(Soundbite of "Young, Gifted and Black")
Unidentified Singers: (Singing) Young, gifted and black.
ED GORDON, host:
Mow for the conclusion of our Young, Gifted and Black series spotlighting the talents, achievements and aspirations of a few young and gifted African-Americans in a variety of areas. Today, we focus on a pilot, filmmaker and a model. NPR's Roy Hurst has this final feature in the series we call YGB.
(Soundbite of music)
Unidentified Singer: White man.
GERREN TAYLOR (Model): Hi. My name is Gerren Taylor and I am a fashion model.
ROY HURST reporting:
Gerren Taylor is 14. If you spend any time flipping through fashion magazines lately, you've probably seen her.
TAYLOR: In the magazines, I've been in W. I've been in Vogue for the Marc Jacobs campaign. I've been in Teen magazine.
HURST: She's six-feet long. Off the runway, she looks like a tall 14-year-old. On the runway, well, whatever `it' is, Gerren seems to have plenty.
TAYLOR: Oh, yeah, Ebony.
MICHELLE (Gerren's Mother): I was with her every step of the way.
HURST: That's Gerren's mother, Michelle. She keeps an eye on what Gerren wears, how Gerren walks and on everyone around Gerren.
MICHELLE: She'd never step on a runway without me being there. She'd never go to a casting without me being there.
TAYLOR: "Entertainment Tonight," TBS, all those stations.
HURST: But both mother and daughter will tell you that stardom doesn't come in any more a storybook form than it did when Gerren got discovered.
TAYLOR: You can kind of say I was scouted.
HURST: The story goes like this. One day when Gerren was 12...
TAYLOR: Well, I was walking down the street...
MICHELLE: Well, we were out on errands.
TAYLOR: A lady stopped me and handed me a card.
MICHELLE: And she said, `Have you thought about modeling?' And so I was like, `No, she's too young.'
TAYLOR: And it said LA Models and Options Talent.
MICHELLE: But she gave me the card.
TAYLOR: And we didn't know what Options Talent was, but my mom knew what LA Models was.
MICHELLE: Because she said she would be fantastic.
TAYLOR: I looked at the Vogue since I was like three.
MICHELLE: The whole time, she's like, `Mom, I want to do this. I want to do this.'
TAYLOR: Well, I was always kind of like into E! television and the fashion shows and stuff like that. So I kind of, like, knew how they walked.
MICHELLE: And I'm like, `No, you're too young. You're too young.' And so we went back and forth.
TAYLOR: I just knew like all the--like the old models and their poses.
MICHELLE: She said, `For my self-esteem and all that. You know, the kids call me giraffe and stick and linky and that type of stuff. I just want to try it.' And you put it like that, I said, `OK. Well, this could help her self-esteem.'
TAYLOR: So we looked in the yellow pages and it said, `Open call, 2 to 4.' It was like 1:45.
MICHELLE: And so we had just that little time frame to go grab some clothes, get some film, and we went and shot some pictures at Griffeth Park.
TAYLOR: So we ran to Griffeth Park, took pictures, ran to the one-hour photo, put it in and made it at the agency just in time.
MICHELLE: And they signed her. They loved her.
TAYLOR: And I, like, took off after that.
MICHELLE: So she's never been, like, exposed to that kind of wild world of modeling. I tell her about it. I talk to her about it, and other models talk to her about it, which I think is good, because I think that if she does decide to pursue this when she's an adult and she's not with me, she'll already know what to expect.
(Soundbite from "Young, Gifted and Black")
Unidentified Singers: (Singing) Young, gifted and black.
Mr. JAMAIL LARKINS (Pilot): My name is Jamail Larkins. I'm currently 21 years old, and I'm one of the youngest air show performers in the country.
HURST: It's not unusual for a 12-year-old boy to have dreams of flying a stunt plane; it is unusual if he's able to do it by the time he's 14.
Mr. LARKINS: And basically, what that entails is going up there doing loops, rolls, hammerhead spins and all sorts of different aerobatic maneuvers.
HURST: At the age of 12, when a pilot program called Young Eagles came through his Georgia hometown, he got a chance to take a free ride inside a small airplane.
Mr. LARKINS: And that's when I realized that aviation and flying was something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
HURST: By the time he was 14, he'd already racked up the 100 student hours required to pilot a plane by yourself. The problem was, federal law prohibits anyone under 16 from flying solo. All Jamail could do was petition the FAA.
Mr. LARKINS: But during that petitioning process, I found out in Canada you only have to be 14 to fly solo up there.
HURST: So he grabbed his parents and went north. Next thing he knew, he was flying solo.
Mr. LARKINS: And it was an amazing feeling. I mean, you're up in the air by yourself. You realize that you're the only person that has control of this airplane. It's a sense of responsibility, but at the same time, an immense amount of freedom as well. I mean, you know that you're responsible for bringing this airplane back down on the ground safely, but you also realize you're up there alone, by yourself. The sights that you see, the experience; it's overwhelming. I mean, it's a fantastic and great feeling.
HURST: Today at 21, Jamail Larkins is FAA ambassador for aviation and space education. And as young as he is, he's already developed his own credo.
Mr. LARKINS: Be as prepared as I possibly can for every single situation that I may encounter and live my life to the fullest. And I think that if I do that, then I'll represent myself, I'll represent America and I'll represent the African-American community to the best of my ability.
(Soundbite of airplane roar; "Young, Gifted & Black")
Unidentified Singers: (Singing) To be young, gifted and black.
Mr. ALRICK BROWN (Filmmaker): My name is Alrick Brown and I'm a filmmaker. And my mission really is to change the world with my work.
HURST: Alrick Brown is 28. He's an NYU film student. Today he's shooting a short in a small apartment off Lenox Avenue up in Harlem.
Mr. BROWN: All right. Can we have quiet on the set, please?
This film right here is an adaptation of a Jean Paul Sartre play, "No Exit." It's about three people who have to spend eternity in a room together, and that room is their hell.
And, action.
HURST: Alrick eats and breathes filmmaking, even when he's running off no sleep. Just a few years go, he was in West Africa finishing up a two-year stint in the Peace Corps and trying to decide what the next phase of his life would be.
Mr. BROWN: I realized that film was the one thing that I could study. And if I died on graduation day, I'd be happy that I'd known that I spent the last few years of my life making movies. So I applied to NYU from the Ivory Coast, and to my surprise, I got in and have been making movies ever since.
HURST: Alrick's first student film is called "The Adventures of Super N"--shall we say, "Super N-word."
(Soundbite of movie)
Unidentified Man: The one thing that will allow you to destroy super African-American.
HURST: It's a fantastical look at the notorious police shooting of immigrant Amadou Diallo.
(Soundbite of movie)
Unidentified Man: It's called crypto white. Don't worry. It's completely harmless to us, but when used properly it renders him completely powerless.
HURST: Since that film, Alrick has been impressing the heck out of NYU faculty.
(Soundbite of movie)
Unidentified Man: Now go get it.
Mr. JOHN TINTORI (Chairman, NYU Graduate Film Program): He's talented in many ways. He's a good storyteller. He has a great visual sense. He knows how to talk to the audience.
HURST: John Tintori is chair of NYU's graduate film program.
Mr. TINTORI: The thing that I get excited about with him is the subject matter that he's choosing to work with. He wants to makes films that matter. And film is an art form that matters these days. And he's learning his craft now so that he can go out and do that.
Mr. BROWN: One of the biggest ideas I have is an epic adventure that takes place in West Africa during the height of slavery. And it would be kind of a "Gladiator" or "Braveheart" type film with the lead character as a black man.
Mr. TINTORI: I'm sure that he's going to get films out there that people see and that affect people, that affect the society, because he has a lot to offer not just as a filmmaker but as a human and as an educator.
Mr. BROWN: You know, I don't really care about awards and all of that stuff. My background is in teaching and education. And in 15 years, I'd like to look back at the films that I've made, just look at the number of people who bought the DVD or who went to a theater and who seen them and say, `My message got to this many people.' And I want it to be in the millions.
HURST: Roy Hurst, NPR News.
(Soundbite from "Young, Gifted and "Back")
Unidentified Singers: (Singing) You are young, gifted and black.
GORDON: You can find out more about all of our young people profiled in the YGB series by going to our Web site at npr.org.
(Soundbite from "Young, Gifted and Black")
Unidentified Singers: (Singing) There's a world waiting for you. Yours is the quest that's just begun.
(Credits)
GORDON: To listen to the show, visit npr.org. NEWS & NOTES was created by NPR News and the African-American Public Radio Consortium.
(Soundbite of "Young, Gifted and Black")
Unidentified Singers: (Singing) Oh, to be young, gifted and black. Oh, how I long to know the truth.
GORDON: I'm Ed Gordon. This is NEWS & NOTES.
Copyright © 2005 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.