of the mind of a director, and people are saying things that no one ever heard before. Joanna Wolper The project is funded, in That’s the case of American Gangster, a Senior Producer part, by the Verizon Check movie that purports to show how Richie Roberts, a into Literacy program. former assistant Essex County prosecutor in New Fernando Vázquez Jersey, brought down Frank Lucas: one of the most notorious drug dealers in American history. Digital Editor Newsletter There is little doubt that Roberts was a key figure in getting Lucas to testify against some Inga Korsgaard fellow drug dealers, but there is an ongoing debate about whether his role was magnified to Photo Editor make a better movie.

Doug Doyle WBGO News Director

Thurston Briscoe Executive Producer WBGO Vice President Programming and Production

Cephas Bowles WBGO President Chief Executive Officer

Conversations with Allan Wolper archives are located at: www.wbgo.org/wolper

[2] movie. Should the movie have changed the name Curriculum Guide for of the drug, realizing that could happen?

Richie Roberts and the •Critics of movies based on real lives say Hollywood often misrepresents a story, giving too American Gangster much credit to some people and minimizing the roles of others. Make a list of all the real life characters in the movie and interview them to see whether their lives were portrayed accurately in The Movie the movies. •Richie Roberts was portrayed as the key figure in bringing down the drug empire of Frank Lucas. • What role, if any, should movies be used as research tools by high schools and colleges? But some journalists say that was a Hollywood creation. Research Roberts’ role in the Frank Do people tend to believe movies even when critics prove that the facts portrayed on the Lucas investigation. screen are totally made up? •When the movie was released three years ago, Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts appeared on • How much influence do movies have on American culture? television and radio, and made numerous Richie Roberts appearances at high schools and colleges. Do movies make heroes out of villains? Research the articles of those appearances and • compare what they said in their interviews with Compare the treatment of Frank Lucas in American Gangster to the Al Pacino character in the movie version of their lives. The Godfather triology? •Research the history of in Newark, N.J. What influence, if any, do you • Why would the movie producers leave out the fact that Richie Roberts, who was credited with think the school had on the career of Richie Roberts? investigating and arresting Frank Lucas, became the godfather of the drug dealer’s son? Process • Do you think that Russell Crowe was picked to portray Richie Roberts because they look alike? Should producers of biographical films – called • Listen to the interview with Richie Roberts on biopics - pick actors because of their WBGO’s Conversations with Allan Wolper. List resemblance to the real life characters? all the issues covered in that interview. Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts today • Why do you think the producers selected • Watch the movie and take notes on possible Denzel Washington to portray Frank Lucas? issues to cover, comparing what Roberts said to what was portrayed in the movie.

Suggested Topics • Scan the internet for newspaper and magazine articles on Richie Roberts and Frank Lucas.

Select one of following: • Listen carefully to YouTube videos that featured interviews with them. •Compare the backgrounds of Richie Roberts and Frank Lucas. • Write a 500-word essay on a particular issue that you believe best serves the public. Show •Richie Roberts prosecuted Frank Lucas as an the article to someone who has no idea about Essex County detective, but is now an attorney in how real life detectives and drug dealers private practice in Newark. What does that say behave. about the criminal justice system in America? Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts • Take down their questions and respond to them •Compare the autobiography, Original Gangster in a rewrite of your essay so that anyone can by Frank Lucas to the movie, American Gangster. understand what you have written.

•Street dealers called their drugs, Blue Magic, to • Show your teacher or professor your essay for take advantage of the publicity generated by the suggestions and write it one more time.

[3] Coming up on Conversations with Allan Wolper

Frank Lucas: The Original

[4] Even with professors off-campus Professor Edwards encourages her Rearing reenergizing themselves many took the time students to examine the way modern media to answer my email queries. works and think about how they see Objective Dr. Noel Robinson, coordinator of themselves fitting in. Communications and Journalism at the Dr. Nessie Ndive-Hill, professor at Essex Writers County College of Morris, believes ethical County College and President/Founder of problems can best be confronted with critical Gender and Development Inter-Action Global Journalism demands thinking and sound judgment. Textbooks will Organization, says students must learn the that reporters master provide students with casework exercises, rules and application of grammar – a building critical thinking skills but it is real cases which win their attention. block and foundation for their research. And and develop a strong Robinson says that in addition to students need to learn how to be their own s e n s e o f m o r a l preparing a list of questions before an editors. “They must communicate to readers Dr. Christine principles. These two interview, students need to learn how to or viewers in a very simple and straight Redman-Waldeyer areas are difficult to evaluate what their source is saying. That forward way,” she says. define. attention to detail becomes important when “I tell my students they will make poor Teaching students how to think critically an interview subject avoids answering a judgment calls at first. I reiterate this point often can become a cumbersome task. question. And so she suggests that students by sharing one of my first reporting mishaps. I encourage students writing for our learn to rephrase their questions to try Covering a town hearing on candidates for campus newspaper to understand and get a better response. mayor, I became enamored with the fact that the difference between writing a Students need to Critical thinking requires maturity the panel included someone still in his news story as opposed to an that can best be gained through twenties. My editor pointed out that I had opinion article. Those lines are develop the experience. not given the same attention in my article to easily blurred. It is important, I background and Melissa Edwards, professor at the other candidates. explain to them, to use the wisdom to process Middlesex County College and Objective reporting is always a right word choice and tone for current and Head Instructor at City Kidz balancing act. I tell my students to think in their pieces. World Writing Studio, says the moment, consider your options and walk Writing a column requires historical events. students need to “develop the the tightrope with grace. good research. Students must background and wisdom to -Dr. Christine Redman-Waldeyer teaches learn that their arguments or point of process current and historical events.” literature, writing, and journalism and is the view become vulnerable to criticism when Edwards believes college is the right Coordinator of the Journalism Option Program at their reporting is weak. place to start gaining that kind of wisdom. Passaic County Community College in Paterson. During the summer, I reached out to “Critical thinking is about being able to make She has published two books of poetry with community college professors like sense of information by making personal Muse-Pie Press and read widely in literary myself to get their views on what critical connections,” she says. “It is knowing, journals. thinking skills they want their students to use. understanding, and deciding.”

Next hotdogs vanished from my I suppose I could drive. But the National A Victim of luncheon fare following news features of Safety Council says someone dies in a car franks filled with cancerous chicken wings. crash every nine minutes. And flying. There’s the Then went the sausage. It can cause no way I’m getting on a plane because with Consumer trichinosis. It said so right on the package I my luck it will land in the Hudson River and bought at the D’Agostino Supermarket. Eggs sink. Even waving good-by to a departing Crusader are full of salmonella. Cheese and steak give traveler is fraught with peril. You never know I can’t eat or drink you heart attacks. If this story is making you where the next terrorist will strike. Joanna Wolper anything. I’m afraid to nervous, don’t take a drink—cirrhosis of the So I’m lying under the covers in my leave the house. I am a liver. Don’t pick up a cigarette. You know bedroom, freezing. I’ve turned off the steam victim of the consumer reporter. Ever since what the Surgeon General says. It’s right on heat, because it’s drying out my complexion. Ralph Nader and his pals the side of the pack. I can’t use a space heater which might catch started investigating, I have Mortal fear of the Reach for a on fire. I’ve been flat on my back since I tomato, and it’s threw out my pillow last week because there become an anorexia nervosa refrigerator drives me from hermit. My friends warn me filled with gas or was a chance it had dust mites. Not to that I’ve been taking the my apartment. c o v e r e d w i t h mention that sleeping on a pillow causes news too seriously. But if you pesticides. Deli food creases in your forehead. read the paper, watch TV or surf the internet, h a s s o m a n y So I turned over to watch the late movie you begin to get the feeling that if the food preservatives markets can keep the meat and on my 40 inch TV screen. Then I doesn’t get you…the BEDBUGS will. salads on the shelf for seven weeks. remembered….THE RAYS….THE I have ceased eating from a can. The Mortal fear of the refrigerator drives me RAYS….THE RAYS. tiniest dent sends me into fits of terror. After from my apartment. But as I push the button -Joanna Wolper is an Emmy Award winning all, the New York Times said that seven I think of the newspaper stories of elevators television writer/director, a documentary filmmaker, ounces of botulism bacteria could kill the free falling 15 floors to the basement. Where children’s book author and humor essayist. She is entire human race. So I switched from can I go? Public transportation and movies Senior Producer of Conversations with Allan canned tuna to hamburgers. But soon people are out. Too much of a risk that a bedbug Wolper. were keeling over from burgers spiced with E. could leap from the sweater of the guy sitting coli bacteria. next to me directly to mine.

[5] Do You Could I quote the American Using Our first news item was Know poet Carl Sandburg, who called about a student who retained an What I am Chicago “Hog Butcher for the News ACLU lawyer after getting suspended when he lost a bet World”? Could I say that Chi Town’s Saying? with buddies and wore a dress to Sears Tower, now renamed the Willis I n h i s The other day, high school. Tower, with 108 floors, was once the e s s a y , in a hired limo One student argued that the “ E n g l i s h tallest skyscraper in the world— school had the right to a dress James Reiss o n t h e w a y 99: Literacy even bigger than New York’s Empire Pat Winters-Lauro code. f r o m J e r s e y among the State Building? Would he get an Okay, said another, but did City to Newark Airport, I asked my Ruins,” Frank Gannon wrote image of Chicago if I compared the the dress code specifically ban about his brief and largely driver where he was from. He said cross-dressing? If not, was Willis Tower to the Burj Khalifa, with unhappy experience teaching a he was Egyptian and asked me p a s s i n g s u c h a b a n 160 floors, currently the tallest man- class to college students. where I was headed. I said Chicago. unconstitutional? made structure on the planet? The Gannon despaired of the difficulty He peered at me in the We used the underpinnings explaining the creative process, fact that the Burj Khalifa is in Dubai, of every journalistic story – who, rearview mirror and asked me to saying he used lines like: “Keep virtually next door to Egypt, might what, when, where, why and how, repeat my destination. When I said doing it and one day you wake up have helped get across my point. known as the Five W’s and the H Chicago for the second time, he and you can do it,” and “If you Of course, I could say that I – to develop the points. keep doing it, you will get it. It’s asked if it was in the United States. T h e n s t u d e n t s w e r e went to the University of Chicago on like golf. It is like tennis. It is like a I couldn’t believe it. My driver instructed to find details, the city’s South Side. I could hula-hoop.” spoke heavily accented English, but description and examples to compare Lake Michigan’s beaches Gannon’s lament he appeared to have an education. support the points. reminded me of my days at a to those near Alexandria, Egypt’s As we developed the essay, As we sped west on the New Jersey community college teaching a second city, although the each naturally led to lecture Turnpike Extension, he opined that required English Composition Mediterranean Sea is salty and Lake opportunities on other elements, the current Egyptian President Hosni course to a wide range of Michigan has fresh water so sweet such as organization, Mubarak’s son, Gamal, would students, many of whom had little that millions of people in the transitioning or research. interest in writing. In my struggle, probably be Egypt’s next president. Other items we explored metropolitan area known as I reached back into my origins as We chatted about Egypt’s King included ’s ban on Chicagoland drink it. To swim on a newspaper journalist and Farouk. He was overthrown in 1953, the use of trans-fats at developed a method that used Chicago’s beaches is to be part of a restaurants, and a case in but my driver lauded him as an the news to teach writing the prairie Riviera all the more alluring England where the mother of a eminently capable leader. essay. because of the city’s long snowy 200-pound, eight-year-old boy At the doorway to United Using the news is hardly winters. was charged with neglect and a Airlines terminal, he locked eyes unique, but my method had a I said none of the above. proposal to ban smoking in cars twist. In true tabloid tradition, I with me. with children under 16. Instead, I launched into a lame used the stuff of cocktail He knew about Los Angeles, Of course, the writing part imitation of Frank Sinatra’s conversation and water cooler but he’d forgotten the name of the remained the hard work. “Chicago, Chicago.” chatter (or perhaps, I should say place I was flying to. He said he Ultimately, writing is not the fodder of Tweets and blogs) I paid my driver, shook his something that is learned simply would ask his friends about it. to teach students how to hand and spoke the Arabic words by taking notes. Would I pronounce its name again develop, research and write. for thanks and goodbye, Shukran, I was able to give students please? What I did was use outrageous, ma'assalama. an activity to help develop the novel, in-your-face news to I was speechless. My driver ideas. It was a start, but then it I hope he understood what I garner student attention. I know it obviously hadn’t heard of the Cubs was their turn, as Gannon was saying. wasn’t academic – and some or the White Sox, much less Michael probably would say, to just sit might call it pandering -- but for Jordan. -James Reiss’s most recent book is down and do it. young people who have grown He’d never tasted a Chicago Riff on Six: New and Selected Poems. -Pat Winters-Lauro is an Assistant up on the shocking, free-for-all Professor of Journalism at Kean He is Emeritus Professor of English Vienna Beef red-hot frankfurter, let Internet, it seemed to me that University and a former reporter alone visited the Midwest. How was and Founding Editor of Miami using tabloid news is exactly the whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Daily News University Press at Miami University in way to reach them where they I to communicate to him the and other publications. essence of the Windy City? Oxford, Ohio. He lives near Chicago. already live.

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