C e n t e r
f o r
M u l t i c u l t u r a l
E d u c a t i o n
VOICES
January 2014
Promoting Diversity in the University Community and Beyond...
Inside this Issue:
The Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
2
Tribute to Nelson
Mandela
3
Pyramid of Success
5
Crossword Puzzle
6
Voices Preview &
Student Worker
Piece
7
Event Schedule and
Comic
8
TRIVIA
1. Which college
employed civil
rights activist Jo
Ann Robinson?
2.What club did Ella
Baker found at the
Harlem Library?
3. From which
institution did
Dorothy Height
earn her master’s
degree?
Come to the CME
with correct trivia
answers to win a
prize!
Women in the Civil Rights Movement
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was born in
slavery in 1862 in Holly
Springs, Mississippi. Learning to read at a young age
and being surrounded by
political activists eventually
propelled her into a career of
journalism. Wells focused
on lynchings, describing that
they were “a systematic attempt to subordinate the
black community was incendiary.” After three of her
close black male friends
were lynched for alleged
crimes, she wrote an invigorating article that made
both black and white communities take notice. She
created such an uprising
through her writings and
protests around the world
that she was exiled from the
south for over forty years.
She was also active in the
suffrage movement and
members of both the NAACP
and NACW.
Rosa Parks
Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary McLeod Bethune
was raised in South Carolina
with her sixteen brothers
and sisters. Though originally planning on becoming
a missionary, she ended up
becoming an educator. She
founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial School
for Negro Girls which later
merged with another institute which became the Bethune-Cookman College.
Bethune pushed for African
American rights and was a
driving force in seeing that
African Americans received
aid from the federal government. She was also the director of NYA, spoke at various conferences on racial
issues, and was the assistant
director of The Women’s
Army Corps during World
War II.
Rosa Parks, one of the
most famous women in the
Civil Rights Movement, was
born in February of 1913.
Often referred to as “the first
lady of civil rights,” Parks
became well-known when
on December 1, 1955 she
refused to give up her seat in
the colored section of the
bus to a white person. While
her actions were spontaneous, her refusal and later her
arrest, started the Montgomery Bus Boycott. A year
later the Supreme Court
ruled that the segregation
law was unconstitutional
and the buses became integrated. Through this Rosa
Parks became an icon of
resistance in racial segregation and a symbol of hope.
http://www.idabwells.org/
http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/
teachinger/glossary/bethunemary.cfm
http://www.thehenryford.org/
Page 2
By: Dr. Michael D. Blackwell
beyond what King himself held!
The above notwithstanding,
I easily became enamored of a
person I had barely known up
to that point. I had heard snip-
ville in 1960, my comprehension of his pathos did not convince me of the path he had
chosen.
I found, however, there
pets about the imprisoned lead-
was, indeed, something special about the man. I learned
The death of Steve Biko in
prison in South Africa captured many college students
on campuses across the United States. I was one of those
er of the African National Congress, but I primarily caught
that he believed in the overthrow of the apartheid regime
through violence. Associated
with him was the phrase that I
had first got wind of from reading and discussing Malcolm X:
students at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, as I was asked to perform
a memorial service for Biko in
the university’s chapel. My
subsequent role as a spokesperson for the South Africa
Action Group eventually led
me to the likes of Desmond
Tutu and Allan Boesak–
“by any means necessary.” I
was not a fan of the pre-1964
Malcolm as a number of my fellow black students and multicultural comrades in the divestment movement was. I was a
staunch Kingian; hence, aligning Mandela with Malcolm did
not persuade me to lift up the
former as a symbol for our
primarily because of my acceptance of nonviolence as a
tactic and a way of life. At
that time, Martin Luther
King, Jr., was my hero and
there was, admittedly, an absolutism to my devotion to
peacemaking that went far
struggle.
Eventually, I convinced myself to inv est igat e the
man. Although I understood
the deep pain he must have felt
observing the cowardly massacre of demonstrators, including
defenseless children, at Sharpe-
how impassioned he was over
the struggle for the freedom of
his people–so much so that he
was willing to do whatever it
took. Here was a man who
lived
according
to King’s
particular
joy because
of oftmy
quoted
saying:
“Ifonly
a man
hasinvolvement
not
at Wesn’t
found
something
die and
for,
leyan,
but
also at to
Yale
he
isn’t fitUniversities,
to live.” The to
sufferBoston
deing
that divestiture
Mandela was
undermand
and
the
going
the Africa
sacrifice
he
freeingand
of South
genermade
by not
renouncing
vioally and
of Mandela
specifilence
the struggle
testified
cally. inWhat
an honor
to be
to
thosethewords
man
among
throngofasthe
he visitmartyred
and
exemed Bostonin
in 1968
June of
1990!
plified
in to
1977
deNeedless
say, by
his Biko’s
ascendanmise
thepresidency
hands of of
prison
cy toatthe
the
guards. Slowly, but surely, I
acquired a respect for Mandela’s persistence and his refusal to relinquish hope in a
brighter tomorrow.
To see Mandela march triumphant after twenty-seven
years was remarkable! I felt
Page 3
“Mandela leaves a rich
legacy for all nations to find
a way to persevere in
seeking constructive and
lasting resolution of
conflict.”
~Dr. Michael D. Blackwell
public life. His desire to fashion a truly integrated and pluralistic society at home and
abroad is matchless.
Mandela leaves a rich legacy
for all nations to find a way to
particular joy because of my
involvement not only at Wesleyan, but also at Yale and
Boston Universities, to demand divestiture and the
freeing of South Africa generally and of Mandela specifically. What an honor to be
persevere in seeking constructive and lasting resolution of
conflict. The world is rife with
crises that ostensibly warrant
the use of weapons of mass destruction. Mandela’s life urges
upon us the will not to react
with revenge, bitterness, and
hate, but to seek justice and to
among the throng as he visited Boston in June of 1990!
Needless to say, his ascendancy to the presidency of
the democratic Republic of
South Africa, the winner of
the Nobel Prize for Peace was
simply genuine ecstasy–one
of the greatest events of the
twentieth century! Without
forge pathways to inclusion
through conversation, compromise, and cooperation.
Hopefully, as the moving
finger of time continues to
write, we will not be subject to
the typical amnesia that historically befalls us when such a
great figure dies. Let us not reduce ourselves to the cynicism
any visible signs of anger or
vengefulness, Mandela, in his
late seventies and early eighties, became a powerful voice
for speaking the truth and
reaching for real reconciliation.
Such goodness–nay,
greatness!–is a rare sight in
that business as usual apparently inevitably produces. Rather, let the amazing
oeuvre and symbolism of this
individual be an ever fixed
mark and guidepost as our and
our children’s memory chords
shall lengthen!
http://www.biography.com/people/
nelson-mandela-9397017
According to USA Today,
the following are some of
Nelson Mandela’s best
quotes:
“It always seems impossible
until it’s done.”
“Difficulties break some men
but make others. No axe is
sharp enough to cut the soul
of a sinner who keeps on
trying, one armed with the
hope that he will rise
even in the end.”
“If I had my time over I
would do the same again. So
would any man who dares
call himself a man.”
“I like friends who have
independent minds because
they tend to make you see
problems from all angles.”
Article taken from Dr. Blackwell’s
blog http://mdbwell.com/
category/social-ethics/
Page 4
The Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
By: Dr. Michael D. Blackwell
The classic period of the civil rights
movement is framed by the public career of
Martin Luther King Jr.: from December 5,
1955 to April 4, 1968. During this period,
King was the undisputed, symbolic, and
actual leader of the nonviolent direct action
campaigns primarily targeting Jim Crow
segregation in the South. There are several
aspects of his leadership that are the major
constitutive elemests of his enduring legacy. Herin, we identify eight of them.
First, there is the principle of dissent.
One of the essential tenets of any democratic republic where freedom and responsibility are tandem features is the right to
dissent. The first day of the Montgomery
busy boycott, King asserted his belief not
only in the “teachings of Jesus,” but also in
the “weapon of protest.” In January 1956,
King reiterated his support of dissent by
declaring American democracy’s “right to
protest for right.” On April 3, 1968, the
day before he was assassinated, King affirmed the greatness of America, in part as
“the right to protest for right.” In his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King
states: “I submit that an individual who
breaks a law that conscience tells him is
unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the
conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”
Second, based on this respect for law,
King believed in the following one’s convictions despite the consequences or ramifications of one’s actions. He was disposed to
say, if a person has not found something to
die for, that person is not fit to life—a remark made in the wake of the murder of
the civil rights leader Medgar Evers. In
essence, physical death under such circumstances of conscience is “redemptive.”
When he broke his silence over the Vietnam War in 1967, King stressed the importance of listening to and acting upon
one’s moral conscience.
Third, King articulated hopefulness
found in the belief that the universe is on
the side of justice. Nevertheless, he was not
simply an eternal optimist.
King’s utilization of the Hegelian dialectical process to reach a fuller understanding of choices and the cratino of the
best possible society, therefore, constitutes
a fourth component of his legacy. For example, his choice of socialistic perspective
was the result of canceling out the extreme
positions of capitalism and communism.
Another instance is his belief that community and justice are mutually necessary:
that we must avoid the extreme of having
community without justice (i.e.
“colonialism”), which is hollow, on the one
hand, and the extreme of having justice
without community (i.e., “paternalism”),
which is blind, on the other hand. Strongly
attached to his profession from thesis to
antithesis to synthesis, King was compelled
to reject extremism in favor of “mediation
and conciliation” as well as “education and
legislation.”
Fifth, King broadened his horizons,
that is, he evolved. King’s emphasis on the
obligation to love during the early stages of
the Montgomery bus boycott grew into the
application of Gandhian philosophy and
nonviolent method to segregation in the
South. After the passage of the Civil Rights
Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965 and his being awarded the 1694 Nobel Peace Prize, King enlarged his focus
from the concerns such as integration in
public accommodations to more intricately
systematic issues such as the elimination of
ghettoized communities, economic justice,
increased military spending, U.S. participation in the Vietnam War, and white privilege.
Sixth, King had strong affinity to the
biblical witness. Prophets such as Amos,
Micah, and Isaiah stressed the importance
of doing right, effecting justice in the land,
and redressing the concerns of the poor
http://seattletimes.com/special/mlk/
and the oppressed. King also found in the
words of Jesus confirmation in relieving
the burdens of “the least of
these” (Matthew 25:31-46) as well as reconciliation with one’s enemies.
Seventh, King had pride in his cultural
heritage. Many of King’s speeches were
peppered with references to diverse heroes
and heroines, such as Frederick Douglass,
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Willie Mays, Rosa
Parks, Langston Hughes, Roland Hayes,
Payl Robeson, Marian Anderson, and Mary
McLeod Bethune. He was very much concerned with the oppression of apartheid in
South Africa and imperialist plundering by
Western countries on that continent. As he
became more involved in addressing economic conditions in the U.S. foreign policy,
King broadened his concern to all in the
African Dispora as well as people of color
around the world and eventually, to the
empowerment of all of humanity.
Finally, King believed in nonviolence
not simply as a method of protest, but also
as a way of life. Nonviolent direct action
could serve to deal with the tensions in the
body politic in creative ways, and it could
also help to address tensions in one’s personal life with a strong inclination towards
peace ad reconciliation. Nonviolence was
the way in which King devoted himself to
the hoped-for realization of the beloved
community.
Excerpted from Dr. Michael D. Blackwell’s
chapter in the book Gender and the Social
Gospel
Page 5
By: Lauren Wypiszynski
Coach Dr. John Wooden, also
known as the “Wizard of Westwood,” is one of the most successful
basketball coaches and players in
the history of sports.
As a player, Wooden was the
first to be named a basketball AllAmerican three times, won a Helms
Athletic Foundation National
Championship at Purdue, and is a
member of the Basketball Hall of
Fame.
As a coach, Wooden won ten
NCAA national championships at
UCLA in a twelve year period , seven in a row, and was inducted into
the Basketball Hall of Fame as a
coach as well.
Furthermore, Wooden was an
inspirational leader to his players,
including Bill Walton and Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar. Well known for his
inspirational quotes and guidance,
Wooden developed Wooden’s
“Pyramid of Success.”
The pyramid features fifteen
keys to success, and twelve lessons
in leadership, which can be utilized
on and off the Basketball court.
A basketball coach gave me
Wooden’s pyramid in high school.
On the court, it was a great tool to
use as a basketball captain and a
leader for other players.
Furthermore, I now utilize
Wooden’s pyramid off the court as
a graduate student and graduate
assistant. Specifically, I concen-
trate on performing my best in the
classroom and at work everyday.
Additionally, it is very important to take initiative in my professional life and personal life, getting involved in campus activities
and professional development opportunities.
I highly recommend students,
staff, and faculty utilize Wooden’s
Pyramid of Success as a tool for
success in the new year! Wooden
also has a very interactive webpage,
http://www.coachwooden.com/
index2.html, for individuals who
are looking for more information
about Coach Wooden and how to
utilize the pyramid in your every
day life!
Page 6
Use the articles in the newsletter to help you complete this fun puzzle!
Page 7
3 Featured Female Civil
Rights Leaders
Jo Ann Robinson:
Teacher at Alabama State College and
Civil Rights activist.
Ella Baker:
Leader of the SCLC and helped the
efforts SNCC!
Dorothy Height:
In February, the answer
key to the CME crossword
puzzle featured in the
January Voices will be
available! Additionally,
more trivia questions and
prizes will be awarded for
correct trivia answers!
Overview of Black History
Month Including :

Preview of events to celebrate Black History
Month.

Articles highlighting the
importance of Black
History Month.
Civil Rights and Women’s Rights
activist focusing on issues of unemployment, illiteracy, and voter
awareness.
Some of Zach’s Favorite Things!
Color: Orange
Food: All except vegetables.
Pets: Dogs
Movie: ATL
Store: Pac Sun or Zara Class: None, lol!
TV Show: Too many to choose from, mostly all 1990’s shows.
Hobby: Customizing jean jackets.
Zach Owens is a senior at UNI and this is
his first semester working at the CME. His
favorite part about working at the CME is
meeting new people and giving Dr. Blackwell
a hard time. Zach is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa and went to Kennedy High School. Zach
is very family oriented and appreciates the
support his family provides him
Zach’s major is Textiles and Apparel. He
chose to attend UNI because the school is
close to home, the size of the campus is manageable, and the people are very friendly.
One of Zach’s favorite UNI memories was
celebrating Homecoming his freshman year,
and traveling abroad for his internship. After
graduation Zach plans on finding a job in the
fashion industry with hopes to someday own
his own brand including clothes, shoes, and
accessories.
Page 8
January 20,
2014
January 20
Martin Luther
King, Jr. Day of
Service
Dr. Marcia Riggs
Lecture
Book Club
3:30 pm
CME
Continued
7:00 pm
CME
February
February 10
February 20
Celebrate
Black History
Month by attending numerous on
campus events at
UNI!
Reaching for Higher Ground Film
Series
CME Book Club
Soul Food Junkies
7:00 pm
Reception to follow
Lang Hall
Auditorium
Through It All:
Reflections on My
Life, My Family,
and My Faith
Discussion to
follow film
Black Woman Redefined: Dispelling
Myths and Discovering Fulfillment
in the Age of
Michelle Obama
By: Sophia Nelson
3:30 pm
CME
Christine King
Farris
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=276
Center for Multicultural Education
109 Maucker Union
Cedar Falls, Iowa 50614-0165
Phone: 319-273-2250
Email: cme@uni.edu
Website: www.uni.edu/cme
Our Mission:
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We foster success in racial and ethnic minority students, contribute to the cultural competence of all
students, and promote an appreciation of diversity in the University Community.
Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Michael D. Blackwell
Co-Editors: Lauren Wypiszynski, Brittni Haag and Diane Ihimbazwe