The Maverick - Gerry German (1928-2012)
Gerry German, Primary Founder of CEN
Raymond Arthur German was born in North Wales in January 1928. The son of an impoverished miner won a scholarship to grammar school. Gerry, as he was known from his teens onwards, went on to study German at Bangor University where he met Jamaican born wife Patricia Bell; they married in 1952.
After graduation, he refused to enlist for national service and appeared before court as a conscientious objector. To avoid a prison sentence, he and Patricia moved to her native Jamaica. There, they both took up posts at Knox College. In 1960, he became the headteacher at Jamaica’s Manchester High School. Believing that ability was unrelated to race or class Gerry insisted that hard work could counterbalance poverty. Consequently, working with troublemakers was his real strength. But he also listened.
A keen pro-Jamaican, Gerry introduced local literature into the curriculum which went against the vein of his conservative post-colonial employers. and this resulted in Gerry, Patsy and their five children moving back to the UK in 1966.
His first British post was at Isaac Newton School in West London.
In 1972, he accepted the role of headteacher at Mold Alun School in North Wales. He was the archetypal local boy made good, a proud homecoming for Welsh born Gerry. The school was a new comprehensive, incorporating a strict former grammar where students were regularly sent home for their transgressions. However, it’s new Head had a policy of tolerance and inclusion which went against the ethos of his employers. In 1976, Gerry’s role as head teacher was terminated.
Following three years further years teaching abroad in Nigeria, Gerry returned to the UK to work for the Commission for Racial Equality.
Upon retiring in 1981, Gerry continued to strive to combat racism in children’s education. In 1999, he established the Communities Empowerment Network, mentoring, supporting and advocating on behalf of excluded students.
Gerry German proactive anti-racist, visionary and founder of the Communities Empowerment Network, died on 3 May 2012, after working the whole day.
May his soul Rest in Peace.
The Professor - Gus John
Professor Gus John, Former Chair of CEN
Professor Augustine Gregory John (born 11 March 1945 and known as Gus John, is a Grenadian-born writer, education campaigner, consultant, lecturer and researcher, who moved to the UK in 1964. Since the 1960s he has been active in issues of education and schooling in Britain's inner cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and London, and was the first black Director of Education and Leisure Services in Britain.
Maintaining his interest in "schooling and education, youth development and the empowerment of marginalised groups within communities", Gus became a community activist. In the mid- to late 1960s, he became a member of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD), the civil rights organisation led by David Pitt. In 1968, he established the first Saturday/Supplementary school in Handsworth, Birmingham, with a group of colleagues. After working on youth and race in Handsworth for the Runnymede Trust, he went in January 1971 to Moss Side, Manchester, where he continued organising and campaigning on four issues in particular: housing and the specific difficulties for young people to own their own homes; employment for black school leavers; community policing methods; and the quality of educational outcomes for black school leavers.
By 1981, Gus was the northern organiser of the New Cross Massacre Action Committee, and one of the organisers of the "Black People's Day of Action" held on 2 March, a response to the New Cross Fire on 18 January in which 13 young black people died. On the 43rd anniversary of the fire, Gus attended the unveiling of a refurbished memorial space at Hackney Downs memorial park.
Upon leaving Hackney in 1996, Gus worked as an education consultant in Europe, the Caribbean and Africa, and is director of Gus John Consultancy Limited.
In 1999 the late Gerry German approached Gus and a group of lawyers, educators and social workers to establish Communities Empowerment Network (CEN). Gus Chaired the organisation until July 2024.