A Hope in the Unseen: by Ron Suskind - Maryland Humanities Council

About the BookIt is 1993, and Cedric Jennings is a bright and ferociouslydetermined honor student at Ballou, a high school in oneof Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods,where the dropout rate is well into double digits and just80 students out of more than 1,350 boast an average of Bor better. At Ballou, Cedric has almost no friends. He eatslunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extrawork he has asked for, knowing that he’s really competingwith kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’sdriving ambition—which is fully supported by his forcefulmother—is to attend a top-flight college.In September 1995, after years of near superhumandedication, he realizes that ambition when he begins asa freshman at Brown University. A Hope in the Unseenchronicles Cedric’s odyssey during his last two years ofhigh school, follows him through his difficult first year atBrown, and tells the story of his subsequent successes incollege and the world of work. 1About the AuthorPulitzer Prize-winning journalistand best-selling author RonSuskind has written severalimportant works of nonfictionthat have framed nationaldebates while exploring thecomplexities of the humanexperience. His first book, AHope in the Unseen: An AmericanOdyssey from the Inner City to theIvy League (1995), is based on a series of articles written forthe Wall Street Journal that earned Suskind the Pulitzer Prizefor Feature Writing in 1995.He has since written two other best-selling works ofnonfiction, The One Percent Doctrine (2006), a journeydeep inside America’s battles with violent terrorists, andThe Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White Houseand the Education of Paul O’Neill (2004), both criticallyacclaimedworks.Mr. Suskind currently writes for various nationalmagazines, including Time Magazine, The New York TimesMagazine, Esquire and the Wall Street Journal, appears onnetwork television, and spends summers as a DistinguishedVisiting Scholar at Dartmouth College. He is a graduateof the University of Virginia and Columbia University’sGraduate School of Journalism, and lives in Washington,D.C., with his wife, Cornelia Kennedy Suskind, and theirtwo sons, Walter and Owen.About Cedric JenningsCedric Jennings was born in 1977 and raised in one ofthe most depressed and dangerous neighborhoods inWashington, D.C.’s Southeast section. His father was afrequently absent and jailed drug addict, while his mother,Barbara Jennings, was a devout church woman who quither government job and went on welfare for several yearsto devote her time to raising Cedric.With his mother’s support and good grades in school,Cedric went on to complete a childhood dream andattended an Ivy League school. After graduating fromBrown in 1999, Cedric received his Master of Education atHarvard University and a Master of Social Work in 2003from the University of Michigan. Presently, he speaks atschools and universities across the country on issues ineducation and youth advocacy. He plans to eventually earna doctorate degree and become a psychotherapist workingwith disadvantaged youth.IntroductionA Hope in the Unseen chronicles Cedric Lavar Jennings’sjourney through his last two years at Ballou High School—“where only 69 girls and 12 boys out of 1,389 enrolledhere have managed a B average or better”—through hisfirst year at the prestigious Brown University. This story isnot about a poverty-stricken prodigy who fights to take hisplace among his intellectual equals. Instead it’s about anAfrican American boy from “the most troubled and violentschool in the blighted southeast corner of Washington,D.C.” with a 3.3 average and a 960 SAT score who, withthe support of his mother, his church, and his pride,makes education the choice that will take him beyond theconstraints of poverty.This is truly an American odyssey filled with struggles,hardships, awakenings and achievement; it is thecommonality of these elements, which crosses race,nationality, and gender, that touches the readers. CedricJennings is like most high school students—filled withdoubt, contradictions, anger, and frustration—but hewas motivated rather than pulled down by the weight ofpoverty and the bestiality of his neighborhood. A Hope inthe Unseen is a contemporary odyssey which all studentscan relate to on some level and which adults can whollyappreciate.1 From the back cover2