social justice

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.

New Arcus Center at Kalamazoo College Attracting Attention

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Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership exterior sidingWood is used in one way or another on just about every home or building, from frame to trim, from siding to roof, and to finely crafted accents. But chances are you’ve never seen a building with log “bricks” laid with their circular ends showing, not stacked lengthwise, as you’d see on a typical log home.

That’s about to change.

Construction crews are busy at Kalamazoo College’s newest building, the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, applying a one-of-a-kind cordwood masonry skin to this one-of-a-kind 10,000-square-foot building on the corner of Academy and Monroe streets designed by Chicago-based architectural firm Studio Gang Architects.

The wood is northern white cedar, and comes from a commercial forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, says Av Mulder, foreman for Burggrabe B and B Masonry out of Belding, Mich.

Mulder and his masons receive logs that have been cured and cut to size by the building’s construction management firm, Miller-Davis in Kalamazoo. They then form the logs in place with a special mortar that sets slowly to minimize shrinking and cracking.

Placing logs for Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership sidingThe end result is a seemingly random, yet intelligently designed, pattern that Mulder calls “a peak and valley effect.” The construction technique has been employed on barns and sheds in Northern Michigan and Canada for generations. But it’s believed to be the first time that a commercial building in the United States has been built with this type of facade.

Mulder stopped short of estimating how many individual “bricks” might be placed, but did say about 100 cords of wood would be used.

Masons attended a two-day workshop to learn how to apply the cordwood masonry. According to Mulder, a mason since 1971, neither he nor the other masons had ever worked with this technique before. He said his crew must always think about what size log to place next, in order to keep their placement fluid looking. Where the walls of the building bend and curve, masons have to customize the logs even further, making certain their angles correspond to the walls.

“This isn’t like laying a line down and building a wall,” Mulder says. “It’s kind of like working with fieldstone, but you can trim fieldstone. This is all eyeball, always thinking, especially around the windows. It’s like nothing I’ve ever worked on.”

Work has been hampered by the harsh winter the region has endured, but Mulder forecasts that the log-laying could be complete by April.

Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership exterior under construction“Cordwood masonry is an old construction technique that has been updated for a modern building,” says Paul Manstrom, Kalamazoo College associate vice president for Facilities Management. “The students, faculty, staff, and visitors who use the building will find that it’s both inspired by and suited to learning and social justice.”

According to Manstrom, the building is slated for a summertime completion and will be ready for classes in Sept. 2014. The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership will hold its With/Out Borders conference in the new structure in September.

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership was created through an endowment from the Arcus Foundation. Construction of the Center’s new building is funded through a gift from Jon Stryker, K alumnus (Class of 1982), trustee, and Arcus Foundation founder.

Emptying the White Knapsack

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Jaime Grant
Jaime Grant, Ph.D.

“Students of color at colleges across the country have been organizing for years to foreground their experiences of racism – raising a broad range of issues from campus life, to curriculum, to hiring practices and faculty representation of people of color. At Kalamazoo College, a growing number of students of color are raising key questions about a college’s readiness for meaningful engagement with issues of racism, while students at the University of Michigan and the University of California Los Angeles are organizing against erasure in the wake of legal decisions against affirmative action.

“Student organizing has been accompanied by seemingly endless discussions about white privilege and frequent references to Peggy McIntosh’s 1988 essay, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, a classic consciousness-raising piece about white privilege.

“For many white students, this article is an eye-opener because of its analysis that white people benefit from racist structures and the racist distribution of power and resources in US society every day of our lives. Yet this article remains limited because it offers no direction for its readers after coming to this awareness.

“I offer this piece as a follow-up to McIntosh...”

Read the rest of Jaime Grant’s compelling essay “Emptying the White Knapsack” on Praxis Center, an online resource center for scholars, activists, and artists hosted by Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Jaime Grant is contributing editor for Praxis Center’s “Gender and Sexualities” section, and recent Arcus Center executive director.

From action research and radical scholarship, to engaged teaching and grassroots activism, to community and cultural organizing and revelatory art practice, Praxis Center makes visible the imperative social justice work being done today. Read more about K’s Praxis Center.

Aaron Saari ’98 is new part-time pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Yellow Springs, Ohio

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First Presbyterian Church Pastor Aaron Saari
Aaron Saari ’98  (Photo by Megan Bachman)

Aaron Saari ’98 was recently hired as the new part-time pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Yellow Springs, Ohio. A bible scholar and theologian, Aaron is the author of “The Many Deaths of Judas Iscariot,” a book about the historical figure and the issue of suicide. He’s been a visiting professor at Xavier and adjunct instructor at Antioch University Midwest teaching courses in writing, Christianity, and non-Western religions.

Aaron, who grew up in Yellow Springs, hopes to attract new people to the church by emphasizing the church’s inclusivity and social justice commitment.

Read more about Aaron’s life and work in this Yellow Springs News article.

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.

Kalamazoo College Launches “Praxis Center” Online Resource for Social Justice Scholars, Activists, and Artists

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Kalamazoo College today announced the launch of “Praxis Center,” an online resource for social justice practitioners hosted by the College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Accessible via www.kzoo.edu/praxis, Praxis Center contains scholarly articles, teaching resources, images, and links to videos, blogs, and other websites, as well as information on conferences, events, publications, research, and other items of interest to social justice scholars, activists, and artists.

“There are many single-issue resource sites available online, but few such as Praxis Center where multiple issues and resources intersect,” said Lisa Brock, Praxis Center senior editor and Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) academic director. “Praxis Center is a crossroads where social justice leaders can learn, share, and connect across disciplines and issues.”

Praxis Center is arranged around seven themed sections, each with a contributing editor: Science and Social Justice; Race, Class, and Immigration; Human Rights; Global Health; Genders and Sexualities; Environment, Food and Sustainability; and Art, Music, and Pop Culture.

Under each themed section are five action buttons: Posts (an archive of previously posted articles), Teach (where teachers can post social justice course syllabi and teaching tools), Read (a list of social justice bibliographies), Watch/Listen (videos and other audio visual materials), and Act (listings and links to upcoming social justice events, conferences, and other engagements.)

Praxis Center editors will update the site weekly, while encouraging comments and contributions from an engaged readership. Original artwork (changed monthly) that matches the themed sections is also featured.

“We envision Praxis Center to be a marketplace for the free and open exchange of information and ideas on all social justice issues,” said Brock. “From action research and radical scholarship to engaged teaching and grassroots activism, from community and cultural organizing to revelatory art practice, Praxis Center will make visible all the critical social justice work being done today across the country and around the globe.”

Iranian Cultural Center Graffiti Action 2009
Photo: “Iranian Cultural Center Graffiti Action 2009” by Naeem Mohaiemen, a writer and visual artist working in New York City and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Chicago-based educator, cultural organizer, activist, and writer Alice Kim serves as Praxis Center editor. ACSJL Program Coordinator Karla Aguilar is managing editor. Read all editors’ bios at www.kzoo.edu/praxis/about.

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership was launched in 2009 with support from the Arcus Foundation (www.arcusfoundation.org), including a $23 million endowment grant in January 2012. Supporting Kalamazoo College’s mission to prepare its graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world, the ACSJL will develop new leaders and sustain existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.

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.”

College Honors Legacy of Nelson Mandela

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If ever there was a human being for whom the descriptor of sublime applied, that person is the late Nelson Mandela. His magnanimity was nonpareil; as was his capacity to unite that which seemed irrevocably divided. “It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of the former South African President,” said Lisa Brock, academic director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Brock knows the Mandela family, and she was interviewed about his legacy by WWMT-TV, WOOD-TV, Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive, WKZO radio, and the Chicago Tribune.

Mandela died on Thursday, December 5, at the age of 95. “After serving 27 years as a South African political prisoner on the infamous Robben Island, he emerged as a symbol of freedom to millions worldwide,” added Brock. “Revered as a hero and human rights leader, he will be dearly missed.” In honor of his legacy, the College will hold a vigil on Friday, December 6, at noon in front of Stetson Chapel. All are welcome.

David Barclay, the Margaret and Roger Scholten Professor of International Studies, shared his personal encounter with Mandela. “It was almost exactly twenty years ago, in 1993. I was sitting in Johannesburg airport, waiting to change planes,” Barclay wrote. “As I recall, it was a very long wait, and I was trying to finish some work. I vaguely noticed a group of four or five individuals as they sat down in the seats next to mine; but, as one does in airports, I didn’t pay any particular attention to them, continuing instead with my work. At one point I lifted my head and looked over at them, and suddenly I noticed that one of them was Nelson Mandela. I couldn’t help myself. I decided to be a crass American tourist and ask him for his autograph. I began to search for a blank piece of paper, and all I could find was the reverse side of a set of Kalamazoo College faculty meeting minutes! So I walked up to him and asked if I could bother him for his autograph. He very graciously stood up, asked me my name, and signed the K faculty minutes! We then spoke for about five or 10 minutes. I was a nobody, an autograph-seeker, a complete stranger, yet he spoke to me as though I were actually important. I was immensely impressed. This was in 1993, three years after his release from prison and one year before he became president, and he had absolutely no security detail of any kind. It turned out that he and his colleagues were waiting for another group of colleagues who were arriving on a delayed flight from London. At the head of that group was Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in 1999. So on that day, purely by coincidence, I saw two future presidents of South Africa.”

Annual Lecture Focuses on Deportation Law

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Jacqueline Stevens, professor of political science and legal studies advisory board member at Northwestern University, will deliver the 2013 William Weber Lecture in Government and Society. Her talk is titled “Government Illegals: Deportation and the Rule of Law.” The event takes place on Monday, October 28, at 8 PM in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room at Kalamazoo College. It is free and open to the public. Stevens is director of the Deportation Research Clinic, Buffett Center on International and Comparative Studies. She conducts research on political theories and practices of membership, and her current work in deportation law enforcement, past and present, uncovers contemporary illegalities, including practices resulting in the unlawful deportation of United States citizens from the U.S. Her work has appeared in Political Theory, the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Political Philosophy, Social Text, Third World Quarterly, The Nation, and the New York Times. Her latest book is titled States Without Nations: Citizenship for Mortals. The William Weber Lectures in Government and Society were funded by the late Bill Weber, who graduated from Kalamazoo College in 1939 with a degree in physics. He also funded the William Weber Chair in Political Science, which is held by Professor Amy Elman. Past lecturers include, among others: David Broder, E.J. Dionne, Frances Fox Piven, Jeane Bethke Elshtain, William Greider, Tamara Draut, and Mickey Edwards.