RYI founder imparts life lessons to area youth

David Cogger

By the time Leon Tyler-Smith was 13 years old, he had been arrested for assaulting a police officer, he had spent “several nights in jail” on weapons charges for carrying knives and he was a regular at juvenile court.

At the time, running the streets of Charlestown, Tyler-Smith thought respect was gained through a reputation for breaking the law.

Today, he is 26 years old, a successful loan officer with a Boston-based mortgage company and a single parent caring for both a 3-year-old son and his parents.

Tyler-Smith says without his court-ordered stint at Roxbury Youthworks (RYI) when he was 13, he would either be dead or in jail. Dressed in a business suit and tie and ready for work, he is a grateful man.

“I love what I do,” he said.

Julian T. Houston is the backbone of RYI. When he founded the nonprofit group 25 years ago, Houston was a sitting judge in the Roxbury District Court and the courts were looking for an alternative to the standard fare dished out by the Department of Youth Services (DYS).

At 6-foot-4-inches tall, Houston is an imposing presence. Slightly thinning gray hair and the trace of a beard give away his age. The 62-year-old Houston recently retired after serving 27 years as a judge in the Massachusetts court system. His constant companion — a wary, charcoal gray standard poodle named Louie — sniffs and growls at visitors to his Beacon Street apartment.

Taking a seat on a low-slung antique sofa in his living room, the retired Superior Court justice speaks about two of his passions — the civil rights movement and RYI.

“Roxbury Youthworks tells kids they can’t complain about race if they have a record,” Houston said. “We explain the impact of drugs on the community and on them. Kids don’t think about these things because they think they can vault any hurdle.”

Although it would be hard to find a more ardent advocate for Boston’s inner city youth, Houston does not suffer the excuses some kids give for their troubles. Personal responsibility trumps circumstance, and the public interest always takes precedence over the individual.

His message to kids is basic: stay out of trouble.

And his prescription is equally simple: respect yourself, recognize opportunity and accept the consequences of your actions.

These values are the cornerstone of RYI, a drop-in center of sorts, with structured programs designed to help some of Boston’s most at-risk youth learn to take control of their lives.

From its modest beginnings with a staff of “one-and-a-half people,” according to the judge’s recollection, RYI has grown to employ 30, gaining the respect of law enforcement, the courts and DYS while helping thousands of Boston’s kids navigate a world beset with poverty, drugs and violence — and often, the challenges of growing up in single-parent households.

Houston’s vision for RYI can be traced to some of his own experiences as a child in the segregationist South.
Born in Virginia, he was one of the first blacks to attend the Hotchkiss School in Litchfield, Conn. — an experience he openly admits was not all that great.

At the time he attended Hotchkiss, the school had lived up to its Yankee roots, enrolling only four minority students. The cruelty Houston witnessed at Hotchkiss informed his adult life and shaped the content of his novel, “New Boy,” published by Houghton Mifflin in 2005.

Forty years have passed, and Houston says he and the school have changed. Hotchkiss has embraced him and he has been invited to speak to both students and alumni.

For his part, Houston has accepted several of the invitations and made several trips to the school, speaking about the civil rights movement and race in America.

Houston’s role as an activist took shape during his years as a student at Boston University.

He decided on the school because it had a number of black graduates who had been socially active, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and longtime Massachusetts state official Julian Steele.

The other reason for attending BU, Houston said with a smile, was that Harvard rejected him.

In the fall of 1962, his freshman year, Houston was in Roxbury every weekend organizing a boycott of the Wonder Bread Company for its refusal to hire black employees.

Shortly after, Houston joined the Boston Action Group, an advocacy group for the city’s black community where he met activists like Mel King, Rev. Michael Haynes and Richard Banks, who would later become a colleague.

By the spring of 1963, the civil rights movement in Boston had come alive. At the same time, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had begun its Birmingham campaign. In Boston, civil rights groups, led by Houston, organized a demonstration in support of the campaign.

Houston said that 10,000 people showed up on Boston Common, marking the beginning of the civil rights movement in the city.

By the summer, Houston had joined the Northern Student Movement. Living in the South End, he ran a tutoring program for minority children.

Deciding that he was witnessing a pivotal moment in the history of black Americans, Houston struck a deal with his parents and left Boston to spend the summer in Harlem.

“Mom was an educator and she was horrified. I had to promise her that I would go back to school, but my real dilemma was deciding between Harlem or Alabama,” he said.

Wanting the experience of life in a big city ghetto, Houston chose Harlem. There he organized rent strikes and neighborhood development projects.

“It was a profound experience,” he said.

Returning to BU in 1964, Houston continued his activist ways. He was elected class president and organized an ad hoc committee to boycott book prices at the university bookstore.

Houston maintains that the 1960s transformed society, both for good and bad. But he says that the positive results have outweighed the negative.

“Because of the ’60s, we have a healthier and more open society,” he said. “We’re more open about race, gender and women and children issues. We have also come to a point where certain subjects and ways of speaking are no longer tolerated.”

For Houston, the bedrock issues of poverty, education and participation promoted in the 1960s have made our society more concerned with the well-being of our fellow man than we were in the 1950s.

If there is a downside, Houston believes it can be blamed on the anger toward institutions unleashed during the ’60s.

“It [the ’60s] transformed itself into acceptance of violence in our culture, which is extremely corrosive,” he said. “Heavy metal and hip-hop, promoting misogyny and idealizing violence and criminality have led some to believe that they are licensed to behave in this way and believe it is okay to advocate these ideas.”

Houston says that some of that belief is related to the culture of the ’60s and the idea that people should do whatever they want to do — that we shouldn’t judge others.

He disagrees: “We have to judge others.”

Moreover, Houston sees the importance of getting youngsters to understand the dangers of certain behaviors.

“That’s an important part of our approach at Roxbury Youthworks, and it’s an approach that DYS insists upon,” he said.

Houston says that parents are also an important part of the picture at RYI. He says that the vast majority of parents with kids in trouble are desperate for help.

“Our approach is to say, ‘Look, it’s just like the muffler guy on TV — you can pay me now or pay me later,’” he said.

Today, as RYI gets ready to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Houston serves as chairman emeritus.

RYI Executive Director Sandra McCroom says she owes her career to Houston, who encouraged her to take on tasks that she wasn’t sure she could handle.

“Judge Houston is awesome and humble,” McCroom said. “In all of my years here, I can’t remember a monthly meeting he has ever missed. He sets the tone.”