Ethnography of the Brown v Board Jubilee Commemoration

Schools, Ethnography of the University

The Brown v. Board of Education Jubilee Commemoration is a year-long, multi-faceted, and very ambitious project that bears the distinctive stamp of Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s interest in diversity in higher education. It is not an exaggeration to say that there is hardly a unit at UIUC that has not been touched by, or taken an active hand in the Brown Commemoration. The Ethnography of the University (EOTU) is pleased to take on the Ethnography of the Brown Commemoration (EBC) knowing that the commemoration—its particular shape and life on our campus—offers a window on the university’s diverse understanding of itself at this important historical juncture. Currently there are four paid undergraduate researchers attending Brown Commemoration events, interviewing participants, and writing up field notes that will be used next summer as undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty pull together a lengthy document that assesses the commemoration’s accomplishments.

Although the Brown Commemoration has a distinct origin—namely, the recommendation of a Diversity Committee that resulted in Chancellor Cantor’s appointment of a Brown Commemoration Planning Committee—by today the commemoration is a very dispersed venture that has been realized by many units, constituencies, and individuals. For example, when the Housing Division engaged the Brown Commemoration, it naturally worked through its own chain of command, down to the resident directors, and from them to the resident assistants, and so on. There is, then, neither a single Brown Commemoration, nor a single vision enlivening the Brown Commemoration. Thus, in the day-to-day events and activities comprising the commemoration we find many and competing ideas about what it means to remember the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and what it means to commemorate it here and now. There are in turn the many consumers of the Brown Commemoration, ranging from people who attend commemoration events, to those in classes affected in some way by commemoration programming. Like the Brown Commemoration producers, these consumers bring a broad range of understanding to their encounters with the commemoration, and in turn they participate in the commemoration dialogue in particular ways. Furthermore, the Brown Commemoration takes on life beyond formal events, for example in off-stage conversations, in passions ignited by the events, and in the forging of new social connections. Clearly, the Brown Commemoration’s domain is expansive: in it are represented many and diverse visions, many and diverse consumers, and many and diverse after-lives. EBC aims to capture the life and feeling of some of this; we make no pretense to cover the commemoration exhaustively.

Ethnography of the University students Rene Bangert, Paul Davis, Nicole Ortegón, and Teresa Ramos

ca. 2005

UIUC African American Architecture Alumni Project

College, Architecture

This site seeks to list all African-American alumni from the UIUC Architecture program, as well as interview and survey as many living alumni as possible.

Leeswann Bolden

2008

Report: African-Americans under-represented on Champaign County juries

Law, Crime, Politics and Activism, Research and Data,Community Organizations--League of Women Voters, Education--Higher--University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — While finding no statistical evidence of bias in the selection of jurors, African-Americans were noticeably under-represented on juries in Champaign County.

A report of observations of state and federal courts conducted by the University of Illinois College of Law and the League of Women Voters of Champaign County found “a significant discrepancy between the demographics of Champaign County and the demographics of those citizens reporting for jury service.”

Students at the law school conducted the observations of the Sixth Circuit Court of Illinois and U.S. District Court for Central Illinois between September and December 2004.
While 11 percent of the county’s population is African-American, African-Americans constituted 6 percent of the jury pools during the observation period.

In 17 jury trials in which African-American men were defendants, four African-American men and 10 African-American women (out of 252 jurors and alternates for each jury) were seated. Nine potential African-American jurors were excused in the jury-selection process.

The report recommended that the judges consider revising jury-selection procedures to “make the jury pool more representative of the county’s population demographics.”
The report also faulted the televised arraignment proceedings used by the county courts, saying there were various cases in which defendants “could not hear proceedings and did not understand remarks addressed to them.”

The report further recommended the use of a Spanish interpreter on high-volume court appearance days, such as Mondays, to enhance “the perceived fairness of judicial proceedings in the county.”

More than 130 law students each spent 12 hours of court watching last fall, trained by the League of Women Voters.

Observations were compiled through a Web site created for data input by the project. The students also submitted paper reports, which were used to crosscheck information entered through the electronic database.

A total of 1,657 hours of court-watching data was used in the analysis performed by statistics students under the supervision of statistics professor Adam T. Martinsek.

The report represents a pilot project by the law school and the voters league to compile a large database of courtroom observations.

“In the overwhelming majority of observations, our courtrooms were perceived as places where judges and other participants observed decorum and treated one another with respect,” the report noted.

The project was organized by Joan Miller, the chair of the justice committee of the League of Women Voters of Champaign County; J. Steven Beckett, director of the trial advocacy program in the law school; and C.K. Gunsalus, adjunct professor in the law school and the president of the League of Women Voters of Champaign County.

Mark Reutter, Law Editor

News Bureau, University of Illinois

May 5, 2005

On the Job: Mike Wood, Electrician in the Facilities and Services Department

Biography, Campus--Community, Community Organizations--National Council For African-American Men, Jobs and Labor, Media--Inside Illinois

Known as “Mike the light bulb guy” to some employees on the Urbana campus, Mike Wood’s amiable manner and ready smile help illuminate the 30 buildings in his work zone as much as the work he does as a laborer-electrician. Before joining the staff of Facilities and Services Division (then known as the Operation and Maintenance Division) in 1987, Wood worked as a bank teller, a hospital orderly, a teacher’s aide/bus driver/custodian at a day-care center, an auditor/accountant with the state of Illinois and a landscaper/physical fitness instructor/movie projectionist with the Champaign Park District. A graduate of Champaign Central High School and the appliance/motor repair program of Stills Electric Co., in Decatur, Wood studied business and other subjects at Parkland College and at the UI. He has volunteered with many organizations – as a youth mentor in local schools and as a board member of the National Council of African-American Men, among others – but he has a special affinity for the Champaign Park District, where he began working as a volunteer during high school and eventually became an employee. “I found my love in the community working for the park district,” working with youth and with elderly people, said Wood, who also sits on the board of Community Blood Services of Illinois and has donated more than 20 gallons of blood.

As a laborer-electrician, what do you do?
I provide lighting in my area, Zone B, which is the heart of campus: Altgeld Hall, Swanlund, etc. We have six zones and one or two people per zone. I change fluorescent, incandescent and mercury vapor bulbs in light fixtures in classrooms, offices, hallways and other places. And I get different work orders and have to go check things out. Maybe someone hears a fixture buzzing, or it’s flickering or they notice leaking or a burning odor. I’ll check the ballast and sometimes tag it so a trouble-shooter electrician can come out and check it. We also clean and upgrade fixtures.

We start work at 7 a.m. so I can get into conference rooms or classrooms before the students or staff members get there.

What do you enjoy most?
It’s rewarding meeting people. I have to say the faculty members and staff members enjoy my services and take good care of me, giving me goodies when they have parties. We also have a great staff and a super boss.

What hobbies do you have or what do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work?
My hobby would be working with people in the community. I’ve been the union steward for more than five years now for AFSCME Local 698 in electric shop 1. I went to AFSCME’s conference in Springfield last weekend.

I recently went on a five-day cruise to Jamaica and Puerto Rico with my girlfriend on Carnival Cruise Line’s Imagination ship. We beat the hurricane; it was a little behind us, but the ship’s captain rerouted us a little because of it. Unfortunately, it was some type of holiday in Jamaica and many things were shut down, but we went sightseeing and took in all the historic sites and went snorkeling, swimming and parasailing. The people were nice, but the vendors were very aggressive and would grab me by the hand and pull me over to look at the stuff in their booths.

There was a group of about 60 of us who went together, and I got a chance to meet a lot of different people. Just the idea of being on the Caribbean was wonderful. It is just fascinating how big these ships are. The food was wonderful, especially the jerk chicken. I brought back a lot of souvenirs, shirts and stuff.

This was my second cruise. On the first cruise, I went to Cozumel, Mexico.

I have a 22-year-old son and a 23-year-old daughter, who reside in a suburb of Atlanta.

I try to stay in shape and work out at the Intramural Physical Education Building for about 90 minutes at a time. I use the treadmill, the stationary bike and then go to the pool and tread water for 20 minutes. That works out all the muscles.

Sharita Forest

Inside Illinois Vol. 25, No. 9

November 3 2005

Hyperlink

On the Job: Artice James, President of National Council of African-American Men, C-U chapter

Biography, Campus--Community, Community Organizations--National Council For African-American Men, Jobs and Labor, Media--Inside Illinois

A 22-year employee of the UI, Artice James is a subforeman in the sheet metal shop in the Operation and Maintenance Division. James also is the president of the Champaign chapter of the National Council of African-American Men. In his spare time, he enjoys fishing.

Tell me a little about what you do every day.
The type of work we do is more or less heating and ventilation. We also get into some architecture sheet metal such as gutters, downspouts and copper roofs. It’s a very rewarding trade.

We also get into special fabrications: fume hoods, range hoods for cooking and different types of wheeled janitor carts and table carts.

You said you found your work very rewarding. Why?
We are one of the few trades that builds things from scratch. We take flat sheets of metal and form it into something worthwhile. I like the variety of work that we get into. One day, we could be building a stainless steel sink. The next day we might be putting in an air-handling unit or a heating and air conditioning unit.

What are some of the more unusual things your shop has built?
I think that at one time our shop built a stainless steel enclosure for a popcorn machine at the Assembly Hall. Years ago, when they had the Prairie State Games here, our shop made an Olympic torch out of stainless steel, and it had a burner in it. I was kind of proud of that. Somebody in our shop designed it.

Tell me a little bit about your educational background.
I graduated from Champaign Central High School. I went to a real small college for two years, the University of South Dakota at Springfield. I played basketball and played football there. In that whole school, there were only maybe eight black kids, me being one. It was a little different and took some adjusting.

What is the mission of the National Council of African-American Men?
The main focus is to create a more positive image of black males.

We also have a community summit to talk about different problems and issues and try to come up with solutions. The summit has expanded to what we call now the Black Male Symposium. Parkland College is spearheading that. The symposium brings together different organizations from the community, such as NCAM, NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women and the United Way. We try to get the police chiefs involved too.

What types of issues is NCAM working on?
We are trying to come up with an action plan to address the large amount of black males in the criminal justice system and other problems plaguing the minority community. Maybe if we get different minds together we can come up with something that can make a difference.

Does NCAM do other outreach programs?
One of the things that we have done is give scholarships to boys who are being good role models.

Every summer, we have a couple of campouts for boys between the ages of 8 and 14. We’ve been averaging 27 to 30 kids; we’ve been doing it for probably seven years. One of the purposes is to try to introduce them to the outdoors: fishing, pitching tents, telling stories at the campfire.

We also try to give them a little black history or give them a male perspective, since a lot of these boys don’t have fathers around. On occasion, we have a speaker come and talk to them.

During the summer, we also build a float for the Fourth of July parade. This is for girls and boys.

At Douglass Center, we’re involved with the Easter Egg Hunt. We actually hide the eggs, help supervise the kids and support the hunt.

This year we are hoping to have a soapbox derby where we actually build cars and race them in teams. We try to introduce these kids to different things. If they’re not skilled at sports, maybe they’re skilled at designing something or working with their hands.

We mentor kids, but each guy does it in his own way. I have taken seven or eight kids to Ag Day and to basketball games. Some of the men may drop in at the schools and sit in on a class. I think if the kids see more men that are out there doing the right thing, maybe it will influence some kids not to go on the negative side.

Sharita Forres

Inside Illinois Vol. 21, No. 15

March 7 2002

Hyperlink

Carol Lews, National Council of Negro Women, Champaign-Urbana chapter, president

NCNW

Podcast of Carol Lewis speaking WDWS Penny for Your Thoughts program

2009

Salem Baptist Church

Image of Salem Baptist Church chapel

salembaptistchurchcu.org

ca. 2008

Kiwane Carrington Timeline

Policing

Documents the shooting of local African-American youth Kiwane Carrington by the Champaign Police, and the repercussions of this shooting.

Smile Politely and UC-IMC

February 8, 2010