Eric George/FOR THE POST Scott Hughes, a history major and a member of Black Men Moving Forward, looks at African artwork in Alden Library last night. Hughes uses his knowledge to educate others.

Scott Hughes does not take everything he learns at Ohio University at face value.

Hughes, a fourth-year history major, reads historical books and documents about African-American history to learn about black history. As a member of Black Men Moving Forward, he uses this knowledge to educate others.

This student organization promotes awareness and consciousness of issues that confront black men today. They speak out against police brutality, African colonization and the Central Intelligence Agency's alleged connection to crack cocaine distribution in poor black communities, he said.

"People have a utopian idea that America is great," Hughes said. "It's our responsibility to learn and teach others the truth about ourselves."

While the civil rights movements in the 1950s and 1960s ended legal segregation, he said, racism today is just more covert and institutionalized. Most blacks are at a disadvantage because, Hughes said, they go to schools in poor inner cities while whites are bussed to parochial schools in the suburbs. He also said blacks feel alienated in school because they are not taught about themselves and black leaders, such as Malcolm X.

When Hughes was a high school freshman in Cleveland Heights, this frustration cause him to be disinterested in school, he said.

"I didn't have the same motivation to learn like other students because I felt like I was being brainwashed," he said.

Hughes turned to a gang his friends joined for support. His grades slipped as he began to drink heavily. Still, he said, he did not take the gang seriously. To him, it was just a group of friends who liked to party and protect its territory.

However, his opinion toward the gang changed when his friends and other gang members started drug dealing, robbing stores and shooting and stabbing people. Hughes was named in Cleveland Magazine as one of the most instrumental members of this volatile gang. This notoriety, he said, was unfair.

"I was guilty by association, but I never joined into those actions," he said.

Hughes was arrested a couple of times for criminal damaging, assault and disorderly conduct. All the while, his mother, Sharon Hughes, urged him to get out of the gang and go back to school. She sent him to live with his father, Ralph Curtis-Bey, in New York, for his sophomore and junior years of high school. It was also at this time Hughes became interested in learning about black history.

"My father taught me how to be a man," he said.

Hughes went back to live with his mother for his senior year with a new outlook on life. He said his mother always did a good job raising him and now he wanted to prove to her he was a good son. Hughes earned a 3.0 grade point average, and he stayed away from the gang.

To please his mother, Hughes enrolled at Wright State University even though he felt he would just be brainwashed there. He stayed only for a year because his mother could no longer afford the tuition. A year and a half after leaving Wright State University, he applied to Ohio University as an independent student. His girlfriend of five years, Andrea Montgomery, supported his decision to go to OU, herself an OU student.

"She challenges me to be the best I can be," he said.

Last Winter Quarter, Hughes joined Black Men Moving Forward and remains one of its 16 members. Now he feels he cannot be brainwashed because he knows too much black history, he said. After college, he said he hopes to open his own schools and help his people economically. He urges all students to attend Black Man Think Tank, a day-long event Feb. 20 to learn more about black history.

"I hope to open people's eyes and spark them to learn about themselves," he said.