Keepin the spirit alive
GREENSBORO – Students, faculty, alumnae, elected officials, members of the community and special guests gathered Oct. 3 to rededicate themselves to pushing for social and economic justice and to spark that desire among others.
At a Community Activism Forum sponsored by Bennett College for Women, speakers noted that the need for activism today remains strong despite economic and political gains, including the election of a Black president. Disparities and injustice continue to be a part of society, and today’s students should awake each day and ask how they can make the world a better place, speakers said at the forum.
The event, held at the Sheraton Four Seasons in Greensboro, had the theme “From History to Healing.” It commemorated the 30th anniversary of the “Greensboro Massacre,” the 1979 incident in which members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party fired on a protest march, killing five. The forum was dedicated to Bennett alumna Sandra Neely Smith, a former Student Government Association President who was one of five killed in the massacre.
Bennett President Julianne Malveaux explained that she wanted to honor Smith even before taking the college’s top job.
“As I looked through history, I couldn’t find on occasion where she had been lifted up,” Dr. Malveaux explained. “We have not had the opportunity to fully celebrate her. We in Greensboro – women, black women – have to lift her up, and as we lift her up we find the inspiration for our own activism.”
The keynote speaker at the forum luncheon, poet, author and activist Sonia Sanchez, also lauded Smith, saying she embodied the spirit of caring about others that young and old must continue to nourish. Speaking in her characteristic style – a mixture of soaring oration, poetic meter and singsong lilt – Sanchez had the audience rapt.
“The most important question we must ask ourselves in the 21st Century is, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ We have to have the courage to challenge the forces that cause terror and foster genocide…When they ask, ‘What did you do about people’s suffering?’ we will say we turned toward the forces of darkness and we resisted, we resisted. …I’m talking about learning what this sojourn on earth really means.”
The aim of the forum was to develop ways in which Bennett students could continue to be activists in ways that are relevant today. One group of suggestions centered on wider dissemination of the report on the 1979 massacre by the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project. That 2006 report found, among other things, that the Greensboro Police Department bore much of the blame for failing to stop the murders.
Ilona McGriff, Bennett’s Director of External Relations noted that the panel’s report and a DVD about the massacre and the panel’s deliberations can be disseminated through the college’s book store and web site, www.bennett.edu.
C. Virginia Fields, CEO and President of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (NBLCA), led a workshop on HIV and AIDS, Fields noted that she once marched with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and even spent time in jail for her civil rights activism. While economic and social disparities remain, she said, “Today’s civil rights are about health care disparities.”
Fields laid out the framework for a partnership it is establishing with Bennett College for the implementation of culturally competent, age-appropriate, peer led prevention education for students. The first phase of the partnership will be a campus/community needs assessment, gathering input through student surveys, interviews and student rap sessions, Fields said. The effort also aims to educate, equip and mobilize students.
At a Community Activism Forum sponsored by Bennett College for Women, speakers noted that the need for activism today remains strong despite economic and political gains, including the election of a Black president. Disparities and injustice continue to be a part of society, and today’s students should awake each day and ask how they can make the world a better place, speakers said at the forum.
The event, held at the Sheraton Four Seasons in Greensboro, had the theme “From History to Healing.” It commemorated the 30th anniversary of the “Greensboro Massacre,” the 1979 incident in which members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party fired on a protest march, killing five. The forum was dedicated to Bennett alumna Sandra Neely Smith, a former Student Government Association President who was one of five killed in the massacre.
Bennett President Julianne Malveaux explained that she wanted to honor Smith even before taking the college’s top job.
“As I looked through history, I couldn’t find on occasion where she had been lifted up,” Dr. Malveaux explained. “We have not had the opportunity to fully celebrate her. We in Greensboro – women, black women – have to lift her up, and as we lift her up we find the inspiration for our own activism.”
The keynote speaker at the forum luncheon, poet, author and activist Sonia Sanchez, also lauded Smith, saying she embodied the spirit of caring about others that young and old must continue to nourish. Speaking in her characteristic style – a mixture of soaring oration, poetic meter and singsong lilt – Sanchez had the audience rapt.
“The most important question we must ask ourselves in the 21st Century is, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ We have to have the courage to challenge the forces that cause terror and foster genocide…When they ask, ‘What did you do about people’s suffering?’ we will say we turned toward the forces of darkness and we resisted, we resisted. …I’m talking about learning what this sojourn on earth really means.”
The aim of the forum was to develop ways in which Bennett students could continue to be activists in ways that are relevant today. One group of suggestions centered on wider dissemination of the report on the 1979 massacre by the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project. That 2006 report found, among other things, that the Greensboro Police Department bore much of the blame for failing to stop the murders.
Ilona McGriff, Bennett’s Director of External Relations noted that the panel’s report and a DVD about the massacre and the panel’s deliberations can be disseminated through the college’s book store and web site, www.bennett.edu.
C. Virginia Fields, CEO and President of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (NBLCA), led a workshop on HIV and AIDS, Fields noted that she once marched with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and even spent time in jail for her civil rights activism. While economic and social disparities remain, she said, “Today’s civil rights are about health care disparities.”
Fields laid out the framework for a partnership it is establishing with Bennett College for the implementation of culturally competent, age-appropriate, peer led prevention education for students. The first phase of the partnership will be a campus/community needs assessment, gathering input through student surveys, interviews and student rap sessions, Fields said. The effort also aims to educate, equip and mobilize students.
