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Syracuse University
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Antwone Fisher talks to students about his painful journey from foster homes to the big screen
By Archie Page
Posted: 11/6/08, 11:11 PM EST Section:
Thursday night, as part of Black Solidarity Week, author and film producer Antwone Fisher told his story, which was also made into a Twentieth Century Fox movie, for an audience of students in Maxwell Auditorium.
Black Solidarity Week is supposed to facilitate the discussion of societal problems that blacks have overcome and still face. The week's previous events were a blood drive, a chill session and a screening of the movie "Antwone Fisher" before he came to speak.
Although Fisher was invited to speak because of Black Solidarity Week, he did not dwell on racial problems that added to his identity. But Fisher mostly told his story, and didn't explain how society played a role. During the Q&A session, peoples' questions were not about the big picture.
Instead, they focused on specific problems that Fisher faced.
Antwone began to answer questions from the audience. A curious student asked Antwone if he ever gets tired of telling his story to people. Antwone smiled and looked off to the side.
"If every brick in this building represents a memory, you can't just take out the bad ones, because the building would just fall down," he said. "This is my life and this is my story."
Before Fisher took the stage, Student African-American Society president Coreina White read aloud some background information on Fisher, then proceeded to show an abridged version of the film.
The film shows the intricacies of his life - his father was shot by his crazed girlfriend, leaving his mother a pregnant widow. His mother gave birth to him while imprisoned for murder, and Antwone was passed around to a few foster families, where he experienced the evils of humanity, he said.
After witnessing so much for his age, Fisher's foster mother kicked him out and he was sent to a reform school in Pennsylvania from the time he was 13 until he graduated high school.
The lights came back on and SAS secretary Nyuma Njie introduced Fisher, who had been secretly sitting in the front row. Fisher rose from his seat and walked to the stage, glancing around the auditorium as he spoke.
He began his lecture by talking about the mystery that surrounded his teenage years.
At the age of 17, social services informed him that he was now an emancipated minor. It was then that he went to live at a men's shelter in Cleveland. Tired of ducking from pedophiles and working with prostitutes and pimps, Fisher decided to give homelessness a try. He slept in a park outside Carnegie Hall in Cleveland.
"Being alone was the worst part of it all," said Fisher.
With nothing left to lose, Fisher decided to enlist in the Navy. When he was stationed in Pearl Harbor, his anger reached an all-time high. He engaged in fight after fight and held the record for most restrictions. At this time, he implored the guidance of the ship's psychiatrist.
Talking about his problems to his psychiatrist, Fisher was able to tell his darkest stories.
"When we finished a session, I could barely look the commander in the eyes," he recalled. Commander Williams was the first person to suggest that Fisher look for his past.
Antwone later met his estranged aunt, Annette Elinks, his cousins and his uncle.
His uncle took him to meet his mother, who didn't even recognize him. "She was looking at me weirdly, and I realized it's because she hadn't seen me since the day I was born," he said.
For the past 17 years he has written movies, books and poems and has taught part-time at UCLA Film School.
Antwone Fisher Speaks to Students of Elsinore High School
Issue 40, Volume 8.
As famous screenwriter Antwone Fisher spoke in front of hundreds of Elsinore High School (EHS) students and educators Sept. 23, Jessica Hunt felt the words hitting home. The Elsinore High School student’s life has been similar to Fisher’s, she said – both were passed through the foster care system and both knew how it felt to not have a family to fall back on. “I know how it feels to not be wanted,” Hunt said minutes before Fisher gave his speech. “I have seen how Mr. Fisher fought through his own battles and it gave me hope and courage to fight through this.” Hunt, along with nearly a hundred others in the audience, are part of the school’s peer counseling program. There are two sessions of peer counseling at EHS with 72 students acting as counselors. Fisher’s speech was aimed at reinforcing the school year’s message: responsibility, service and relationships.
Fisher gave an hour-long speech detailing horrific details of an abusive foster care home, living homeless on the street and his eventual success. He wrote an autobiographical screenplay that was made into a 2002 movie starring Denzel Washington as Fisher’s Navy psychiatrist. Since then Fisher has worked on 16 screenplays, including “Rush Hour” and “Money Talks.” The Hollywood guest speaker is becoming an annual treat for students. Last year, Erin Gruwell, who was the focus of the movie “The Freedom Writers,” spoke at EHS. The idea to have Fisher speak came from counselor Cameron Lymon. Lymon said that after watching “The Antwone Fisher Story” for the sixth time, he sent off an e-mail to Fisher’s address. Lymon got an e-mail back the next day asking for a little more information.
“I figured he would be perfect to visit the class and speak to the students,” Lymon said. “This year we are immersing our students in story, relationships and service.” On Sept. 23, students from across the area visited the Elsinore High School forum to listen to Fisher’s speech and learn about building teacher-student relationships. EHS peer counseling students made shirts with “Smile” across them, followed by the group’s slogan: “Relationship, story, service.” Posters were plastered across the theater walls and balloons bounced across aisles with messages written on them, including “Save a Life” and “No One Falls.” Teacher Felicia Asbury was asked to speak about building relationships with students. The EHS chemistry teacher has incorporated storytelling into her classes in an effort to bring the school material closer to home for her students.
“It’s especially hard in chemistry to create that relationship because we can get caught up in test scores,” she said, “but since I started talking about my own story I have noticed it has had a positive impact on my students.” Several students, including Hunt, talked about their personal experiences and how Fisher’s movie and book related to them. Then Fisher sat down in a chair in the auditorium and started his story. At times, the details made audience members gasp and at other times they laughed along with Fisher. At the end of the speech, Fisher reiterated to the students that they should appreciate all the people who come into their lives because there is always a reason and a lesson to take from them. “Always look for the good people in life, especially the teachers,” he said, “because it’s the weirdest thing about teachers… They never forget who you are.”
Antwone Fisher tells peer leadership group how teachers helped him overcome abuse, neglect
By MICHELLE L. KLAMPE
The Press-Enterprise
Screenwriter Antwone Fisher shared his story of success in spite of long odds to a crowd of more than 200 students, teachers and administrators at Elsinore High School on Wednesday night. Fisher's first screenplay, which recounted how he overcame a childhood of abuse and neglect he experienced as a ward of the foster care system, became the 2002 film named for him. Teachers, including one from his elementary school days, were among those who inspired him, Fisher said.
"What my foster family was tearing down in me was starting to build back up in fifth grade because of her. She made me understand, just the way she treated me, that there were good people in the world," he said of that teacher. Elsinore counselor Cameron Lymon decided to invite Fisher to the school after watching the film. The movie, which stars Denzel Washington as Fisher's Navy psychiatrist, is one of Lymon's favorites. Fisher's story serves as inspiration for the work he's doing with students in his peer leadership classes, he said.
"Our classes are centered in immersing our students in story, relationship and service to others," he said. Students learn to listen to their peers' personal stories and struggles, build relationships with those students and provide service to them through those relationships, he said.
"Research shows kids tend to listen to other kids," he said. "We help them understand there's other people out there like them." At Wednesday's event, several students shared their personal stories. Students from the program also invited their favorite former teachers to attend the event with them. In his talk, Fisher shared how he continued to work to improve his life, despite all those who told him he would never amount to anything. After high school, he was homeless and living on the streets, where he would imagine the future.
"I imagined myself loved; I imagined myself free; I imagined myself as somebody," he said. Shortly after that, with nowhere else to go, Fisher joined the Navy, where he spent 11 years. While in the service, he struggled with anger problems and began seeing a psychiatrist, who listened to the stories of his past and helped him forge a future for himself.
"I found myself saying things I had always wanted to say," he said. "I found I was getting some relief talking to him. He turned me on to reading and encouraged me to write."
