Marquise “Keke” Lowe has lived in Jackson his whole 19-year-old life. Lowe, a slim teenager with amused chestnut eyes and a small, sculpted face, grew up in Shady Oaks, attended Bailey Magnet High School and now lives Downtown. He’s studying computer science and business at Tougaloo College so he can own his own computer-programming company. “Technology is trying to run things right now,” he says.
The afternoon of Sept. 11, Lowe is hanging inside the Tougaloo cafeteria in Warren Hall, as red, white and blue balloons bounce and bob along North Tougaloo Boulevard. He wears a large red Ecko T-shirt, short Ecko jeans, a long gold chain with a Madonna emblem and white Nikes with red swooshes. A red sweatband is wrapped around his closely cropped head.
Lowe met Bob Moses when he was in the sixth grade. The legendary leader of Mississippi’s Freedom Summer in 1964, Moses started The Algebra Project in the early 1980s to bring math literacy into low-income areas, like where Lowe grew up. When Moses and his family brought their fun and dynamic “math games” to his school, Lowe was in a “sleepy” math class, but then asked to transfer to the “energy class.” “At least I could stay awake,” he says.
The Algebra Project taught Lowe to be good at math and proud of it, even when his friends picked on him about it. And he learned about the state’s civil-rights history from the quiet teacher from New York City who had been beaten repeatedly for trying to help blacks vote. “I respect him a lot; he’s done a lot for us,” Lowe says of Moses.
Lowe found male figures in the Moses family that he didn’t have at home, where he was raised by his grandparents. His father had died, and he had no relationship with his mother. He now is an Algebra Project mentor himself, offering a male role model to younger people, teaching them to value math and computers. “Having a lot of people believing in you keeps you going,” he says, about to hurry off to class.
– Donna Ladd
Previous Comments
Hello, my name is April Davis. I also was an Algebra Project student, and a math literacy worker for the Young Peoples Project. I also serve on YPP’s local advisory board. I was so pleased to see the article on KeKe and I think you should keep it up, possibly featuring a MLW in each edition.
#82294 | Author: April Davis | Date: Oct 9 2002
April, Thank you so much for writing. Please keep reading and tell your friends and family to comment on our stories. We want to know what we’re doing right and what we can do better. As for the Algebra Project, we will tell the public about the fine work of the Moses family, and all of the volunteers, every chance we get. In fact, watch for our next issue on Oct. 23, in which we are featuring comments from several members of the Moses family, as well as many other Jacksonians about why it’s so important to vote. We hope to keep up the dialogue on the Web as well; we especially want to hear from young people about what can be done to get them interested in the political process sooner. Please pass the word. Thanks much, Donna Ladd
#82295 | Author: ladd | Date: Oct 10 2002
