The 3-minute interview: John Rosser
By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
October 27, 2009
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| John Rosser, 51, a sergeant for the D.C. Department of Corrections, is the vice president of the correctional officers union. (Courtesy photo) |
Rosser, 51, a sergeant for the D.C. Department of Corrections, is the vice president of the correctional officers union. His corrections career started at the notoriously rough Lorton Corrections Facilities in 1990.
I understand that your parents were involved in the civil rights movement and helped desegregate a school.
My parents, Dr. John Robert and the late Florence Towles Rosser, were educators. They were very active in Prince George's County school issues during the turbulent '60s, '70s and early '80s. Schools in the county were ordered to integrate in 1973, when I was in the ninth grade. By 1978, due to unbalanced school closures, schools had resegregated. The county [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] filed a second suit, to which my parents were a party. That suit resulted in the magnet program, a reintegration of schools and the building of new schools inside the Beltway.
I've heard you can rattle off vital information about U.S. presidents. Who was the 33rd president?
Harry S. Truman, a great president! Down to earth and honest with the American people. He told it like it was. President Truman is credited with integrating the U.S. Army by executive order.
How did you become a history buff?
History was a hobby from an early age. In 1966 my father took me and my brothers to see "The Sound of Music" at the Tenleytown theater. I was intrigued by the squiggly emblem on the German flag. My dad told me to "read about it." Dad and Mom were reading advocates. The emblem was a swastika and led me to read about World War II. From that point on I was captivated by all history.
What is the one thing that most folks don't know about correctional officers?
That we live everywhere in the Washington metropolitan region. We are your neighbors. Tragically our life expectancy, as a profession, is 58 years compared to the near 80 years in the general population.
- Scott McCabe
