BU alumna becomes first black American on Athens City Council

Boston University alumna Yvette Jarvis has always been the first, it seems.

Right now, she’s the first black American on the Athens City Council. Before that, she was the first black American to host a national television show in Greece. Before that, she became the first black American to speak Greek on national television. And even before that, she became the first black American to play pro basketball in Greece, also making her the first female athlete to earn a salary in Greece, according to the GreeceNow website.

‘Never say no. Anything is possible,’ she said in a phone interview. ‘I didn’t expect it myself.’

In 1983, Jarvis decided to go to Greece to be with her spouse who played pro basketball there. She didn’t speak Greek but she learned.

Jarvis began traveling earlier in life than most.

‘I was part of the group children that got bused out of the ghetto in New York,’ she said.

Doing well in high school earned her an academic scholarship to BU where she studied psychology and sociology, graduating magna cum laude in 1979.

She came from a championship basketball high school team and said it was unfortunate when BU did not have a women’s team while she began attending the university.

‘It was a letdown to find out women’s basketball was only intramural,’ Jarvis said. ‘Then they got money and got a real team.’

For the next three years, Jarvis played on the BU women’s team, preparing herself for a future of basketball at the pro level.

Jarvis said despite a small number of fellow black students at BU, the diversity present on the campus opened her eyes to cultures and lifestyles she otherwise would not have been able to experience.

‘Multiculturally, I was aware,’ Jarvis said. ‘Academically, the education level brought by sociology and psychology makes you aware of other cultures’ behavior and norms, [and it] makes you much more open and tolerant.

‘Research, reading, patience and acceptance teach you to listen more than criticize and try to change,’ she said. ‘They help you find out why people react the way they do.’

In Greece, Jarvis is known as a champion of the rights of immigrants, battling the obstacles they encounter. ‘Language, housing and job situations’ are all obstacles for immigrants, Jarvis said.

Jarvis said the progress immigrants make is always a concern of hers, as well as that of the children of immigrants.

‘Will they have rights, or will they be kicked out at 18? There are a lot of issues to tackle,’ she said.

‘Now there are thousands of economic immigrants,’ she said, adding when she came to Greece things were ‘so much different.’

‘I was exotic, I played basketball here,’ Jarvis said. ‘That was a big deal the black girl from New York and Boston.’

While she was gaining fame as a model in Greece, ‘there were only two other girls of color from here one from Martinique and the other from Ethiopia.’ She said she believes being from such a different background, one so far away ideologically and physically, separated her from the pack.

‘I was one of a kind, I was dealt with as one of a kind,’ Jarvis said. ‘All that has changed, now there are thousands of people here, different languages and religions descending on Greece.’

After emigrating, she found Greek and American lifestyles ‘similar in some ways. They party real hard and go to work the next day.’

She also said Greeks have tightly knit extended families, which is a ‘big part of the black culture, too,’ she said.

Jarvis said she would not consider a return to the United States after her experience abroad.

‘Oh no! I’m kind of a spoiled brat over here,’ Jarvis said. ‘I think about it a lot. I think about my son’s higher education, not only college but also high school.’