We are investigating the educational backgrounds and early mentors of U.S. Presidential Candidates. See previous posts here. Inspired by W.E.B. Dubois’ definition of education and its role in shaping the character of a person, this project has already expanded my own view of each candidate. The research here is just a start, a dip into a much larger investigation but it should be useful to those of us who want to make an educated vote for our new President.

CHRIS CHRISTIE

Christie was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Sondra A. (née Grasso) and Wilbur James “Bill” Christie, a certified public accountant.^[1][2][3] His father is of German, Scottish, and Irish descent, and his mother was of Sicilian ancestry.^{[4][5][6][7][8]} Christie’s family moved to Livingston, New Jersey, after the 1967 Newark riots,^[9] and Christie lived in Livingston until he graduated from Livingston High School in 1980.^[10] At Livingston High School, Christie served as class president, and played catcher for the baseball team.^[9]Christie’s father and mother were Republican and Democratic, respectively. He has credited, however, his Democratic-leaning mother for indirectly making him a Republican by encouraging him in 1977 to volunteer for the gubernatorial candidate who became his role model: Tom Kean.^[2] Christie had become interested in Kean after Kean, then a state legislator, spoke to Christie’s class while Christie was in junior high school.^[9]

Christie graduated from the University of Delaware with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1984 and Seton Hall University School of Law with a J.D. in 1987. Christie was admitted to the New Jersey State Bar Association and the Bar of the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, in December 1987. Later in life, he was awarded honorary doctorate degrees by Rutgers University and Monmouth University.^[11][12]

From Biography.com

Early Life

Christopher James Christie was born in Newark, New Jersey, on September 6, 1962, to Irish father Bill Christie and Sicilian mother Sondra Christie, and raised in nearby Livingston. “Dad was just a passenger; Mom was the driver,” He later said. “She told me that love without respect was always fleeting, but that respect could grow into real and lasting love. Now, of course, she was talking about women. But I have learned over time that it applies just as much to leadership. In fact, I think that advice applies to America more than ever today.”

Chris Christie has lived in the Garden State his whole life, barring the four years he spent studying political science at the University of Delaware. At Delaware, Christie met his future wife, Mary Pat Foster, whom he married in 1986. Upon graduation, Christie returned to New Jersey to study law at Seton Hall University, where he received his J.D. He was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1987.

BOOKS: Chris Christie: The Inside Story of His Rise to Power; American Governor: Chris Christie’s Bridge to Redemption

OTHER LINKS: https://www.chrischristie.com/; On the Issues

DR. BEN CARSON

Early life and education

Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Sonya (née Copeland) and Robert Solomon Carson, a minister and later Cadillac factory worker. Both parents came from large families in rural Georgia and were living in rural Tennessee when they met and married. Carson’s mother was only 13 when she married Carson’s father, who was 28. Carson’s mother subsequently discovered her husband had another family, for which Carson’s father eventually abandoned her.^{[4][5][unreliable source?][6]} Following his parents’ divorce, when Carson was eight years old, both he and his older brother, Curtis, were raised by their mother, who worked two or three jobs at a time, usually as a domestic servant. They were poor, and his mother occasionally relied on food stamps and other government assistance.^[7]

In his book Gifted Hands, Carson relates that, in his youth, he had a violent temper. He said he once tried to hit his mother over the head with a hammer over a clothing dispute and, while in the ninth grade, he attempted to stab a friend who had changed the station on the radio; the blade broke in his friend’s belt buckle.^[8][9][10] After this incident, Carson said that he began reading the Book of Proverbs and applying verses on anger. As a result, Carson states he “never had another problem with temper”.^[11][12][13] Some of his narratives, about his childhood violence and poverty, were challenged during Carson’s campaign in 2015. For example, nine friends, classmates and neighbors who grew up with Carson, told CNN in 2015 they did not remember the anger or violence Carson has described; all expressed surprise about the incidents that Carson said had occurred.^[14]

Carson attended Southwestern High School in Southwest Detroit, where he participated in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), a program sponsored by theUnited States Armed Forces, and reached the rank of cadet colonel.^[15]

Carson does not say in his books whether he applied for and received a college student deferment during the Vietnam War. He does say that his older brother, who was a student at the University of Michigan, received a low number (26) in the first draft lottery in 1969 and enlisted in the Navy for four years instead of being drafted,^[16] whereas he received a high number (333) in the second draft lottery in 1970.^[17] Carson said he would have readily accepted his responsibility to fight had he been drafted,^[17] but he “identified strongly with the antiwar protesters and the revolutionaries” and enthusiastically voted for antiwar Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972.^[18] In his book, America the Beautiful (2012), Carson said: “The Vietnam War was, in retrospect, not a noble conflict. It brought shame to our nation because of both the outcome and the cause”.^[19]

In 1973, Carson graduated from Yale University, where he majored in psychology.^[20] He received his M.D. from the University of MichiganMedical School in 1977.^[21][22]

Biography.com

Worth going to the link above; much more detail about the influence of Dr. Carson’s mother in changing the trajectory of her son’s education and success.

BOOKS: Think Big; A More Perfect Union

Other Links: https://www.bencarson.com/, On the Issues

Continuing the project of reviewing education and early influences on Presidential Candidates. See previous posts for other candidates.

CARLY FIORINA

Fiorina was born on September 6, 1954, in Austin, Texas, the daughter of Madelon Montross (née Juergens) and Joseph Tyree Sneed, III.^[21] The name “Carleton”, from which “Carly” is derived, has been used in every generation of the Sneed family since the Civil War.^[22] At the time of her birth, Fiorina’s father was a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.^[23][24][25] He would later become dean of Duke University School of Law, Deputy U.S. Attorney General, and judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.^[26] Her mother was an abstract painter.^[27] She is mainly of English and German ancestry,^[28][29] and was raised Episcopalian.^[28]

Fiorina attended Channing School, in London. She later attended five different high schools, including one in Ghana,^[30] graduating from Charles E. Jordan High School inDurham, North Carolina. At one time she aspired to be a classical pianist.^[31] She received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and medieval history at Stanford University, in 1976. During her summers, she worked as a secretary for Kelly Services.^[32] She attended the UCLA School of Law in 1976, but dropped out^[33] after one semester. She worked as a receptionist for six months at a real estate firm, Marcus & Millichap, moving up to a broker position. When she married in 1977, she and her husband moved to Bologna, Italy, where he was doing graduate work;^[34] there she did English tutoring to Italian businessmen.^[35][28]

In 1980 Fiorina received a Master of Business Administration, in marketing, from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1989 she obtained a Master of Science, in management, at the MIT Sloan School of Management, under the Sloan Fellows program.^{[36] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina}

Books:  Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey; Tough Choices; Who Is Carly Fiorina?

Other Links: Biography.com

JEB BUSH

Jeb Bush was born on February 11, 1953 in Midland, Texas. When he was six years old, the family relocated to the Tanglewoodneighborhood^[7] of Houston, Texas.^[8] The nickname “Jeb” is composed of his initials J.E.B. (John Ellis Bush).^[9]

He grew up with two younger brothers, Neil and Marvin, one younger sister, Dorothy, and one older brother, George, who is seven years older. Jeb Bush initially attended Grady Elementary School in Houston.^[10] Following in the footsteps of his father and older brother George, at the age of 14 years in late 1967,^[7] Bush began attending high school at theAndover, Massachusetts boarding school Phillips Academy, Andover.^[11] Even though he received poor grades at first, he made the honor roll by the end of his senior year and served as captain of the tennis team.^[12]

At the age of 17, Bush taught English as a second language and assisted in the building of a school in Ibarrilla, a small village outside of León, Guanajuato, Mexico,^[13] as part of Andover’s student exchange summer program.^[14] While in Mexico, he met his future wife,Columba Garnica Gallo.^[14][15]

Bush, who had largely avoided criticizing or supporting the Vietnam War, registered for the draft after his graduation from high school in 1971.^[12] In the fourth and final draft lottery drawing, on February 2, 1972, for men born in 1953 and to be inducted during 1973, Bush received a draft number of 26 on a calendar-based scale that went to 365. But no new draft orders were issued after 1972,^[16]because the U.S. changed to an all-volunteer military beginning in 1973.^[17]

Though many in his family had attended Yale University, Bush chose to attend the University of Texas at Austin, beginning in September 1971.^[7] He played on the Texas Longhorns varsity tennis team in 1973.^[7] He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Latin American studies.^[7][18] He completed his coursework in two and a half years. ~ Widipedia ^[19]

Books: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution; Aggressive Conservatism in Florida

Other Links: Biography.com

Listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking in London in 1964 before he received the Nobel Peace Prize. This film was recently discovered. Join Democracy Now to learn how it was discovered.

This speech addresses the agent of love in the biggest sense of the word, and I believe, is a touch stone for the Presidential debates of today.

The language of Dr. King is eloquent and transforming. Listening more than a half century later, it gives hope that some things have been achieved while other goals remain for those of us present today to complete.

http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2016/1/18?autostart=true

This series of posts is devoted to getting to know the Presidential candidates more deeply – specifically to understand their early influences and education that has formed their character. See my previous post in which I quoted W.E.B. Dubois ideas about the importance of education in building the character of a person. Here is a brief clip from the overall quote from The Talented Tenth:

If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life. . . .

I will start with Bernie Sanders’ and Donald Trump’s educational background and early influences. These links will help get readers started doing their own independent research. Please comment back on this blog post to help us deepen our understanding of what has formed the character of these two candidates.

Sanders:

Scroll down to the link for Bernie Sanders, The Pros and the Cons, by Donald Michaels for an objective background on Senator Sanders.

Independent politician Bernie Sanders was born on September 8, 1941, in New York. He grew up in Brooklyn as the youngest of two sons of Jewish immigrants from Poland. His father worked as a paint salesman. As part of a struggling working-class family, Sanders recognized early on America’s economic disparity. As he told the Guardian newspaper, “I saw unfairness. That was the major inspiration in my politics,” he said. Sanders also counts American socialist leader Eugene V. Debs as an important influence.

Sanders attended Brooklyn’s James Madison high school and then went on to Brooklyn College. After a year there, he switched to the University of Chicago. Sanders became involved in the civil rights movement during his time at university and served as an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. After finishing college in 1964, Sanders lived on a kibbutz in Israel before settling in Vermont. He worked a number of jobs, including filmmaker and freelance writer, while his interest in politics grew.

Books:  Outsider in the White House; The Essential Bernie Sanders; Bernie Sanders, The Pros and Cons, On the Issues

Other Links:  Who is Bernie Sanders

Trump:

Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York, the fourth of five children of Frederick C. and Mary MacLeod Trump. Frederick Trump was a builder and real estate developer who came to specialize in constructing and operating middle-income apartments in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn. Donald was an energetic, assertive child, and his parents sent him to the New York Military Academy at age 13, hoping the discipline of the school would channel his energy in a positive manner.

Trump did well at the academy, both socially and academically, rising to become a star athlete and student leader by the time he graduated in 1964. He then entered Fordham University and two years later transferred to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics.

Books:  How to Survive a Bankruptcy; The Art of the Deal

Other Links: Donald Trump Biography, On the Issues

Yesterday, OnBeing.org, aired a tribute to the late W.E.B. Du Bois. Maya Angelou (recording from one of her last interviews), Elizabeth Alexander, and Arnold Rampersad reflect on the life and writing of Du Bois.

Alexander and Rampersad in particular point to the role of education which Dr. Du Bois described as the foundation of a life. His belief is that by focusing on the character building and treasure trove of great ideas and mentors in our history, the qualification for jobs naturally follows on. The quote below is from his book, The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative Negroes of To-day.

The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life. . . .

As I think about the line-up of Presidential candidates, I believe we should look at each candidate’s education. I’ll be gathering that information to this blog over the next few months. Be sure to visit the OnBeing.org site to read the links to Dubois’ works, and to listen to the interviews. Its worth it for many reasons, but mostly to hear Maya Angelou at the pinnacle of her life and wisdom.