Richard Darrell Navies I, born in St. Louis, Missouri on December 17, 1943 was a renegade educator who believed that true learning began with a strong knowledge of self and that any child armed with this knowledge could succeed not only academically, but in all areas of life.  Reared in St. Louis by his mother Rose Carter Payne with the strong support of her younger sister Annette Carter Powers and in Detroit, Michigan by his mother and stepfather, John D. Payne, Richard prided himself as being part of a long line of ingenious educators who rose to the challenge of educating the children and adults of their communities in the face of overt racism and oppression. His paternal great-grandmother taught elementary in Memphis, Tennessee and her grandson, John Carter, earned a Ph.D. in Romance languages in the 1930’s.

While a youth in St. Louis, Richard attended segregated schools which he later boasted had highly trained teaching faculty, some even with doctorates due to their inability to get hired at the collegiate level because of racial discrimination. He credited these early teachers with sparking his interest in learning and giving him his first introduction to what was then called Negro History.  During this time, he also became an avid reader and spent hours at the local public library- a habit he would carry with him throughout his life. When he was 9, his recently divorced mother, Rose Carter Payne, decided to relocate to Detroit, Michigan where one of her brothers, Charles had already gone. While settling in Detroit, Richard’s mother left him in St. Louis, where he lived for the next year with his favorite aunt, Annette Carter and her first husband.

In the mid-1950’s, during the height of the Civil Rights movement, Richard followed his mother to Detroit, Michigan and there he attended his first integrated schools in the Polish district of Hamtramck. He later recalled that his segregated education in St. Louis had not only prepared him for integrated schools, but also positioned him to be far ahead of his white counterparts. Soon Rose would remarry to John D. Payne and have several more children, Charles Navies, Hubert, Cheryl, and Patricia Payne. Eventually, her eldest son, Edward Navies, Jr., would join the family from St. Louis, where he had been living with his father, the elder Navies (from whom Richard received his name). 

In the absence of Richard’s biological father, John D. Payne willingly and lovingly stepped in and took on that responsibility.  Mr. Payne never worked fewer than three jobs to successfully provide a comfortable home for his large family which included a daughter, Patricia, born with Cerebral Palsy. Rose Carter Payne was thus able to make motherhood and homemaking her primary duty. Richard often spoke of how he learned about being not only a good father, but a good man, from his step-father, John D. Payne.

Richard graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1961. It should be noted that Cass Technical High, affectionately known as Cass Tech, was and continues to be a specialized high school for high achieving students. At Cass Tech, Richard was a popular student who majored in the rigorous College Prep and Architecture curriculums. Also attending Cass Tech during the same time as the adolescent Richard were: his future wife, Constance Elaine Gregory, his lifelong friend and fraternity brother, Charles Smith, and Diana Ross of Motown fame.

After high school, Richard attended Wayne State University where he not only excelled academically, but also achieved great success as an NCAA athlete in track and field. Most notably, he made All Conference as a hurdler in the years 1963 and 1964 while also managing to stay on the Dean’s list for most of his tenure at Wayne State.  In 1967 he graduated from Wayne State University with a B.S. in English and History and went on to earn an M.S. degree there in Education with a focus on teaching Secondary Social Studies. While at Wayne State University, Richard heard Malcolm X give an electrifying speech which placed emphasis on community uplift and the importance of Black people educating themselves for empowerment.  This exposure to the iconic political activist inspired and compelled him to forgo a planned career in Architecture and, much to the chagrin of some of his upwardly mobile relatives, continue the family tradition of teaching.

Modeling his work ethic on that of his stepfather, John D. Payne, Richard held a variety of jobs both during and after college including; paper hanger, police cadet, library assistant, janitor, dock worker, stock boy, book salesman, recreation coordinator, and beer bottler. From this last position, Richard received a lifelong scar on his left hand. With his characteristic folk humor, Richard liked to exaggerate this tale and told his children he’d earned the scar while fighting a lion during manhood training.

His first professional job after college was teaching English at Washington Trade School in Detroit to students who’d been labeled unteachable.  It was here that Richard began to develop effective teaching strategies that combined an Afrocentric perspective with common sense advice about life in general, and being Black in America, specifically. His success with these students earned him local praise and literary teaching awards.

In 1966, Richard D. Navies was officially introduced to Constance Elaine Gregory by one of his fraternity brothers while at a party. They had crossed paths as students at Cass Tech, but Richard had barely noticed the shy beauty then. Now, however, he was smitten and they were engaged in less than six months. By the tumultuous summer of 1967, they were married and expecting their first child. That summer, Detroit exploded in what is now known as the largest urban riot in a decade that saw dozens of such rebellions in cities across the United States. Blacks in Detroit responded to years of racial oppression and police brutality in a rage that lasted several days, cost the lives of many, and from which the city has never fully recovered.  As the city struggled to emerge from this harrowing event, Constance gave birth to a daughter, Kelly Elaine Navies in October of 1967.

In early 1969, Richard decided to move to California. He felt that Detroit had grown stagnant and it seemed that California, particularly the Bay Area was on the cutting edge politically. After applying to several districts in the region, he was offered jobs in at least four districts, including Berkeley, San Francisco, and Palo Alto.  His initial preference was San Francisco, known throughout the world for its progressive political and social dynamic-however, a visit to the equally, if not more progressive, Berkeley changed his mind. Richard was drawn to its walkable, tree-lined streets and felt it would be a better place to raise a growing family. Subsequently, he accepted a job teaching English at its only public high school, Berkeley High, and moved with his young wife and daughter in August of 1969.

Richard had arrived at a historically opportune moment. Across the nation, and in the small university town of Berkeley, Black (with a capital B) people were rising up and demanding that their children be taught about their own history and culture. From this cauldron of activism, Black Studies courses and departments were emerging on college campuses throughout the United States. In the Bay Area, particularly, this movement was largely instigated by Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and their organization, The Black Panthers. In 1968, with strong support from the Black and white progressive community, Berkeley High had formed a Black Studies Department.  Shortly after his arrival, the young 26-year old Richard D. Navies was tapped to lead this pioneering department, that was perhaps the first and onlyentire nation. such department in a public high school in the

Richard not only rose to the challenge, he created an innovative, groundbreaking curriculum that included a wide range of courses that could rarely be found on most college campuses at that time. In Berkeley High’s Black Studies program, students of all races could take Afro-Haitian dance, African American History I and II, African American literature, Drama, Swahili, Journalism and even a public speaking course called, “Black Soul, Black Gold, Black Dynamite,” in which students studied the rhetoric and style of such Black leaders as Frederick Douglass, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and of course, Malcolm X. Never forgetting the impact of Malcolm on his social and political consciousness, Richard’s classroom boasted a large poster of the recently slain activist.

Journalism students in the department started their own paper and drew its name from the fourth Kwanzaa principle as established by Maulana Ron Karenga, Ujamaa, meaning, “cooperative economics.” Berkeley High’s Black Studies program also held several annual events, including Back to Black Week in late December which culminated in a Kwanzaa celebration and Malcolm X week held during the week of the revolutionary leader’s birthday, May 19.

On the personal front, Richard’s first marriage dissolved shortly after the birth of their first son, Richard D. Navies II in December, 1970. However, the couple became one of the first in the nation to be granted joint custody in their divorce settlement.  A few years later, Richard met Brenda F. Wiggins, a dynamic young teacher from Mobile, Alabama. She already had a son, Robert Uhuru (Freedom) Greene, from a previous relationship. The couple was married in a festive African ceremony on July 31, 1976. A year later, on July 19, 1977, their son, Hannibal Carter Navies, was born.

Richard D. Navies led the Black Studies Department until his death from Mylogenous Leukemia in March of 1991 at the age of 47. By then, the thriving department had become the African American Studies Department, and each of his three older children, Kelly, Richard, and Robert, had matriculated successfully through Berkeley High School’s rigorous college prep program while always taking courses in this Department.  Four years after his passing, his youngest son, Hannibal would also pass successfully through Berkeley High School and be very involved in the African American Studies Department before going on to a football scholarship at the University of Colorado and a career in the NFL.

His demise was a blow not only to his family, which included his 13 year old son, Hannibal, but to his entire community. The passionate, committed educator and devoted father was put to rest in a going home ceremony at Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California attended by over two thousand people.  Seventeen years after his death, his legacy continues to live on, not only in the memories, but most importantly in the work of his children and many former students who remain committed to social change and progressive education.