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S trange bedfellows #1: John DiIulio (di-YULE-ee-oh) was the first in his family to attend college. Moreover, he was the one in a million to escape his ethnic working-class neighborhood in South Philadelphia to become a political science professor—at Princeton, of all places, an Ivy League university that exudes tradition and quiet dignity. DiIulio still talks with a regular-guy accent. He dresses like a building inspector. As a Princeton colleague told the New Yorker's James Traub in a comment that tells on both DiIulio and Princeton, "He loves playing the South Philadelphia thug made good."

Strange bedfellows #2: John DiIulio, a certified academic superstar, writes op-ed pieces for the New York Times and the Washington Post. He holds posts at leading think tanks. If you take American Government 101, you stand a fair chance of using DiIulio's textbook. Lately, however, he spends considerable amounts of time hanging out with black preachers from the toughest neighborhoods of Philadelphia and Boston. In his car, he listens to tapes of his favorite 84-year-old African-American Pentecostal minister, Benjamin Smith. He has, in fact, listened to Ben Smith so much that he can do a fair imitation of his preaching riffs.

Strange bedfellows #3: Consider the Italian-American Catholic who attended parochial schools, yet rarely, after he left home, attended church. Think of a man who grew up with nuns yet never, ever talked about religion with his friends. Now imagine him convening white evangelical Christians the likes of Gary Bauer and Jim Wallis, along with Ron Sider and Ralph Reed and Charles Colson, trying to cajole them, inspire them, shame them for God's sake to band together in a religious coalition to help the inner-city poor. How can it be that a former South Philly altar boy preaches to the white evangelicals?

DiIulio has written lots of serious stuff about how to make government bureaucracies work. Here is the sort of thing he is likely to write these days (in a review of a book by Harvard's Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom that appeared in National Review):

The evidence is growing that the only people who are now doing something to make inner-city blacks part of "one nation, indivisible," are those who seek "one nation, under God, indivisible." Although I doubt that any other card-carrying social scientist would even think to fault the authors for such a sin of omission, the most important missing endnote to America in Black and White is a reference to the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

DiIulio is on a mission for America's inner cities. He believes with all his social-scientist heart that the path to effective change in the rotting urban core runs through gospel-centered churches and faith-based ministries. He is preaching this message not only to white evangelicals, but to foundations, corporations, think tanks, parole officers, mayors, and anybody else who will stand still to listen.

From Philly cheese steak to filet mignon
DiIulio's father was a deputy sheriff in Philadelphia, a position that DiIulio describes as "a low-pay job you got because you were a good precinct captain." Urban Democratic politics were in the family blood. When DiIulio was in high school, his father announced that he wanted to run for sheriff, and that he wanted his son for campaign manager. DiIulio, Sr., had no chance of getting elected, but he thought he could knock out a despised incumbent. He also thought the campaign would be good experience for a son fascinated by politics. The father-son team polled only "eight, ten thousand votes," according to DiIulio. They did, however, unseat the incumbent.

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June 14 1999, Vol. 43, No. 7