This past April my father Howard Jeter passed away. This is the first year without him, and I’ve been thinking about his accomplishments a lot particularly with the MLK Day holiday.

My Personal Heritage

I am, like Derek Jeter, of mixed heritage. My dad was mainly African-American and Anglo with a considerable amount of Native American. We are direct descendants of Pocahontas and the Mataponai tribe in Virginia. The first Jeter in our family came over from England in the 1600s as an indentured servant. We’ve been around here for nearly 400 years. My mom is German-American on both sides and blonde. Her side of the family came over around the same time.

Family reunions are amazing. You can see virtually every color of the rainbow of people within them. The resemblance between distant family members was uncanny. You would see certain facial features even though you were separated by thousands of miles and in our case, multiple different ethnic backgrounds. One of my cousins married an Irishman, but her daughter looks a lot like my daughter born four years later.

I was approached at the 2000 family reunion held in DC by a man who told me, “…you look like my son.” I, being in the family spirit, replied that I’d been hearing that a lot that night. I pointed out two other cousins who I resembled.

We introduced ourselves, found we had the same name, and had a great conversation. Later one my cousins came up to me and asked me if I knew that man was Derek Jeter’s dad. 

But it didn’t matter. Dr. Charles Jeter had told me earlier when I asked why his son wasn’t there that he had to work and just couldn’t make it. I think he knew then that I had absolutely no idea who he was. Of course I was from the West Coast and baseball really doesn’t drive the hero worship that it does back east.

Now I’ve heard recently that Derek Jeter lives in Vista, north of San Diego. If true we should get together and play some XBox when he’s not gallivanting around with the Hollywood crowd.

The Jeter Family in Civil Rights

Our contributions to civil rights are surprising and I didn’t find out about most of my dad’s accomplishments until after he passed away. He was the first black substitute teacher in several Bay Area districts, like El Cerrito. He was also the first African-American permanent teacher hired into the San Francisco school district and taught at Balboa High School during the 1960s and 1970s.

There’s more about my dad Howard Jeter in his memorial blog if you’re interested, I’m just hitting the highlights here.

I remember reading several civil rights books and being able to meet Dick Gregory, the author of one, during a speech he was giving in the 1980s at UC Berkeley. He greeted my dad like an old friend, and this was something that I had noticed around Berkeley. People knew my father everywhere he went, but at the age of twelve I didn’t know that it was on a national level.

My dad ran against Ron Dellums in an early Democratic primary that Ron won in the late 1960s (or Wikipedia says 1970). Ron Dellums went on to serve over thirty years in office and now has a federal building named after him in Oakland. I met him in the 1980s, and he also greeted my dad by name.

Another member of our family, Mildred Jeter, was part of the groundbreaking civil rights decision that overruled the Virginia ban on interracial marriage in Loving v. State of Virginia. This occurred 40 years ago to the day that my father passed away.

My political stance is neutral. Having not experienced the same level of discrimination as my father I’m fortunate for the work that they laid for me yet I also retain a certain amount of belief that the pendulum can swing too far in areas like quotas and preferential treatment.

MLK Day 2008: Going Forward From Here

Prejudice of one kind or another continues in the heart of man. This isn’t something limited to regions, or political parties, or class structure. It’s just how we’re wired. We’re tribal by nature and tend to group into clans. My mom experienced the same sort of prejudice against her when she taught on the Navajo reservation.

Prejudice of any kind is overcome by long term exposure to a different culture and the earning of respect by professionalism in work and loyalty in personal friendships. It’s overcome by involving oneself in the community they live in.

As my aunt once said, we’ve been vocal for generations and one more struggle is a walk in the park. She’s had numerous lifetime achievements for over fifty years of community service given to her where she lives in New Jersey.

I am satisfied however that right now my children will grow up with the knowledge that our very legitimacy is due to the struggles of the 20th century. Our family was not a bystander in this struggle, rather we were directly involved.

That’s my family’s legacy. I’m proud to have known their personal involvement and been able to chronicle some of it. In honor of my dad and of Martin Luther King, I’m posting it today.

Green Veteran is an oxymoron. Two actually.

Taken one way after all, how can one be Green (new and inexperienced) if they are a Veteran (older and experienced)?

Taken another way it exemplifies a divide between political parties.

After all, most military people are Red-State and most Greens are Blue-State (or Ralph Nader fans). Conventional Wisdom does not consider a Red-Stater being an avid proponent of renewable energy. I describe myself, an Independent voting person, as a Green Veteran.

Red State | Blue State | What’s a Green Veteran?

After careful analysis for the past six years I believe energy is the next dot com and also the glaring strategic vulnerability that must be developed. We must become more self-reliant, period. For a lot of reasons, national security ranking the highest. I am agnostic to political parties in obtaining this goal. There is no Big Oil to me, only Big Energy.

My initiative to address this is Vets2Vines. Training active duty veterans in preparation for their eventual departure into civilian life. Retaining them in California and offering a smooth transition into an agricultural supervisory position that helps keep that management and leadership knowledge here in Cali. Getting farmers and vineyards to embrace renewable energy by seeing the cost savings.

This morning I met with Mike Reagan, the Solano County Supervisors Board Chairman today for about half an hour - unexpectedly. This was my first time meeting him; in the past I’ve dealt with his staff and just advised them of what we wanted to accomplish because I thought that was adequate for my stage in the game.

Today I had thought that would continue; after all, it was an afterthought to stop in once I was finished with my stop into County Planning / Building Resource Management. Sort of like being asked to give your elevator pitch of your project completely impromptu yet it went quite well.

Mike Reagan - Renewable Energy Visionary & Rural Use Advocate

It turns out that Mike is also a Green Veteran. I didn’t ask which party he votes; if he has served his country, is for national security, and for green power he’s a Green Veteran and that’s all that matters to me.

Mike was a zoomie who got in about the time I was born as an enlisted guy who went Officer. In the Navy we call those guys Mustangs. He used to run things over at Travis AFB located in Fairfield.

Mike Reagan has some great ideas and good resources to share and he’ll be an asset going forward. Check out his 80 ideas he wants to work on in his next 5 years as an example.

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After three years of working with Dad, we finally said goodbye for the last time this past Friday after a rough month in and out of the ICU.

Those of you interested in attending the memorial services, they’re on Saturday.