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Your Stories
Jerry Atkin, Yvonne Powell Theodore, Martin Ryan, Carolyn Dorsey
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Jerry Atkin. Hi Ed, I taught at Kazima Secondary School in Tabora, Tanzania, from 1965 to 1967. Coming back to the US in 1967 was a shock. Things had changed a little: the war was no longer a story reported in the overseas edition of Time, and Black Power was just little different from singing We Shall Overcome. Then there was my four year old daughter, who couldn't pick herself out in a picture with her African playmates when we got back, coming into the house in Santa Monica in tears because when she started to cross the street to talk to a Black girl her own age she was told by the other kids in the neighborhood that they didn't play with Niggers, or with kids who talked to them. She wanted to know why. So with LaVerne, and later with my partner Lee, we set out to create the kind of world we wanted our children to grow up in. First in the antiwar movement and then in the labor movement, we've been on that road ever since. In 1982 Lee and I created a nonprofit to provide worker-centered services and training with an emphasis on dealing with the effects of plant closures and layoffs on workers and their families. We trained workers, especially in the auto and steel industries, to be peer support for other workers in transition. That work took us across the country and eventually to Bulgaria and Poland to help workers deal with the restructuring of their economies. Out of that work we wrote a booklet called Starting Over: A Survival Guide for Laid-Off Workers and Their Families. More than a million copies, in six languages, have found their way into the hands of working people. For the last six years we have lived on the Oregon coast, slowing down, writing, doing photography, working on immigration issues, and lately, organizing for Obama. Fifty people, from their mid-20s to their mid-70s, joined us on election night in our small rural community. None of us were prepared for how emotional the moment he was declared President would be. Yvonne Theodore. Besides spending decades trying unsuccessfully to hunt down that Clarence Hunter and giving him a huge piece of my mind for not staying in contact, I worked as an Inter-group Relations Officer in education and health for the City of Baltimore soon after my return to the U.S. after extra years at Mt. St. Mary's in Uganda and a year in Europe. Later I studied and worked at Johns Hopkins University until my early retirement in 2000 as Special Assistant to the Provost and Director of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs. Enjoyably, I worked for all of Hopkins' schools and programs around the world, wrote federal programs, investigated and resolved legal cases for the University's Office of the General Counsel's Office and resolved conflicts between virtually every imaginable human category. I received a masters in Liberal Arts from Hopkins focusing on psychology and continue in Hopkins education programs in interesting areas of law, ethics, art, etc. After retiring, I worked as a research assistant for a market research firm that specialized in medical and scientific services and equipment, and later wrote and edited a newsletter for Morgan State University's research and grants department. Currently, I contract advice and other services in education and human resources to federal and state governments. Personally and professionally, I remain dedicated to international interests. I've volunteered nonstop since the 70s, working for a radio station for blind persons where I produced a cooking and nutrition program for thirteen years. In addition, I edited a newsletter for retirees and seniors for Baltimore County and currently have a prayer group at a conveniently located nursing home just a block away from my home here in downtown Baltimore. I actually love city life here where I can walk or take the water taxi to just about everywhere. Although I've not returned to Uganda or other parts of East Africa, I've visited West Africa and have had loads of friends from the entire continent and still collect "Congolese" music. Until very recently, I've continued to party hard in the DC area. The Makerere in me still loves to hear and dance to African music. I keep in touch with some close local Ugandan friends from Makerere who now live in England. I still love to travel -- just about anywhere. My son, Pierre Theodore, who trained at Hopkins Medicine, Harvard, and L'hopital St. Petrie in Paris, enjoys a good reputation as a vascular surgeon at the University of California San Francisco. He, as well as my two grand kids, Christophe and Renee, also has the "travel bug" as they tag along with him while he presents his professional interests and research around the globe. I'm a busy lady! And, I love it. Yvonne Martin Ryan. Dear Ed, Many thanks for your fast response to Barry Sesnan's email. It is good to make this contact after so many years. I'll check out the website. I was on the TEA (UK) scheme. did the Diploma in Ed, at Makerere 1966-67. taught English at Kagumo High School, Kiganjo, Kenya from June 67 -- July 69, Meru High School, Kenya from Sept. 70 -- Aug 72, Federal School of Arts and Science, Mubi, Nigeria, Sept. 74 -- June 76. I have been living in Dublin since 1976. During my early time at Kagumo Brooks Goddard was also teaching there. Carolyn Dorsey. Upon leaving Africa, I returned to teaching in Cleveland, Ohio first back in the public schools and then for my sorority at the Cleveland Job Corps. I went to New York University and earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education. From there I took a job at Indiana State for a year, then went on to the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1977 to set up the Black Studies Program. I was Coordinator of Black Studies 1/2 time and an assistant, then associate professor of Higher and Adult Education. I later became full time associate professor in Higher and Adult Education, retiring in 1995, spent one year at Wooster College en route home to Dayton. My mother was in a nursing home and needed me to handle matters so it was time to come home! I had been away for 40 years doing my thing and felt I had dues to pay!!! (smiles) I live in Trotwood which used to be a part of Dayton. I am in the last phases of a study of Booker T. Washington's second wife, Olivia America Davidson, which I hope will be published in a year or so. It has been a wonderful adventure and at age 74, I am a happy camper! Carolyn |