I have a dream
that one day
this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of its creed.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal.
Martin Luther King Jr was born on
January 15th, 1929, and graduated
as the valedictorian of Crosier Theological Seminary in 1951.
King became pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery,
Alabama, and later completed his Ph.D..
Martin Luther King was a religious man.
He was a pastor and looked at racism
and all of the
the so-called separate
but equal laws and the terrible treatment of people of color
in the United States.
And he said this is absolutely wrong.
This is against God's will.
This is not recognizing the dignity of peoples.
And he made us all face that in very powerful ways.
On the
eve of Rosa Parks refusal to move to the back of a city
bus in 1955, King was chosen to lead a citywide bus boycott.
Two years later, King and a group of civil rights activists
formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
to conduct nonviolent protests for civil rights.
When Martin Luther King led the Alabama boycott,
that was a major turning point in the fight for civil rights.
What you saw was people who had been fractionalized
coming together as one, walking together
with others, joining the fight.
This was when people, America, the world stood up and said,
whoa, what are we looking at here?
An amazing time.
Inspired by Gandhi's activism, King worked with the SCLC
to organize black voters and civil rights protests.
In 1963, King was arrested at a march in Alabama.
During his prison time, King
wrote a rebuttal to an article denouncing his methods.
His longhand notes on the margins of the newspaper
became known as Letter from Birmingham Jail
and was famously republished
and studied in colleges across the country.
Martin Luther King was a man of God who believed that
that calling necessitated social change in the present,
and he put his life on the line for that calling.
Free at last. Free at last.
Thank God of murder, we are free.
On August 28th, 1963,
King led more than 20,000 people in a massive demonstration
at the Lincoln Memorial,
where his speech, I Have a Dream, became
a defining moment in civil rights history.
Through his work,
King helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and received the Nobel Peace Prize that same year.
Martin Luther King, according to TIME in 1963,
personified the civil rights movement.
He took on one of the greatest challenges of his time
and was one of the people that most influence
this very transformative time in American history.
Although King faced criticism from more militant black
leaders,
he continued his peaceful efforts
toward both racial and economic justice.
After delivering his I've Been to the Mountaintop
speech at a rally in Memphis.
King was assassinated the next day on April 4th, 1968,
while standing at the balcony of his motel room.
King's assassination was,
I think, devastating for many people, but
there is also a rising level of organization and many people.
King's assassination galvanizes them into
many kind of black power
movements across the country, many anti-poverty movements.
So it's both that moment of despair,
but also a moment of political flowering posthumously.
King was awarded
the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977
and a Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.
Today, the Martin Luther King Jr.
National holiday continues
to be honored on the third monday of every January.
Good morning or afternoon to others.
I am carolyn max being the deputy director
of the Office of Diversity
and equal Opportunity here at Marshall Space Flight Center.
Welcome to all the attendance of this team restaurant,
MLK Day observance event.
And you are in for a treat.
And we are happy to host this event
in-person and virtual as well.
Team wrestling seeks to enhance opportunities
and inclusiveness to promote a cohesion
in a collective collaborative working environment.
Moving for equality to equality
for all cultures and ethnicities at all cultures.
Here at center at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Workforce.
We have this great program line up, but first,
I would like to address a few housekeeping things.
For those on line, please keep your cameras off
and your microphones mute it to ensure
everyone has the best connection and listening experience.
If you need close, capturing
it is accessible to you by clicking on the three dots
at the top right of teams selecting language and speech
and then you can select turn on live captions.
I am looking forward to this panel discussion today
as they share their experiences,
their knowledge and perspective as it relates to the legacy
of Dr. Martin Luther King.
This is a holiday for a day for all of us
to honor his legacy and allow us to live out his reign
through education and a day of service.
Martin Luther King was the chief spokesperson for this
nonviolence, and he's also was very instrumental in the passage
of the Civil Rights Act and also the voting Rights Act.
So let's start our program.
Please stand for the singing of the national Anthem by Ms..
Andrea Brown.
say, can
you see
by the dawn's early
light what so proudly
we have held at the twilight's
last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright
white stars through the pit.
Let's fight war.
The ramparts we watched
were so gallant Lee streaming
and the raucous swagger.
Then the bombs bursting in air
gave proof through the night
that our flag was still there.
Whoa.
Say, does their star spangled
banner yet
wave war?
The land of the free
and the home of the
brave?
Dave, thank you.
You may be seated.
Thank you, Miss Andrea, for
gracing us with your beautiful voice today.
So I would like to now introduce to you Mr.
Larry Leppert,
Mr. Larry Associate
Director, technical at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
He has been with Nasser for more than three decades
and currently advises the Senate through his work conducting
special studies, assistant and policy review management,
reporting on center wide and directorate metrics
and developing benchmark and strategies.
Larry is a graduate of the University of Alabama
in Huntsville
and lives with his family in his hometown of Athens.
Please help me and welcome Larry to the stage.
Good morning and thank you, Carolyn.
And thank you, Andrea Brown.
I don't know that I have heard it done any better.
Can I get another round of applause?
That was amazing.
Really amazing.
Hey, and welcome to everybody here in the audience
today in the building.
I know we've got several folks on line.
I just want to personally welcome you
to this year's Martin Luther King Day observance event here
on the Redstone Arsenal with our team Redstone Partners.
It's good to be here today and thanks for the invite.
This year's theme is it starts with me
shifting the cultural climate through the study
and practice of killing non violence.
And isn't that true
that it starts with me really
think about that Really.
Anything that we do starts with us.
So I'd like for us all to really think about that as we
as we memorialize Dr.
King and what he stood for.
It is important for us to observe Dr.
King's birthday by recognizing the groundbreaking
civil rights actions he took to end segregation.
Carolyn's mentioned that,
of course, enabling people of color to vote
and further legislation to
create equality among American citizens.
And he accomplished all of this with a humble
and gentle, yet fierce
and uncompromising spirit.
I love that to
today's speakers embody Dr.
King's call to action.
They are esteemed leaders in our community,
and I know we all have something
to learn from their experiences
that they will share with us this morning.
As you will hear today, it is important to not only
learn about Dr.
King on this day,
but to honor his work with the day of service.
On Monday, we're going to have two service opportunities.
First, in the morning of service for those participating
in the deferred home maintenance repair program.
And second is a day of service at the downtown Rescue mission.
Let us all help
those in our community that need it the most.
Later in the program, you're actually going
to hear more information about actually how to sign up
and to participate in these two events.
Dr. King knew that a successful
education lays the foundation of a great society,
and that is the work all of us here
at Team Redstone strive to accomplish every day
while trying to
accomplish the missions our teams have been given.
At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Our mission is to drive advances in science, technology,
aeronautics and space exploration to enhance
the knowledge, the education, the innovation,
the economic vitality and the stewardship of Earth.
We are proud of the STEM outreach that we do
in our state and city and that we will
actually accomplish throughout this coming year.
Events such as the Alabama Space Days at the Capitol
and the local events, which I hope all of y'all have
participated in.
And if not, I hope you will.
The student launch Initiative that will be later this spring
and the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, both of those events
here in our community.
And of course, we do a lot, as I know,
most all of our Redstone team members do a lot
of speaking engagements at local schools.
Marshall's also dedicated to outreach at minority
serving institutions and to educate students
regarding internships and job opportunities at our center.
And I've never been prouder of the work that Tor
Carolyn and her team have been
collaborating and partnering with our mission execution team
to to reach out to these teams to to do the work
that we want to do and be a leader in
in diversifying our workforce.
Last year we actually hosted the ninth annual
HBCU and Minority Serving Institution
Partnerships meeting here at Redstone
Nyasa in Marshall or looking for the best
and the brightest to join our team
and to help us deliver on our mission.
One way we find is that is through true connections
made with HBCU and minority serving institutions
at those events.
These outreach efforts support Marshall's dedication
to cultivating and supporting a diverse
and innovative workforce with the commitment to unity,
diversity and inclusion.
We continuously work with our Office of Diversity
and Equal Opportunity following their lead
on improving diversity
and civil rights policies, programs and services,
and enabling the universe of available talent
to contribute inclusively and equitably
at NASA and at Marshall.
We know that a diverse and inclusive team contributes
in ways that are impossible to measure.
Everyone brings a unique perspective and experience
to our workforce, and we know that makes us stronger.
Marshall's future workforce
will be diverse in every sense,
and reaching out to the next generation
to ensure they have access
to education and job opportunities will get us there.
I would like to thank ODA Odo,
the Army and the FBI, who have partnered
with us for this event, for thoughtfully
planning this program and others
like it and creating safe places to connect and learn.
We are proud of Team Redstone.
Before I head off the stage,
I would like to highlight a quote from Dr.
King that I personally believe epitomizes his efforts.
And I would say the efforts that we're trying to achieve
at NASA.
Injustice anywhere is a threat
to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality, tied
in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly
affects all indirectly.
When we say that again, whatever affects
one directly affects all indirectly.
He wrote this letter while sitting in a jail
cell in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.
I think this quote does encompass
the overall mission of NASA's what we're trying to do together
to move all humanity forward together.
And now it's my pleasure to introduce our next speaker,
Kenny Anderson.
Kenny is a graduate it of our two
of our great local universities, Oakwood and Alabama, N.M..
He is currently the city of Huntsville's director
of the Office of Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion directly there in the mayor's office
and a powerful voice in our community.
Previously, Kenny spent six years at Calhoun Community
College, most recently
as the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Among his main many community activities, Kenny
serves on several boards and has membership
in a number of community based service organizations.
We are honored to have him here today with us.
Welcome, Kenny.
Come talk to us. Thank you.
Thank you, Larry.
And good morning to everyone.
Let's try to one more time.
Thank you, Larry.
And good morning to everyone. Morning.
All right.
Much better
in 2023.
We commemorated the 60th anniversary
of the March on Washington that featured Dr.
King's I Have a Dream speech.
One of his most important speeches and arguably
one of the most memorable.
An estimated crowd of 250,000
or more people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial that day
to highlight discrimination in employment,
social injustice,
the disenfranchisement of marginalized groups,
including women,
and to call for the
passage of the Civil Rights Act that would not be passed
until 1964 under the Johnson administration.
Since 1955 and the Montgomery Bus boycott, Dr.
King had been a central figure in the civil rights movement
and a premier catalyst for change through nonviolent
resistance to the established systems of oppression
embedded in the fabric of American society.
A nation established on the premise
that all men and women are created equally
had not fulfilled its promise to all.
In Dr.
King's message on that day
referenced the fierce urgency of now,
suggesting that the riches of freedom
and the security of justice must be granted to all people
with all deliberate speed
in 2024, as he once again looked to celebrate the life
and legacy of Dr. King.
We also acknowledge that we're facing
some of the same challenges that he addressed
over 60 years ago.
The majority of those
living in poverty are women.
Women face discrimination in the workplace
and are neither paid nor promoted.
But the same cadence of their male counterparts,
despite being a highly qualified,
highly educated and highly competent
women, also faced
relentless, relentless incidents of intimate partner
violence, sexual assault and discrimination in our society.
Disparities in health care,
education, criminal justice and more persist
and continue to hamper the ability of all Americans
to achieve parity in basic quality of life
and human rights issues.
The systemic and legalized practices of housing
discrimination
that persisted for decades, beginning in the 1940 and denied
many black, brown and poor families from access
to the ultimate American dream of home ownership have created
a wealth gap that finds the median American family
with 12 times the wealth
of their black counterparts.
The barrage of legislation targeting anti
discrimination efforts
and the assault on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives
suggests that the process of overcoming
is a continual process and must be undeterred
by those who are either nostalgic about the past
or complacent or indifferent about the present.
What the theme of the 2024 King Holiday.
It starts with me.
Each of us
has the unique opportunity to honor the life and legacy of Dr.
King by being king,
particularly his emphasis on nonviolence
in a world consumed with violence,
with global conflicts,
mass shootings, hate crimes, and more.
Dr. King would have us seize this moment
as an opportunity to reverse the carnage in favor
of a safer and more just society.
Violence is not merely the physical act
of inflicting harm on another,
but it is also manifested in the emotional damage
that is done through acts like bullying,
gossiping and judging others.
Nonviolence fueled the success of the civil rights movement,
and it is as valid today in nurturing positive
human relationships as it was in 1963.
When we commit ourselves to embracing our common
humanity with this complex blend of strengths and flaws,
we position ourselves to experience a higher level
of the human potential, and thereby honoring Dr.
King, who dedicated and ultimately sacrificed his life.
Each of us can and should do our best
to be king.
Be king by choosing peace over war,
be king by choosing compassion over criticism,
be king by choosing education over ignorance,
be king by choosing critical thinking of a group.
Think be king by choosing activism over passiveness,
be king by choosing voting over apathy, be king
by choosing to be other focus rather than self-focused.
Be king by choosing collaboration over the vision.
Be king.
By choosing faith over fear.
Be king by choosing love.
Over hate.
Just be king.
Thank you.
Wow. my goodness.
I can tell you this.
You can always count on Kenny Anderson to bring it anytime
he speaks at an event like this.
And he raised the bar even higher today.
So what I want to ask you and I will just say Team
Redstone and all of our NASA colleagues out there at
the center you happen to be in today is
you need to really think about
what are you going to do today, tomorrow
or the next coming weeks and months and year to be king.
It's your choice.
And Kenny laid out a lot of different options.
And you can pick one or pick
all or pick a group of them, but do something to be king.
We are
we are very fortunate here at Team Redstone.
I'm very blessed to have you in our community.
My good morning.
My name is Bill Marks.
Work here at Marshall Space Flight Center and the Office
of Center Up Operations.
And it is a great day to be at Redstone Arsenal,
arguably the best installation on the planet.
And it is a great day to be a nice employee
at here at Marshall Space Flight Center.
We were also very blessed to have
as our next guest and panel members,
members of our very own community members
who could arguably be in any community around the world
and is probably heavily recruited to be in any community
around the world with what they bring to the table.
And for some reason they chosen to be here in our community
and we are incredibly grateful for that.
So I'm going to introduce them,
tell you a little bit about them.
And then at each one, I'm going to let them tell you
a little bit about themselves or or whatever they
they to the message they want to bring.
And then we're going to have a discussion.
And I'm very excited about that and want to get this started
as soon as we can.
So first, I'd like to introduce Miss Jacklyn Shea.
She is the chief executive officer of Global Tours Alabama,
which is a nonprofit organization that promotes
global peace and understanding through citizen diplomacy.
She is also the president and CEO of a company called Soaring,
which is a global leadership and development consulting firm.
She's very well known speaker on ethics and values, leadership,
global diversity, women education and youth issues.
She has been cited by major media publications,
including Ebony magazine, as one of America's 100
most influential blacks, as well as Good
Housekeeping magazine as one of the young women of Promise.
She's been inducted into the 2004 Hot Women's
Hall of Fame at the Laverne Museum
of the New South
in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the 2021 Global Times
Network Decade of Impact Leadership Award Winner.
Decade of Impact Leadership Award Winner
and the 2023 Women Woman of the Year.
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.
The Alpha Zeta Chapter of the Phenomenal Alpha Zeta Chapter,
which is located here in Madison and a whole lot more.
Team Redstone.
I would like to introduce to you Miss Jacqueline
Sharp.
Thank you for that introduction.
And this event has definite
only made me sit back and reminisce.
I happen to be the oldest of this panel
and I'm proud.
But as I thought about Dr.
King and the impact that he has had on my life,
it made me remember that
even from my college days,
I chose to go to the University of Illinois
in Champaign-Urbana.
I'm from New York, by the way, and had been accepted
at a local university in New York.
But in 1968, shortly after Dr.
King's passing
University of
Illinois that had 35,000 students.
Less than a thousand were people of color.
And they started Project 500
to admit 500
African-Americans in his memory.
And I was blessed to have that experience.
Fast forward to 34 years ago.
I was working for nine x New York,
New England Telephone Company, and I'd been a human
resources leader in the in the organization.
We had started employee resource groups way back
and we had our Martin Luther King celebration.
And I sat in the audience and someone came to me
and said, Here's a message.
And it was from our CEO who said, I need to see you
right now.
And I'm like, my gosh, what have I said?
What have I done?
It was like listening to a call from my mother.
I had to
drive a half hour from Manhattan to White Plains,
where his office was, and I entered into his office.
I was so nervous and I said, Mr.
Seidenberg.
Am I okay?
And he said, Relax.
He said, I want you to know that we have decided
to promote you to Vice President of Ethics.
And I looked at him.
I was a human resources professional.
How did I get to ethics?
But I've always stood for values
and choosing right over wrong.
And he said, we need your leadership.
As you know, we have an ethics officer.
He is about to retire.
And we want to place you in that role
so that you can shadow him for 60 days
and then become our official ethics officer.
I can't tell you
how honored I was and how it began.
A new journey for me
combining ethics and diversity.
I ended up being the ethics officer for the World Bank,
for Duke Energy, and for what is now Verizon.
So that was my corporate experience.
And then fast forward, Oakwood University
identified me to come
and become a vice president of advancement.
That was an honor for me
not having been with an HBCU.
But when I ran the
Verizon call center up in New York,
we had about 200 employees in the very early days.
And when it was time for employee evaluations,
the supervisors would gather in my office
so that we could talk about the ratings.
And the highest rated employee.
These were graduates of Oakwood University.
That was my first knowledge of the university.
And so when I was asked to come to Oakwood
in Huntsville, Alabama, all the way from Brooklyn,
New York, I was like, I was honored.
But then fast forward to 2022.
I've been serving as the director and CEO of Global
Ties Alabama, organized Nation that started in 1965
here in Huntsville because we had military trainees
at Redstone,
and our founder, who was a Rotarian,
went to the mayor and Madison County commissioner and said,
No one talks to these international trainees
outside of class or on the weekends.
What are we going to do as a city and county
to be more welcoming to people from other countries?
And that's how the International Services Council of Alabama
was started in 1965 and now is global ties Alabama.
And in 2022 we accepted our first
and resettled old two families from Afghanistan.
Both of the families, one large 17 members, husband and wife
and 15 children, and the other was eight.
Both of the husbands had protected in Afghan a stand.
Our military troops.
They were described as heroes
and the sponsor for them wanted
to locate them in Huntsville.
And so we resettled those two families.
We did a lot of pre-work
working with the faith community, other nonprofits.
Some of you probably contributed to the support
for resettling them without knowing them.
Jackie was so anxious to know who they were because
all I saw was their names and profiles on paper.
But Jackie wanted to see them.
So my Martin Luther King service activity.
In January of 2022,
I made dinner for the large family
and I got to take it to their home and to meet them,
to hug them, to know that these were real people.
And as our first speaker said, Dr.
King said, whatever impacts others
locally also impacts globally.
And we were able to host that family.
And both families are now contributors to our community.
I like to remind some of our elected officials, they work,
they pay taxes, they're not citizens yet
it's a five year path.
But now global ties.
Alabama as of this month is the official refugee
resettle ment Agency for northern Alabama.
We've been doing refugee resettlement in the state
of Alabama for 30 years, but it was always done in Mobile.
Now it will be done here
in Huntsville, Alabama,
already starting off amazingly so.
Thank you very much and welcome.
Looking forward to the discussion in just a little bit.
So we also have with us Dr.
Daryl Hazel with us today.
And Tony.
Toni, Dr.
is Ezell became the inaugural director
for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Hudson Alpha
Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama.
As a social scientist and educator,
he previously served as vice president for academic affairs
of Claremont Lincoln University in Claremont, California.
A native of Alabama, he's earned his Ph.D.
in England from the University of Birmingham.
He completed additional studies at Union Theological Seminary,
Columbia University and Alabama A&M University.
An expert in global diplomacy and intercultural relations.
Dr. Israel began his career as an intern at the Walt
Disney Company, leading his team or leading leading to his time
at the US Department of State Bureau of International
Organizational Affairs, and William J.
Clinton Foundation Clinton School of Public Service.
He later served on the faculty at Louisiana State and Tulane
University,
teaching political science and international studies.
In 2017, Dr.
Ezell was inducted into the Morehouse College.
Martin Luther King Collegium of scholars and served
as a United Nations global expert in conflict resolution.
His commitment to global peace and social justice efforts
received official recognition by the Vatican
from Cardinal John Louis Tyrone.
He is an Eagle Scout,
a member of the Schmidt Futures Task Force on Synergy,
Synthetic Biology and and the Bio Economy
Innovate Alabama's Council on Outdoor Recreation
and Leadership, Greater Huntsville Flagship class of 36.
I'm sure it's the greatest, best class ever.
And my boss is
also in that class of Dr.
Ezell is also the founder and principal of Heritage Solutions,
a management consulting firm
delivering services to support industry clients,
accelerate cross-functional relations
through strategy and increased organizational performance.
Team Redstone Nasser Please welcome Dr.
Hazel.
Thank you.
It is a pleasure
to be back at Redstone or my day with IL 36.
We said affectionately behind the gate.
So we had a busload of us that that came to to visit.
When we talk about Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
For me, I have to reflect on two people
that introduce me to the legacy of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. My late father, Dr.
Isaiah Ezell, who was a professor
in Alabama A&M University,
who also was a civil rights activist,
and my mother, who's here today, Mattie Ezell,
an educator, a former teacher at Grissom High School.
And I think back to her story
and the fact that in 1967, along with roughly
about five or six other teachers, they integrated
Butler Elementary in Butler, Alabama, Choctaw County.
And when we say they integrated, means that
the superintendent contacted her to say that you're going to
be moved to another school.
She said, Why?
Then she thought about it.
Maybe I should ask that question.
Why? She said, Why in her head, she said that she had to go
and she partnered with these other women
and she told me stories about walking the line,
the line each morning
where she would be spat,
she would be called the N-word.
Their food would be tampered with from the lunch room.
And she said that she had to do it
because if she didn't do it,
who would do it?
Hearing the stories from my mom,
hearing the stories from my father,
and also hearing the stories from community
leaders, having grown up here
in Huntsville, Alabama, and moved away for 16 years
and deciding to return to my hometown to do something good.
My story is interesting.
Did I participate
in the civil rights movement from 1954 to 1968?
No, I didn't.
But because of those two folk,
I was inspired
when September 11, 19, excuse me, 2001, took place
to ask serious questions
about the why associated with the attack
and how I, as a senior at Alabama and a university,
could translate my degree in psychology into something
that would make sense, that later being conflict resolution,
I decided to leave Huntsville, Alabama,
to move to post-conflict New York City.
And while I was there attending seminary and school
at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary,
I received a job from the Interfaith Center of New York
as an intern in the first task was to partner
with a colleague of mine who was Jewish.
And we were going to go to Brooklyn to meet with a muslim
imam to sit down and talk about how to resolve conflict,
but to do it in a unique way by talking through art,
talking about ways
that we can present new workshops within community.
And from there we partnered with Christian ministers
and the list goes on and on from that amazing experience,
which led me to the Interfaith Center
of New York's next destination was Interfaith Worker Justice.
In working on ground in rural Mississippi
as a seminary intern.
After I had graduated, along with David Hindley,
who was a brother of the Catholic Church,
to advocate on behalf of Latino immigrants, some document
documented, others undocumented.
But when we got there and we started to do the work,
we realized that it was less about individuals
working in poultry factories whose fingers were cut off.
And we realized we were dealing with human rights concerns.
And as a result, partnering with the AFL-CIO,
along with other religious leadership
pockets in Mississippi, to resolve those issues.
And I realize the work that
I'm doing is not my work, but it's out of the legacy of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr and so many others
who've given their lives.
And it was the year of 2004,
which was the reunion of the 1964 Freedom Summer.
So a lot of those luminaries were coming back, black,
white, Asian individuals
who spent the entire summer in Mississippi.
It taught me something that while I'm doing grassroots work,
some of the real work is taking place at the negotiation table.
And as a result, I said, I need to go to England.
And by doing so, I took the Ph.D.
in religion in international affairs
at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England,
deciding to take two fellowships as well.
During that time, I didn't really
want to take those fellowships.
I didn't want to come back to the States
and have to go to Washington and what have you.
But guess what? It changed my life.
Working at the State Department, sitting in those rooms,
answering serious questions about cultural affairs and
that work leading to
and I
sitting on a team that supported the first U.N.
peace mission in Darfur.
Outstanding experience.
But I knew that it wasn't over in the classroom, called me
to LSU and also David Lincoln, who is the former
chair of Lincoln electorate, having read my dissertation,
requested that I come to California
for a case interview
because he and his wife were thinking about
starting a new university with a $50 million gift,
an online graduate university that would support
advancing diversity, equity and inclusion through education
in what I thought would be
a couple of days turned into two weeks
and from two weeks
turned into roughly about five and a half years.
But I knew it wasn't over.
It wasn't over because, as a famous
coach would always say, Have you talked to your mama today?
And some folks in the room know about that quote
and that quote means you've got to check on home.
And when I came back to Huntsville,
Alabama, the greatest opportunity
opened up to work at Hudson Alpha, to work with a number
of brilliant minds to think about how to diversify
not only STEM, but biotechnology in the bio sciences.
And that's the work that we've been working on
over the last three and a half years, give or take
the partnerships with the state of Alabama,
the partnerships with minority serving institutions, Alabama
in the University of Drake, Oakwood
University, just locally, but throughout the state,
also partnering with the National Science
Foundation to increase diversity based grant funding
so that we can open up the door to bring in more students.
This is the work of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Be king.
You be king in a sense, by stepping out front
and doing courageous things, even when it is not popular.
Wow. Well, wait, there's more.
Also on the panel this morning, we have Dr.
Brian Samuel.
Dr. Samuel is the vice president
for diversity, equity and inclusion
at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
I will let him provide
a little bit more background on his experience over a 30 year
tenure in higher education.
However, he is also very well known.
He is also very well known for initiating programs
that not only make a difference in the students and employees
individual lives,
but also has fundamentally improved institutional dynamics
and the climate
of the organization he is in or he has touched. Dr.
Samuel has received numerous campus state
and national awards and accolades, including
but not limited to the 2011 Southeastern Association
of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel.
Trio Achiever Award, the 2005
University of Nebraska Board of Regents Kudos Award,
the 2003 University of Nebraska Equity
and Opportunity Fellowship Award, and most notably
the 2000 Noel Levitt's Retention Excellence Award.
Team Redstone.
Please welcome Dr. Brian Samuel.
Dr. Samuel
Thank you.
I first want to
say thank you for having me, and I am in
all of my colleagues here as I sit and listen to their
I feel like I did a thing.
You know, I just been hanging on, you know, you know,
you all are just dynamite and I'm
forever grateful to share the stage with you.
When I got the call about being here today
and the message of it starts with me and the theme
and the importance and urgency of doing more to get
students from underrepresented communities and marginalized
populations into STEM fields, into space exploration and work.
And for places like Nassar, I just could not resist it.
And when I tell you I could not resist it,
you know, today is our MLK program, right?
And so I got a lot of things I could be doing,
but I couldn't miss this opportunity
because the message or the theme it starts
with may resonate it so much.
And I'll tell you just a little bit about me as
our moderator was saying,
I've been in higher education for 30 years.
And the most important part of that story
is that I almost didn't get to go to college, right?
I made a 12 on the act in every institution
in the country that I apply it to said, No, thank you.
We're doing you a favor because you're never going to graduate.
They were doing me a favor, you know,
And so I wrote this letter of appeal and I said, Well, hey,
how you doing me a favor by not allowing me to come,
you know, shouldn't
I have the opportunity to at least fail, you know?
And so I made a promise that if they let me in,
I'm going to graduate,
I'm going to do good things and be an impeccable
representative of the institution.
And all the rest, as they say, is
history is not as easy as saying the race is history,
but the rest, as they say, is indeed history.
And so for the 30 years I have been meaningfully engaged
in efforts exclusively in the space of attracting,
working with re
recruiting, retaining
and graduating what I call the least of the students at risk
right from Title one school's marginalized inner
city schools and places where we don't do a lot of investing.
You know, Dr.
King said that the purpose of true education
was to make sure that people could solve problems.
They could think critically,
they could, you know, live well and provide for themselves
and their families.
And, they could do all of that with good morals.
Well, if they can't get into college, right,
if they don't have ample opportunity
for access and to do better right.
To better themselves and better their families,
then then how can we as a society grow?
How can they grow?
How can they really take care
of their families and things of that nature?
So the message and the theme just resonated with me so much.
I've been at a number of institutions
from the University of Nebraska, the University of Texas,
Connecticut, spent some time in Tennessee.
I'm born and raised in Tennessee,
and in all of these places, I have been very successful
working with community organizations.
Tennessee Valley Authority, you know,
the electric power boards and city governors
in different places to say, listen, these students out here
have a story.
You know, they have meaning.
They have value.
If they get the opportunity, they can and will be successful.
About 78 to 85% of all those students
have graduated and gone on to be doctors, lawyers,
politicians, teachers, educators, clergy.
Right.
And doing very, very well in their lives
with not only themselves but their families.
And in many cases, they have got to this place to where
because they
were able to get in there, a sister or their brother
or their cousin or somebody who came behind
them was was able to see was somebody in
the family has gone on and done well, I can do too.
Right.
So I think all of that goes back
to my knowledge and my understanding of Dr.
King's relevance and reverence for education
in the purpose of education and how is to the betterment of
all society
that we do all that we can to get students into schools
and make sure that they have great opportunities.
All right.
Thanks so much for being here.
Let's get to the discussion.
I got sort of the hook
we we have I had five questions.
I think we're only going to get to three.
But you've already provided
and answered one with your remarks today.
So the annual Dr.
King holiday observance
is a time that we celebrate, commemorate and honor
the life, legacy and impact of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Global citizens will have a unique opportunities
to learn and unite in celebration of Dr.
King's groundbreaking work and Miss Coretta Scott King's
powerful continuation and formal institutionalization
of that work through a variety of engaging events by the King
Center leading up to the King holiday on January 15th, 2024.
Given this year's MLK Martin Luther King holiday theme,
it starts with me shifting the cultural comment
through the study and practice of the King in nonviolence.
How does this theme resonate with you?
And I will start with Miss Shape.
I love the
opportunity to serve on
Martin Luther King's birthday
and to do it in a way that has a global impact.
Obviously, because of the work that I do,
we will be hosting a delegation
from Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan,
and it will be for social entrepreneurs
that we've customized their
study program while they're here in Alabama,
and they will be attending with me
the traditional Martin Luther King
birthday breakfast on Monday.
This will be an exhibit,
and it's just an outstanding opportunity
for them to experience the Huntsville community
to see how we commemorate his
birthday.
And one of the things that we try to do with our delegations
and by the way, we host international delegates
is throughout the state of Alabama and Tennessee.
And we have a mini theme of Meet the New South.
It means that we recognize
the ills of yesterday,
but what is the progress that we've made
and the fact that many of our international visitors
will tell us, thank you for sharing
because these things are happening in our countries.
And so they learn techniques
and we learn from them, by the way,
because there are things that need continued repair
in our communities.
And many of them have been able to address the issues,
right some of the wrongs, and we learn from one another.
Well, thank you very much.
I'd like to move on to another question,
unless you've got some more to add to that.
Dr. Hazel,
have you seen a shift over the years in the civil
rights movement within a diverse populations?
I would say yes.
So usually
when we talk
about the civil rights movement, 1954 to 68, but subsequent
movements, human rights movements
that we see today, I would say yes.
Number one, technology.
Technology has created a new space
where one could literally be on the other side of the world
and have a better understanding of the condition
and the problems that folks are going to going through,
let's say, in Alabama or in New York or St Louis
or whatever the case might be.
In 1963, Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr really wanted to
use the power television in Birmingham, Alabama,
to display what Eugene Bull Connor
was doing to not only children who were part
of the children's movement.
If you go back and remember, but also just the citizens
throughout the state of Alabama,
African-Americans in particular, who really just wanted
their shot at social rights,
we see the same thing, for example,
with regards to the Arab Spring and how technology
through Facebook
was a leading force to not only inform us
in the United States or, let's say, intelligence outfits,
but also persons who were in other countries throughout
the Arab and Muslim world.
So we see that technology is playing its part
in another shift that I'm seeing is the rise in allyship.
So, you know, with black, indigenous
and people of color in movements
that are taking place throughout this country,
we're seeing persons who are white and Caucasian,
who are actually standing up and standing in the gap
in a number of these spaces across the country,
especially with regards to movements.
For example, like Black Lives Matter.
If you go back and you look at some of the
the shots on YouTube,
you have a lot of, you know, middle class
suburban folk
who are in these spaces who are saying, you know what,
what we saw on television or what we saw through social media
that happened to X, Y, and Z is wrong.
So we see this new allyship of standing in the gap.
But nothing different than 1964 when we saw young seminarians
coming from
Massachusetts and Connecticut down to Mississippi and Alabama.
We still see this continuation.
But at the same time,
we see the growth in this continuation
due to technology, in the advancement of technology.
Awesome. And thank you very much.
And Dr. Samuel, this one's for you.
All right.
So you've touched on it a little bit,
but we've been on this journey for quite a while.
And you there's been some some highs and some lows.
We've experienced some recently for sure.
But where do you see injustice now
and what are your thoughts on mitigating meaning?
What can we do to be king
to help turn that around?
Wow. I mean,
there are very few places where I don't see injustice, right?
I'm just kind of keeping it 100 s the young folks. So,
you know, when I think about in economics,
in housing, for example, we just recently heard about the
scandal with the Navy
credit union into the large percentages of African-Americans
who are still being redlined and red zoned and barred
from being able to fully participate
in the American dream of owning a home.
We also see it in education, the school to prison pipeline,
as we see a difference in number of tax dollars
that are spent in Title one communities
or low socioeconomic communities and things of that nature.
We could definitely do better in those places.
You know, I mean,
we see it in criminal justice, in the law
when with stop and frisk and, you know, the
the high proclivity for stopping
and writing citations or arresting individuals
who more often than not can't afford to pay the tickets,
you know, and met Manhattan, Kansas.
There was a study that was done in Kansas,
you know, a community in Kansas City
that, you know, 80, 90% of the tickets
in the city of Kansas City were done in this one zip code.
And all of these were working poor individuals
who couldn't afford to pay out of 300 $400 ticket
and have their car totaled and end up losing their jobs.
And some of these things
that are just a part of the vicious cycle.
Right.
And, you know, it was it was really bad.
So in thinking about this,
I want to speak to the mitigating
or getting to some strategies for addressing some of these,
particularly in education.
In 1961, there was an author by the name of Dr.
John Gardner, and he wrote a book called Can We Be Equal
and Excellent to Write?
Can we can
we let individuals from these marginalized populations,
these at risk populations, particularly African-Americans,
into some of these colleges
and universities and things of that nature
and still be excellent institutions?
And what he found was, yes, we can if we want to,
and we certainly should, because when we think about,
you know, merit in achievement
in some of these kind of things, we would be wise to know that
this ideal of merit is more of a myth.
Right? Is a
is a condition where opinion molders and thought leaders,
decision makers, you know, have come up with
the things that will be meritorious.
They value these things.
And because they value these things,
they get to say that, yeah, this is worthy of a merit
and this is not worthy of merit,
but in reality,
when you think about
some of the least of these, as I like to call them,
individuals who are coming from some of these Title one schools
and impoverished backgrounds and things that are nature,
their accomplishments
are just as meritorious as some of their peers.
I recently wrote a letter of recommendation for a young man
to be admitted into my alma mater,
and they had chosen not to admit him
for some reason test score or GPA or what have you.
But they didn't know that
from the time he was a freshman in high school to the time
he walked across the stage, he had buried 14 of his peers.
14 Right.
And one guy in his classroom, another young lady
in the gym with him, you know, 14 peers over four years.
One of them was killed in the bathroom
and asked in these high school in Knoxville, Tennessee.
And that may CNN News.
If any of you watch the news much,
you certainly heard about that.
And so my statement to the university was we are asking
the wrong question
is not about his act score, his grade point average,
but wow, why aren't we focus in on the fact
that despite bearing 14 peers,
he is still standing, he is still at the door saying,
I can do this, I can come to college,
I can get a degree,
I can graduate from high school, as I've already demonstrated,
and many of his peers have dropped out.
You know,
many of his peers are doing something very, very different.
So going back to Gardner Gardner says that when we think
about these aristocracies or profession, we would be wise
to know that a military parent produces a military child,
an education parent produces an education, child,
so forth and so on.
And so in many ways is not about merit
as much as it is
those who have had access and opportunities to good resources
or parents who can teach you about civil rights or can do
and give you some of those things to make it
a little less challenging for you,
you're always going to have a bit of a leg up
and a better opportunity in some of those who
who are without those things, but still have to kind of
scratch and claw to make their way through.
So I think redefining what we value,
identifying the talents and traits like grit
and resiliency and tenacity
and how a student who comes to the forefront and demonstrate
some of those traits and characteristics
can do almost anything he or she or they choose to.
Wow. Well,
that was incredibly insightful.
And and, and enlightened.
I really appreciate
all all the time you all have spent here today.
I know I'm a better person because of it.
And I realize what I got to do to continue to be king
as I take that on.
But I would I would like to
to suggest that what I feel like I've heard in terms
of what we have to do
and where we see injustice is continue to cast
a spotlight on it, continue to call it out, continue to say
no, continue to to rise and and challenge
organizations or individuals instead of
just being stand of stand by others or
silent witnesses,
but also in the same regard,
look more at not just the traditional
standards of how we advance people and provide merit,
but look at the whole person,
try to understand their situation and setting
and then judge the person based off of that
and what they've been able to overcome to get
get to where they are and appreciate the effort
and the courage and commitment it took to get there.
So thank you very much for for that.
I would
like to and again, you know, if you're online, we are running
I mean, always in events like this
that are so rich and and content and and testimony,
we tend to run a little bit long but but for good reason.
But I want to I want to
transition over and introduce Miss Ashley Labonte.
She is a chemist of explosive unity at the FBI
as terrorists Explosive Device and Analytical Center.
Yes, sir.
we agree.
Can I make an announcement before?
Yes. Before we leave, I mentioned today is the MLK
program at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Our guest speaker is Miss Lisa McNair.
She is the sister of Denise McNair, who was slain in the
bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham.
If you have time today at 330, we love to have you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for
for giving us that opportunity and for being here.
All of you. my gosh.
This is an incredible event
that I know that's touched each and every one of us.
I would like to invite Miss Ashley LeBlanc to the stage.
Again, she's the chemist of the Explosive Unity at the FBI
as Terrorist Explosive Device and Analytical Center
here at Redstone Arsenal.
Mr. Bond,
good afternoon again.
Yes, my name is Ashley, the bank, and I work for the FBI,
and I'm an explosives chemist, which we have here
at the track Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center.
And back in 2018, I became the first black
explosives chemist for the FBI.
And I choose to use that legacy to thank you,
to make sure that it starts with me to create change
in my organization
as well as other organizations here on Redstone Arsenal.
And so with my philosophy of servant leadership,
I have chosen to help with organizing our lovely
service events for this MLK observance.
For the second year in a row.
So earlier
we talked about the two opportunities,
the two organizations
that we are going to be working with this year,
one of which is the downtown rescue mission, of which we have
already had 20 volunteers sign up for all the spots.
So I think we have one or two spots left over
for that project.
If anyone else would like to help with that one.
But the other program is the Deferred Holding Home
Maintenance Repair Program, a program
through the city of Huntsville that works with low income
and other individuals need that have received fix
it tickets from the city to repair things on their home.
And they either
do not have the funds available or the means to
make those repairs.
And this city program is able
to provide all of the equipment, all of the materials,
all of the things that help help these people that need
these things done to their homes.
So we are working on that program as well.
But the continue see with the lovely, unpredictable
Alabama weather is that it has to be over 40 degrees
for us to do the project.
So there are still multiple open positions for that project.
If you would like to sign up, please see me in the back.
If we have to cancel it and I will let everyone know
by tomorrow afternoon
if it will be canceled, depending on the weather.
Please also provide your email address
if you would like
information
on the potential rescheduling dates
or if you would just like to be on my email list,
you can contact me through the diversity
Redstone diversity at SBI dot gov or.
Just your individual ODIO office
at your organization, so please check that out.
I have fliers
if you haven't already received that through your
and I would love to have you out.
So thank you again and
sorry.
goodness.
I am here to close this out and
excuse me and introduce our last speaker, Mr.
Laura Henry, the director of the Office
of Diversity and Equal Opportunity
at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Thanks,
everyone, for participating.
Wow. This has been a great discussion.
I didn't want it to end.
I know I walked over and I'm like, I don't want to walk over.
I say, We only have 15 minutes,
but the discussion doesn't have to end today.
I know that we celebrate MLK on the 15th,
but we can do this any time.
And so that's one of my missions,
is to continue having these discussions throughout the year.
I'm going to call them courageous conversations.
So stand by for those.
I would like to thank everyone for participating today.
Larry, your words of welcoming was wonderful.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Kenny, for talk.
Telling us to be.
Thank you so much for Team Redstone,
the Army Materiel Command
and the FBI for partnering with us today.
Bill Thank you so much for moderating.
You made everything possible today.
Our speakers,
I wrote down so many notes.
I can't go through all of them, but thank you so much, Ms..
Ship. Ship
for standing for values.
Dr. Eisele, thank you so much
for your conversation on technology and allyship.
Dr. Samuels I love that you said,
can we be equal or Dr.
Gardner said and you quoted, can we be equal and excellent?
I absolutely love those.
And I appreciate each of you for being here.
We're definitely going to continue the conversation.
So everything that was shared today
absolutely will assist us in continuing our endeavors
in diversity, equity and inclusion.
So thank you everyone for being here
Thank you everyone online for participating.
I know we didn't get two questions.
Please write those questions in the chat.
We're definitely going to make sure that we get those answered.
Okay,
So now to the good part.
On behalf of Team Redstone, the FBI and the Army Materiel
Command, the Marshall Space Flight Center,
I'd like to present a certificate of appreciation
to Ms..
Jacqueline
Knight.
You're welcome.
Certificate of Appreciation reads
to Jacqueline Gates ship for your commitment and support
to the Marshall Space Flight Center.
The U.S.
Army material Command
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation combined.
Martin Luther King Observance Event Signed.
Joseph Pelphrey, Acting Director.
Thank you so much for your interest
to Dr.
Darrow.
Ezell is
to Dr.
Samuel.
Brian Samuel I know people do that. I
and of course,
last but not least, come on to Mr.
Kenny Anderson.
So much
so thank you all in attendance
and for participating in today's presentation
in your participation in our special emphasis programs
shows your commitment to our value of inclusion
and ensuring we cultivate culture of equity for everyone.
Remember, it starts with you.
Let's be king.
So we have refreshments.
So feel free to enjoy cake,
punch, fruit and vegetables.
Thank you all for being here.
I have a dream
that one day that
this nation will rise up and
live out the true meaning of its creed.
We hold these to be self-evident.
All men are created equal.
Martin Luther King Jr was born on January 15, 19
nine, and graduated as the
head of Crosier Theological Seminary.
In 1951.
King became pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery
Alabama and later completed his Ph.D..
Martin Luther King was a religious man.
He was a pastor and looked at racism
and all of the the so called separate but equal
and the terrible treatment of people of color
in the United States.
He said, this is absolutely wrong.
This is against God's will.
This is not recognizing the dignity of peoples.
And he made us all face that in very powerful ways.
On the
eve of Rosa Parks refusal to move to the back of a city
bus in 1955, King was chosen to lead a citywide bus boycott.
Two years later, King and a group of civil rights
activists formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
to conduct nonviolent protests for civil rights.
When Martin Luther King,
that was a major
turning point in the fight for civil rights.
What you saw?
Well, who had been fractionalized?
Coming together as one.
What the other with up joining the fight.
This was when people America the world stood up and said,
whoa, what are we looking at here?
An amazing time.
Inspired by Gandhi's activism, KING worked with the SCLC
to organize black voters and civil rights protests.
In 1963, King was arrested at a march in Alabama
during his prison time.
King wrote a rebuttal to an article denouncing his methods.
His longhand notes on the margins of the newspaper
became known as Letter from Birmingham Jail
and was famously republished
and studied in colleges across the country.
Martin Luther King was a man of God who believed that
that calling necessitates social change in the present,
and he put his life on the line for that calling.
Free at last. Free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free of.
On August 28th, 1963,
King led more than 20,000 people in a massive demonstration
at the Lincoln Memorial, where his speech I Have a Dream,
became a defining moment in civil rights history.
Through his work,
King helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and received the Nobel Peace Prize that same year.
Martin Luther King, according to TIME in 1963,
personified the civil rights movement.
He on one of the greatest challenges
of his time and was one of the people
that most influence
this very transformative time in American history.
Although King faced criticism from more militant black
leaders,
he continued his peaceful efforts
toward both racial and economic justice.
After delivering his I've been to the speech
at a rally in Memphis.
King was assassinated the next day on April 4th, 1968,
while standing at the balcony of his motel.
King's assassination was,
I think, devastating for many people, but
there is also a rising level of organization and many people.
King's assassination galvanizes them into
many kind of black power
movement across the country, many anti-poverty movements.
So it's both that moment of despair
but also a moment of political flowering posthumously.
King was awarded
the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977
and a congressional gold medal in 2004.
Today, the Martin Luther King Jr.
National holiday continues
to be honored on the third monday of every January.