It was assisted by Dr. Mary France Malone, associate academic vice president, and with the support of Sandy Robinson and Linda LaVine of the Academic Vice President's Office. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard in 1958 and a Rhodes Scholar to Magdalen College, Oxford, the following year, Kozol left a life of privilege and became engaged in the socioeconomic problems of the poor. One of the highlights of his activism, he said, was being a bodyguard for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during one of the civil rights leader's speeches. Depression and pediatric asthma are epidemic in black and Latino cities throughout America. He also pointed out that the Bronx is a 16-minute train ride from Bloomingdales in Manhattan to emphasize the separation between rich and poor.
Kids live in separate universes.
It is not only their loss but ours. Kozol said Jesse Jackson, Mr. Rogers and David Gergen, a Republican journalist and former spokesman for President Clinton, have visited him and the children at St. Ann's. When Mr. Rogers visited, Kozol was concerned that the children may not know who he was because of racial divisions in the country. We walked a block and a man in his 60s, driving a sanitation truck, got out and hugged him. When I struggle to fight off despair and loneliness, I think of Mario.