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K Alum and Social Justice Warrior Dies

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Kalamazoo College alumus Chokwe Lumumba speaks at a lecturn
Chokwe Lumumba ’69

Chokwe Lumumba ’69, mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, died on February 25, 2014. He was 66. He came to K from Detroit, Michigan, as Edwin Taliaferro. He majored in political science, played football and basketball, and was instrumental in the creation and growth of the College’s Black Student Organization. He was profoundly affected by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which partly inspired his lifelong dedication to human rights and social justice.

Lumumba changed his name in 1969. He took his new first name from an African tribe that resisted slavery centuries ago and his last name from the African independence leader Patrice Lumumba. His loss is widely mourned, and a news obituary appeared in the February 26 New York Times.

Lumumba moved to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1971 to work in the civil rights movement there, then returned to Michigan where he earned his law degree (Wayne State University) and continue the fight for political and economic liberation of all people. He returned to Jackson in 1988 and spent the next two decades as a tireless defense attorney and human rights advocate, representing mostly African-American defendants.

A dedicated socialist, Lumumba was also a leader and organizer of the “Republic of New Afrika Movement,” a group that welcomes both blacks and whites in the struggle “for human rights for black people in this country and human rights around the globe,” said Lumumba.

Lumumba served one term on the Jackson City Council before he was elected Mayor of the capital in 2013. Among his achievements he persuaded voters to add a local sales tax to improve the city’s aging infrastructure. He is fondly remembered by many family and friends, among them Kalamazoo College classmate and fellow Mississippian Max Garriott ’69, who wrote: “I was privileged to witness his early development as a leader in the turbulent 1960’s at Kalamazoo College, and fate had it that as two Northerners from widely varying backgrounds we found ourselves shortly after graduation in service to the African-American community of the Jackson area, he as a lawyer and I as an educator. Jackson shall be forever rightfully proud of this giant of a man who, in the short span of seven months, managed to rally even the most skeptical citizens to his side. His firm commitment and gentle demeanor, coupled with courage and determination in the face of adversity, are exactly what this wonderful city needs to emulate as it now faces a future deprived of his guidance as its mayor. My prayers go out to his beautiful family and friends.”

LuxEsto did a feature story (Fall 2010) on Lumumba, and that article closed with his own words: “The struggle for human rights–black rights and white rights–is far from over. Everywhere you look in the world today, you see economic oppression, class oppression being visited on suffering human beings.

“That oppression is simply not acceptable. It must be fought. And you can be sure we will go right on fighting against economic and social injustice of every kind for as long as it takes!”

Sing me a song of the Revolution
Marching like fire over the world,
Weaving from the earth its brightest red banner
For the hands of the masses to unfurl.

Sing me a song of the Revolution
Drowning the past with a thunderous shout:
Filled with the strength of youth and laughter,
And never the echo of a doubt.

O mighty roll of the Revolution,
Ending the centuries of bloody strife,
Ending the tricks of kings and liars,
Big with the laughter of a new life.

Breaking the bonds of the darker races,
Breaking the chains that have held for years,
Breaking the barriers dividing the people,
Smashing the gods of terror and tears.

Cutting, O flame of the Revolution,
Fear from the world like a surgeon’s knife,
So that the children of all creation
Waken, at last, to the joy of life.

(Langston Hughes, “Song of the Revolution”)

Art Professor Honored for Civic Engagement

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Associate Professor of Art Sarah Lindley receives an award
Associate Professor of Art Sarah Lindley received the Michigan Campus Compact Faculty/Staff Service Learning Award.

Michigan Campus Compact (MiCC) honored Associate Professor of Art Sarah Lindley with its biennial MiCC Faculty/Staff Community Service-Learning Award, the highest honor that MiCC bestows on faculty and staff in the state of Michigan.

Lindley has made outstanding contributions in service-learning, and she has inspired students to become involved in service-learning through modeling, influencing, and instruction. She was nominated by Alison Geist, director of the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement.

Since 2005 Lindley has taught at least one community-engaged arts course every year, and her students have completed multiple projects involving a wide variety of community partners and thousands of residents. Lindley has worked with the County Center for Health Equity, Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes, Michigan Commission for the Blind, the YWCA, Education for the Arts, Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative, the Black Arts and Cultural Center, Ministry with Community, and Art Hop. She and her students have used arts as a vehicle for community and personal transformation, creating work that is useful, thoughtful, and inclusive. Lindley created the new Kalamazoo College Community Studio in the downtown Park Trades Center, and she has previously been honored with the Marcia Jackson Hunger Awareness Award by Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes.

MiCC is a coalition of college and university presidents who are committed to fulfilling the public purpose of higher education. The organization helps students develop into engaged citizens by creating and expanding academic, co-curricular, and campus-wide opportunities for community service, service-learning, and civic engagement.

Professor Emeritus of Sociology Richard Means Dies

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Richard L. Means dressed in commencement attireRichard L. Means ’52, professor emeritus of sociology, died on February 15, 2014. He came to K as an undergraduate student in 1948, when he transferred from the University of Toledo. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. At K he won the Hodge Prize in philosophy and was president of the student body. He was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He and fellow K graduate, Joyce Allen, married in 1953.

Means earned a bachelor’s degree in divinity from Colgate Rochester Divinity School (1956) and an M.A. and Ph.D. (sociology) from Cornell University (1959 and 1964, respectively). He served as a chaplain at Cornell (1956-59) and was ordained as an Associate Minster of the First Congregational Church (1957). He returned to K in 1961, where he received tenure (1964) and was promoted to full professor (1972). He retired from K in 1993, having served the College for 32 years.

Among the qualities that made him exceptional, wrote his colleague and friend, Dean of the Chapel Robert Dewey, on the occasion of Mean’s 25th service anniversary with the College, were his “command of a discipline, intellectual curiosity beyond that discipline, stimulating conversation, collegial support, a sense of humor, a broad range of interests and an impressive knowledge of each, a passionate concern for the vitality and quality of the College and for the problems confronting society, the nation, and the world.” His research and teaching interests were broad and deep and included the family, criminology, mental health institutions, the sociology of religion, race relations, alcohol and drug abuse, the environment, and social gerontology. Citing the breadth of his colleague’s intellectual interests Dewey likened Means to “a man in a conning tower rotating his periscope across the wide horizon to see and grasp what he finds there.” Means wrote numerous journal articles on various topics in sociology and religion, and he was the author of the book The Ethical Imperative: The Value Crisis in America, which was used in college classes at Grinnell and Carleton, among others.

After he retired from K, Means served as interim minster of the First Congregational Church of Kalamazoo. He then served as interim minster of the First Congregational Church of Coloma, Michigan.

He is survived by Joyce, his wife of 60 years, their three children, three grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held at 2 PM on Thursday, February 20, at First Congregational Church, 129 S. Park Street. Friends and family will have the opportunity to gather for a time of remembrance and fellowship on Friday, February 21, beginning at 3:30 in the Kiva at Friendship Village, 1700 N. Drake Road.

Student Commissioners become Student Painters on MLK Day

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MLK Day Student PaintersMartin Luther King Day 2014 activities on the K campus featured a heartfelt Community Reflections presentation by K students in Stetson Chapel; a rousing convocation talk, also in Stetson, by guest speaker and K board of trustee member Jevon Caldwell Gross ’04, pastor of Hamilton Memorial United Methodist Church in Atlantic City, New Jersey; a commemorative walk by students, faculty, and staff from K and WMU; and an inspiring lecture by American Indian activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer Winona LaDuke in Dalton Theatre.

Meanwhile, out of the public eye, 17 K Student Commission members volunteered five hours each (a total of 85 hours) during the annual MLK National Day of Service. They painted two commercial buildings owned by the Kalamazoo County Land Bank on Portage Street in Kalamazoo’s Edison Neighborhood.

According to StuComm President Darrin Camilleri ’14, the buildings were foreclosed properties that needed a cleanup so that a redevelopment process could begin on part of an important corridor that leads to the heart of downtown Kalamazoo.

“Our work as student commissioners is generally focused on the campus, but we wanted to take our service to the larger community,” said Darrin. “By giving back, we were able to honor Dr. King’s memory, make a connection to an organization in town, and do some good for a neighborhood in Kalamazoo.”

Piano Concert

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Cedarville University Professor John Mortensen at a piano
John Mortensen

John Mortensen, pianist and professor of music at Cedarville University, will present a concert at Kalamazoo College on Thursday, January 30. The event is free and open to the public.

The concert will feature Mortensen’s original improvisations of works by Domenico Scarlatti (Sonatas), Robert Schumann (selections from Davidsbündlertänze), Sergei Rachmaninoff (Selected Preludes), and Astor Piazzolla (Tangos). The concert begins at 7:30 P.M. in Dalton Theatre in K’s Light Fine Arts Building.

In addition to the concert, Mortensen will teach a master class culminating in performances by K students. Those performances will occur at 4 PM on January 30 in Dalton Theatre.

In addition to his work as a concert pianist, composer, and teacher, Mortensen performs and teaches Irish and American roots music, playing mandolin, octave mandolin, Irish flute, Irish button accordion, five-string banjo, Uilleann pipes, and Irish whistle. He leads The Demerits, Cedarville University’s premier roots ensemble, and he created America’s only college-level traditional Irish music session class.

Social Justice Artist

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Iris Dawn Parker
Iris Dawn Parker

Documentary photographer and teacher Iris Dawn Parker will serve as the winter term, 2014, Visiting Fellow at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Her art work and teaching focus on culture, identity formation, gender, and community.

During her fellowship Parker will present two exhibitions: “Mouride Muslims” (Wednesday, January 22, 4:30 PM, Hicks Center Student Development Gallery) and “Zulu Marriage Rituals” (Friday, February 7, 4 P.M., Epic Center on the Kalamazoo mall). The latter event will be presented in collaboration with the Black Arts and Cultural Center as part of the Kalamazoo Arts Council’s Art Hop. Parker also will participate in a Leadership Dinner and discussion linking her experiences as an artist to African identity, photography, and voice. That event, titled “We Wish to Tell Our Own Stories NOW,” will take place on January 29, at 6 PM in the Hicks Banquet Room.

Parker taught at the world renowned Market Theater Foundation and held artist residencies at the University of Witwatersrand, University of Cape Town, and Rhodes University. She is currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Africa, and she has created exhibitions in South Africa and the U.S. Among the latter was a Chicago exhibition titled “Mandela: Man of the People” that featured the photographs of Peter Magubane. Parker is currently at work on an endeavor titled Apartheid Book Project.

Winter Term Ethnic Studies

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Dr. Reid Gómez, the Melon Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, has designed a series of winter term programs and web pages and prompts as a collective resource for a campus-wide conversations on the matter of ethnic studies. For many of these conversations the general public is welcome as well. The series begins with a lecture (Thursday, January 9) titled “What is Ethnic Studies?”  Gómez will give the lecture twice–at 4:10 PM and at 7 PM–in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room.

“Conversations about ethnic studies at K have been taking place since 1968,” says Gómez. “Recently a renewed movement and rising range of voices reflect the desire for a further exchange of ideas.”

Features on the ethnic studies website will serve to deepen that exchange. The features include a bookshelf, several faculty discussions, a blog for the K community, a calendar of events (programs occur every week of the 10-week term), and a series of conversations. For the latter, the campus community will be called to join several invited participants to discuss a particular theme, reading, or video prompt. Gómez will moderate. “We will sit in concentric circles (one inside, and the other outside),” says Gómez.  “The participants will take their place in the center, and we will leave several chairs open, should someone catch the spirit and chose to formally join the conversation. People may enter and exit the conversation at will, and they may choose to participate in silence, while listening. Everyone in the outside circle will have the opportunity to listen in.  Near the end, we will turn the circles inside out for the opportunity to debrief, and review the places our conversation lead us.  Opportunities for follow-up conversations will take place on the ethnic studies blog.”

Winter Term Will Open January 8

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Kalamazoo College will open for winter term classes on Wednesday, January 8. The Wednesday schedule of classes will be in effect.

Some students and faculty members may not be able to reach campus by Wednesday. Everyone should provide the greatest degree of flexibility, understanding that some may be delayed in their return.  Students: if you are not able to be in class, please communicate via email with your professors to let them know.  Faculty: if you are unable to make it to campus, please notify your students.

The campus is in good shape for pedestrian traffic, thanks to the excellent work by the Facilities Management team. Please check weather reports throughout the week (especially for Wednesday) and dress appropriately.

Winter Quarter Opening UPDATE

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Pedestrian traffic conditions on campus are good and we anticipate opening winter quarter on Tuesday, January 7. That said, we will continue to monitor the weather, surrounding transportation conditions, and campus parking in order to make a final decision tonight or early tomorrow morning regarding the opening of winter quarter.

We will inform students, faculty, and staff of that decision tonight or early tomorrow morning.

Even if we do commence winter term classes tomorrow (Tuesday, January 7) we will ask that all faculty and students provide the greatest flexibility, understanding that some may be delayed in their return.  Students: if you are not able to be in class, please communicate via e-mail with your professors to let them know.  Faculty: if you are unable to make it to campus, please notify your students.  Staff: if you are unable to make it to campus, please notify your supervisor.

We know that there has been a great deal of disruption in travel, especially airline and bus cancellations.  We ask that everyone use appropriate discretion regarding their travel plans and make your return to campus when you feel it is safest to do so.