Birmingham to Berea...Birmingham, Alabama, a city three counties north of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s ... spoken word competition which I never thought I could do in a

by Chris Green & Lizbeth Saucedo Wilson

A10- by 101⁄2-foot map of Appalachia graces thewall of the gallery at the Loyal JonesAppalachian Center. Visitors trace the routes

of the places they’ve been, or one might touch anexact place on the map’s raised topography andexplain, “That’s where I grew up.” Still, it’s hard tosay where exactly Appalachia begins or ends or whatexactly Appalachia is even when you know you’resmack dab in the middle of it.

This issue of the newsletter carries us intoBirmingham, Alabama, a city three counties north ofthe Appalachian Regional Commission’s

southernmost edge. Still, most of the city’s residentsdon’t consider Birmingham to be Appalachian.However, it developed as a city of coal and steel, likea Pittsburgh of the south, and part of our work at theLoyal Jones Appalachian Center is to understand howall the parts and peoples of Appalachia relate.

As a town of some prosperity with a history ofinequality and interracial conflict, African Americanstudents from Birmingham didn’t begin attendingBerea until the 1950s. But today 65 students fromBirmingham currently attend—the most for any cityoutside of Kentucky. Of those, 56 are part of Berea’s

Birmingham to Berea

4 Gail Bowman 4 Carl Thomas 12 Berea College Service AwardsWINTER 2017

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photo: © Simon Shaw / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

photo: Faith Jones

LOYAL JONESAPPALACHIAN CENTER STAFF

Chris Green, Director, Appalachian Center;Associate Professor of Appalachian Studies

Alix Burke, AmeriCorps VISTA Member, GrowAppalachia

David Cooke, Director, Grow Appalachia andBerea College Appalachian Fund

Beth Curlin-Weber, Administrative Assistant,Brushy Fork Institute

Heather Dent, Program Assistant

Dr. Peter H. Hackbert, Moore Chair inManagement and Entrepreneurship; Director,Entrepreneurship for the Public Good (EPG)

bell hooks, Distinguished Professor in Residencein Appalachian Studies

Jordan Hutchins, AmeriCorps VISTA Member,Appalachian Center

Silas House, NEH Chair in Appalachian Studies

Jason Howard, Editor, Appalachian Heritage

Holly Korb, Program Assistant, Grow Appalachia

Christopher McKenzie, Social EnterpriseManager, Grow Appalachia

Christopher Miller, College Curator andAssociate Director, Appalachian Center

Candice Mullins, Associate Director, GrowAppalachia

Lyndsey Mullins, Program Coordinator, EPG

Mark Nigro, Program Associate, Brushy ForkInstitute

Troy Price, Associate Director, Brushy Fork Institute

Mark Walden, Production Efficiency Adviser,Grow Appalachia

Crystal Wilkinson, Appalachian Writer inResidence

Rodney Wolfenbarger, Director, Brushy ForkInstitute

Please address all correspondence to:Loyal Jones Appalachian CenterBerea College, CPO 2166Berea, Kentucky 40404859.985.3140 | www.berea.edu/ac

Berea College and the Appalachian Center are committed tothe betterment of the peoples of Appalachia. The uniqueviews and perspectives of individual authors in thisnewsletter, however, do not necessarily represent the viewsand policies of Berea College.

Layout/Design: Berea College Printing Services

Winter 2016-17Volume 44 • Number 1

by Lizbeth Saucedo WilsonSpecial to the LJAC Newsletter

As I think back to the years I spent in Birmingham, Alabama,I can honestly say that not only did I spend the roughestyears of my life thus far, but also some of my best. I met the

mountains for the first time in Birmingham as I visited Vulcan Parkand went up on the observation tower. The view was magnificent: Inever thought that I would appreciate the greenness of the trees andthe chirpings of the birds as I was up about 100 feet from theground. Sitting on top of Red Mountain, The Vulcan statue is thelargest cast iron statue in the world. I had never gone hiking beforeJune 8, 2007 so naturally I did not immediately enjoy hiking. I stilldon’t love it, but it is slowly warming up to me. Having just movedfrom Chicago, I was terrified of the new state, new region, the newschool I had to attend where I didn’t know anybody. As a quietperson, I thought it was going to be difficult for me to make friendsquickly; I wasn’t sure I was able to do it. To my surprise I madefriends quicker than I thought, but I made them only to lose themand start all over.

During my sophomore year of high school on September 5,2008, I was diagnosed with leukemia and I began to hate everything,including moving to Birmingham. Towards the end of my treatment,I was able to meet new people, make friends at my new school, andwas encouraged by one of my teachers to help her with starting apoetry club at school. Poetry became my outlet in life, which is how Icrossed paths with the Real Life Poets, Inc. With their help I was ableto open up and for the first time in my life, let my vulnerabilitiesbecome my strength. I gained confidence enough to compete in aspoken word competition which I never thought I could do in amillion years. A fter going through hell and back, I made peace withthe thought of life and death, and I decided that there was more tolife than sulking about the obstacles it throws at you. Through thistransition I discovered my love for service and what joy it broughtme every time I was able to help someone. I volunteered at theBirmingham Zoo and helped with the annual food/toy drive thattakes place in December. I did this as a part of a mentoring group formy high school which was called Girls in Action (GIA).

2 LOYAL JONES APPALACHIAN CENTER NEWSLETTER

Meeting the …by way of Birmingham,

When I wasn’t out trying to help make the world abetter place, I spent time with some dear friends I madeand whom I still have. We were just this group ofoutcasts, the nerds/geeks/losers if you follow that HighSchool lingo. If we weren’t on someone’s porch justlaughing and speaking our future into existence, we werehanging out at the Tarrant library checking out somebooks. That library felt too small for us and the collectionwasn’t up to our standards, so we went to the downtownBirmingham Public Library. We would spend hours andhours there looking for books, using our laptops, andplaying hide and seek through the bookshelves. Each ofus stayed in a different section of the library because weall had different interests; however, each time we united,we would come back together eager to show each otherwhat we had found.

It wasn’t always fun and games; we all had somepretty deep conversations, sometimes as we walked to thenearest Food Giant, a grocery store. We would walk fromone of our friends’ house to pick up some snacks for thenight. The walk wasn’t far: I remember the crackedsidewalk and noticing that, more often than not, thelawns on that neighborhood needed to be cut. Iremember the hot sun with no wind, about which Icomplained about constantly. The things that stick out tome the most though are the hills. I hated those hillsbecause some were so steep. Before the cancer I was activeand loved walking around; however, my energydeteriorated and the hills did not help. I rememberfinding it odd that you didn’t always get a whiteChristmas, or a white winter for that matter. As aMidwestern gal, I was used to brutal winters and havingto walk in the snow to school no matter how high it got.

To wrap things up, Birmingham I would say is whatyou make it to be. Everyone’s perspective is different andsome people love it, some people hate it, and others are inbetween. And you know what? That is completely okay.There are many aspects to Birmingham, whether you

grew up inEnsley,Crestwood,East Lake, orEastBirmingham orany of theotherneighborhoods of Birmingham, there will always be aunique perspective. There is so much richness to the citythat we may sometimes overlook or maybe even take forgranted.

During my senior year at Berea College and afterworking the Appalachian Center for four years, I had theopportunity to co-edit this LJAC Newsletter with ChrisGreen, my Berea dad. I was excited that I was given suchan opportunity. I did not, however, realize how difficultit was going to be. I actually learned so much and Ithink the most valuable lesson was that when I set mymind to something, there will always be someone thereto help you along the way if you just ask.

I think one of the hardest parts about the editingprocess was trying to juggle school work, labor, andkeeping up with the various versions of different draftsthat transformed into the finished product you are nowreading. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun doing itand actually having a say to changes being made wasreally refreshing. And of course, one of my favorite partsabout co-editing was getting the opportunity to read thestories from students and alumni about their experiencesgrowing up in Birmingham and coming to Berea. This isan experience I will forever have with me. I hope youenjoy the issue as much as we enjoyed putting ittogether!

Lizbeth Saucedo Wilson is a 2016 Berea graduate inPsychology and Women’s and Gender Studies who is nowan admissions counselor for Berea College.

LOYAL JONES APPALACHIAN CENTER NEWSLETTER 3

Lizbeth Saucedo Wilson

mountains… Alabama

by Rev. Gail BowmanSpecial to the LJAC Newsletter

So there we were in Kelly Ingram Park,Birmingham, Alabama in August, 2013, with anAfrican American Berea College graduate telling

us the story of her city. The park was lovely and quieton that Sunday morning. However, the contrastbetween the placid pools and dappled shade of thatmoment, and the depictions of police dogs andfirehouse water cannons unleashed on children, onthat same ground, 50 years before, was eloquent.Church attendance across the street at 16th StreetBaptist Church, where four little girls were killed by aKu Klux Klan bombing on Sunday, September 15,1963, awaited. Following worship, and additionalsignificant conversations with Berea grads, we wouldcross another street in that same intersection, and headinto the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. There, inone of the displays, we would find a summary of thelegal battles of racial segregation that included a shortaccount of Berea College vs. Kentucky—the “Day law.”It was the brand-new Carter G. Woodson Center’sFirst Annual Civil Rights Tour.

My first time to live in the deep South was in1992 when I moved to Atlanta. I grew up in Iowa,

and had always wanted a southern experience. Duringsix years in Atlanta, however, I never explored my wayto Birmingham. Even the Alabama destinations on thehighway signs for Interstate 20 west were painful tome. For me, Birmingham symbolized some of theworst that can happen to black people, and some ofthe worst that can happen when a community tries totake a “pass” on becoming fully itself. Nevertheless, atsome point during that morning in Birmingham in2013, with the big, blue-on-white Berea College bus atthe curb and the 45 of us totally captured by thepictures our docent was word-painting onto the air,Birmingham claimed a place for itself within me.

Because it was Berea College that gave meBirmingham, I perceive it through a different lensthan I would otherwise. Whether Birmingham is trulypart of Appalachia is sometimes a subject for livelydebate at Berea College, and I find myself musing onthat question here. Actually, the Appalachian RegionalCommission includes all of the top half of Alabama,including Birmingham, in its territory. Or, if youprefer to find Appalachia by “following the spine ofthe Appalachian Mountains,” you will land on RedMountain. Red Mountain is the high lookout forBirmingham and is the spot from which Vulcan—thecast-iron 56-foot-high Roman god of fire and forge,


A letter from

“We went to an A.M.E. Zion churchcalled Trinity African MethodistEpiscopal Zion Church. There was alsoa Baptist church that was a block downfrom where I attended, and that’s thechurch that A. D. King, Martin LutherKing, Jr.’s brother, was the pastor of inthe ‘60s. And, as I mentioned inanother instance when we were

Throughout this issue, many articles areaccompanied by these segments of an oral historywith Carl Thomas, a 1978 Berea graduate who iscurrently Berea’s Associate Director of Admissionsand Coordinator of Minority Services. In 2014,Chris Green conducted this oral history with Mr. Thomas with the goal of understanding howBirmingham had changed over the years andwhat it means for students from Birminghamto be attending Berea.

CARL’S BIRMINGHAM PART ONE

Speaking of similarities, Birmingham is shaped byrace and the war that was about race, by mining, laborissues and union prohibitions. Both cities are placeswhere great human events were played out and stillpull our attention, and where questions relating to thecolor line, fairness, and community are still in activediscussion. In both places, searches for answers to ourshared dilemmas are on-going,and part of this exploration isdistinctly spiritual. It is theurge to understand these lastareas of similarity that hasbrought me to this place.

Gail Bowman, formerdirector and college chaplainat Berea College’s CampusChristian Center, nowresides in Birminghamwhere she isresearching thehistory of theblack churchin America.


Birminghamwinner of the grand prize for displays at the 1904 World’sFair in St. Louis—presides over the city in near-nakedstatuary dignity. Geographically, Birmingham is clearlypart of Appalachia.

But is there a relationship between Berea andBirmingham? Is Birmingham part of the Appalachianstory? Thus far, I think it is. Here is my just-two-months-a-resident list of Berea and Birmingham differences andsimilarities.

Unlike Berea, the Birmingham District wasindustrial—mines, furnaces and forges—even before itbecame a city in 1871. Consequently, it has an urban sensewhile Berea has a rural sense. In fact, Birmingham was sointensely industrialized that it encountered its health andeconomic issues with coal earlier than Kentucky. Also,since Alabama developed from the Gulf of Mexico up, thepeople here are not as long on this land as those inKentucky and many other parts of Appalachia. There is lessof a carryover of Native American culture and First Peoplebloodlines.

There’s not nearly enough bluegrass music here.Fortunately, I brought my Bluegrass Ensemble CDs withme. Unlike Berea (which doesn’t really “do flat”)Birmingham’s center (downtown) is a valley, and is fairlylevel. In some of its areas, though, the city has thatundulating, tree-covered, songbird-busy feel that Berea has.

talking, the parsonage was about threeblocks from my home, and that was thehome that was pipe-bombed, where theythrow the bombs out into the home. Butat any rate, church was a central part ofour lives. As long as I can remember, wealways went to church, and there wasnot an option. No matter what youwould do, even as a teenager growing

up, you could go out and do things onSaturday, but you would make sure thatyou were going to go to church onSunday; that would of course includeSunday school and going to churchservice. My mother had various positionsand was well-respected in the church.Now my mom and dad attended twodifferent churches. My mother was

A.M.E. Zion; my father was Baptist, andhis church was around the corner fromus about a block away. All of us went tochurch with my mother. My dad went tochurch probably not as much as my momand the rest of us, and a lot of that hadto do with his work schedule because hehad to be working those swing shifts atUS Steel.” —Carl Thomas

Rev. Gail Bowman

cohort of African-American students, nine identify asHispanic/Latino, five are European American, and one isAsian American.

Skipping the question of how the city is or is notAppalachian, Liz Saucedo Wilson—who came to Bereafrom Birmingham and worked four years in theAppalachian Center—reached out to and worked withBerea students and alumni to write pieces about theBirmingham they know or knew and how that relates totheir experience at Berea. Their answers reveal importantconnections between Berea and Birmingham, on twodifferent edges of Appalachia.

Their essays are framed by the work, lives, and wordsof elders from or recently moved to Birmingham. Theseinclude “A Letter from Birmingham” by Rev. GailBowman (who served as director of Berea’s CampusChristian Center from 2012 to 2016), biographicalportraits of Lynda Whitt and Odessa Woolfolk (recipientsof Berea College’s 2017 Service Award), and parts of anoral history with Carl Thomas (a 1978 Berea graduateand currently Berea’s Associate Director of Admissionsand Coordinator of Minority Services) which wasconducted by Chris Green. We hope thisintergenerational mix will help us see not only throughspace but through time into the past and the future.

But we (Liz and Chris) know these are just a few ofthe many stories that need to be told, so we look forwardto hearing from you about how Birmingham and Bereaunite in your lives and hearts. Please write us [email protected] or post yourstory at facebook.com/LJAppCtr.

Lizbeth Saucedo Wilson is a 2016 Berea graduate inPsychology and Women’s and Gender Studies who is now anadmissions counselor for Berea College.


Birmingham to Bereacontinued from page 3

Somehow there has always been asynonymous understanding of thephrases “making it” and “getting out

of your hometown.” I saw that, in someways, to make it you must be willing toget out, but I have been conflicted by thenotion … My pairing of these phrases isnot because Birmingham is a “onetown”—a place with one Walmart, onerestaurant, one gas station, and one stoplight—but because I think that mychances of success will be higher if I canget away and because I have always had adesire to be able to go to many places andeventually settle outside of Birmingham.Birmingham is not one of those placeswhere you truly have to leave becausethere is nothing there. It is actually theopposite of that. I have visited many ofthe attractions and activities it has to offer.There is the newly-built Railroad Park

A place Taking a view

CARL’S BIRMINGHAM PART“But my story about Berea starts when I wasin high school, and me and a friend of minewere trying to decide whether or not we weregoing to cut class, and we knew we wanted toleave school and take a break but we hadn’tdecided where we were going to do it. Wewere out in the hall trying to decide inbetween classes, and there was this rule thatanyone caught loitering in the hall after the

DowntownBirmingham.

photo: © James Willamor /CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

which has become a frequently visitedsite for locals because of its beauty andcleanliness. There is also the RegionsBallpark just across from it.

Birmingham is the home ofseveral museums including theBirmingham Civil Rights Institute,the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, theSouthern Museum of Flight, theAlabama Sports Hall of Fame, andthe Birmingham Museum of Artwhich hosted BC Speaks, an event forlocal poets where I was able toperform poetry. There are manyaspects about Birmingham that Iwould love to have for the rest of mylife such as the ones I mentioned, butit is hard to imagine myself growingold there. It was this thinking thatled me to Berea College. There weresome hesitations in that decision, not

because of the College but because ofthe location. I could not easily seemyself, an African American from asemi-big city, transitioning to a smalltown in Kentucky of all places. Iwondered how it would work, and ithas been a pretty easy transition.Fueled by my initial desire to leaveBirmingham, Berea was the first stepaway and it has spiraled out andbecome a springboard for otherpursuits and goals of travel, includingstudying abroad in South Africa.

I can see where there are needs forimprovement in Birmingham, but myexperience has been wrapped upmostly with friends and family. Theseparation I’ve had from them hastaught me to be tough because I don’thave them as an immediate backbone,and I appreciate that experience.

Because my viewof Birmingham isshaped throughmy family, thechanges I’ve notedhave been few innumber. It hasbeen me that has changed the most,and I have been given an opportunityto see Birmingham through a differentlens. The new lens allows me to see myhometown as a place of possibility andimprovement. I have high hopes forBirmingham and have seen that it hascome pretty far. The Magic City, as itis known, will always have a place inmy heart no matter how far away I am.

Sydney Henderson is a 2016 BereaCollege Graduate with a degree inPsychology.

in my heart through a different lens

WHAT I’VE

LEARNEDSydneyHenderson


backg

round photo: ©

Amcanally / W

ikim

edia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0

TWOtardy bell had rung would get a day ortwo suspension.

There was no way I could go homeand tell Mrs. Sallie Mae and Mr. John L. Igot put out of school for any reason. Somy friend and I we were caught in noman’s land, the bell had rung, and wewere still just standing out here. Wedidn’t realize what was going on, but the

boy’s advisor was coming down the halland he called out to us and we did whatany normal person would do: we ran. Ihappened to run into the auditorium,and there was a small group of studentstalking to a Berea Collegerepresentative, so I just slowed downand tried to act natural. I went and satdown, and the guy thought I was just a

late arrival, but the more he talked themore I realized, hey, that sounds like me.Here’s a place where you go to school;you can work your way through becausethere’s a work program here; the cost isminimal, but [they’re] looking forstudents who are academically capable.Well I fit into that description.”

—Carl Thomas

by Kameron RobinsonSpecial to the LJAC Newsletter

Real Life Poets (RLP) is a Birmingham, Alabama non-profitorganization that uses the arts—specifically spoken word—to supportand develop the minds of local youth. Among the myriad devices and

programs used for this purpose are workshops,writing exercises, open mics, and communityservice. The purpose of these range from improvingliteracy to building self-esteem as well as everythingin between, above, and beyond. The origins of theorganization are as organic as its actions within thecommunity. This living dream of a trio all startedwith the introduction of two men: John Paul “JP”Taylor and Obeah Zodoc who prefer to go by theirrespective handles JP and Obeah. This connectionwas facilitated by the likes of a mutual friend,David “Quick” Hawthorne around 2004. Thelocal poetry scene was not very large, but the twohadn’t quite met in person despite having heard of one another. Quick was asort of mediator who brought two men in whom he saw purpose and drivetogether and created a bond that still holds to this day, but it wasn’t justQuick who saw the potential at hand.

The three of them had come together after some deliberation anddecided to take their art to a level outside of the limelight of the open micscene, and with this they decided to use their power as poets to grow asartists, as individuals, and as family men. However, before the dream wasrealized, Quick committed suicide. The impact that event had on John

Paul and Obeah was pivotalin building RLP. Quitesimply John Paul stated inregards to his dear friend andcomrade’s passing, “It made every stood in his kitchen and committ had birthed within their barbersh hangout as well. Quick was a man question of “Why isn’t it done ye speaks volumes of his keen and ob

John Paul especially was expe was in great turmoil. But he had u with guidance. Quick believed tha greater mission than just getting o

RLP began at Quick’s memor community) as the moniker JP an or so, John Paul began an open m As an entry fee they charged not m items to be given back to the com their voices and the truth that the people of the local community. T 2008 RLP became an official 501 aforementioned donating of cloth once a month the people from th Food Café for a free meal (usually sort). Shortly thereafter RLP orga providing coats and other clothin contracts with Better Basics after-


Poetry is powerThe ‘Real Life Poets’ through the eyes of a youth

Kameron Robinson

“Now when I talk to students, I amseeing more and more students who willneed that kind of mentoring [that myfather offered] from our environmentbecause it doesn’t exist in theircommunity. There are some programs

out there that capture some of the kidsbut there are still a number of them outthere who just don’t have thatconnectivity to that sense of purpose,which comes from a sense of family,from an extension of other supports

within a community, a church, for us.They just don’t have that.

You wonder why things stand out,like money as the focus. As for me,learning was the focus because ofencyclopedias, my father, that structure

CARL’S BIRMINGHAM PART THREE

ything get real.” After his funeral the two

ted to keeping the dream alive that the trio op that functioned as a studio and

n who would always ask the very poignant et?” in regards to any ideas put forth. This

bservant nature. eriencing a low within his personal life and

untapped potential that could be realized at both John Paul and Obeah had a on a microphone. rial (organized by the local art

nd Obeah performed under. Around 2006 mic in Eastlake at Sistah’s Soul Food Café. money but canned goods and clothing mmunity at a later date. Armed only with ey spoke, they uplifted and rallied the This continued for a couple of years, and in (c)(3) non-profit organization. The

hes was the first project RLP undertook: e community could come to Sistah’s Soul y a spaghetti dinner or something of the anized a “Coats for Cold” clothing drive

g for those in need. RLP obtained school programs at their Hope Centers in

Fairfield and began their first official workshops. In later years, RLP beganworking with the Birmingham Public Library and the Word Up! committeeand began holding free teen poetry workshops for several years there.

Currently, RLP is an official cultural arts vendor for Jefferson CountyDepartment of Human Resources. RLP has done teen poetry workshopsthroughout Alabama, from Huntsville to Mobile. In 2014 RLP took its firstteam to the Brave New Voices International Teen Poetry Slam. RLP’s teamkNOw Disclaimer were the first team from Alabama to compete in theinternational teen poetry competition and finished in the semi-finals. RLPrepresented Birmingham at Brave New Voices once more in 2015. Also in2015 RLP visited Abu Dhabi and Dubai for a series of workshops andcultural experiences. The same year RLP visited Kenya and trained workshopfacilitators there for an Alabama-Kenya International Poetry ExchangeProject that launched in 2016. RLP is currently working once again inEastlake doing an after-school program with Eastlake Methodist Church andhas, in a sense, gone full circle. The trio of JP, Obeah, and Quick—who liveswithin the spirit of RLP—once again seeks to go forth and heal thecommunity after having gained a large body of knowledge and experience inthe last decade or so of work both before and after its inception.


turn to page 12

John Paul Taylor, Michael Littig, and Ojullu Opiew from 2015 trip to Kenya,a project formed to connect Alabama youth poets with Kenyan youth poetsin a collaboration between the Dadaab Theater Project and Real Life Poets.

photos (2) by Kameron Robinson

he provided for me. It didn’t matter tome how much money I was going tomake because I worked seven jobs. Iknew how to make money, and I knew Icould always make money because ofthe skills my dad also helped me with. In

addition to those jobs I always knew Iwould be able to do that so for me itwas more intrinsic self-enrichment, butthat’s not the case with a lot of people.We have to understand that they don’thave the ability to get to that place. We

got to take them from where they areright now and look at whateverchallenges they are confronted with andtry to help them work through thosechallenges.”

—Carl Thomas

2015 kNOw Disclaimer Slam Team (left toright): Jeralyn Langford, Asherah Jackson,Eboni Wallace, Miaya Ree Webster, andWhitney McWilliams.


Iam originally from Birmingham, Alabama, and I hadnever heard of Berea until my senior year in highschool. My twelfth grade guidance counselor called me

in to her office one day and said, “Hey, I think you shouldapply to this school in Kentucky called Berea College.”My response was, “Why would I want to go to a school sofar away from home? There are schools right here that Ilike.” She explained to me that Berea was not like theother schools that I was applying to, and it offered aunique scholarship that covered the cost of tuition for allof its students. My first thoughts were that this school wastoo good to be true, and there must be a catch to thistuition thing—especially since they were recruiting fromtwo states away and no one in my family had ever heard ofthis school. My counselor still recommended that I applyfor this school because I wouldn’t be losing anything byapplying. I decided to take her advice, and it turned out tobe one of the best decisions of my life.

I got accepted to Berea College, as well as a few otherschools. The hard part was deciding what school I wouldbe attending in the fall. I did a few college visits with myhigh school, but really didn’t find what I was looking forin the schools that we visited. I didn’t quite know what Iwas looking for at the time, but I knew that it would hitme when I saw it. Later on in my senior year, I was invitedto the Carter G. Woodson Diversity Weekend at BereaCollege. I decided to attend because I had never been toKentucky before and I was curious to see what Berea really

looked like. When I arrived, I noticed that the communitywas nothing like my hometown; it was small, had a lot ofmom-and-pop shops, and a predominantly Caucasiancommunity surrounded the College. I felt uncomfortableand out of place at first because I had never been in acommunity where I was the minority. I had always lived ina predominantly African American community, so comingto Berea was a culture shock for me. They placed me witha Caucasian host while I was here, and we had ameaningful conversation about the mission of Berea andhow it has been helpful for a lot of students. We discussedthe small classes, the labor program, and most importantlyhow diverse the campus was. Then it dawned on me whatwas missing from the colleges that I visited with my highschool. The schools that we toured were all largeuniversities, but they had no strong support systems fortheir students, and they had very limited diversity oncampus. Berea was different because it concentrated oncreating the best learning environment for its studentsbased off its Great Commitments. This was meaningful tome because it focused on coeducation, interracialeducation, financial need, academic promise, service, andequality for all. That Sunday, when we were leaving fromthe Carter G. Woodson event, I made up my mind that Iwould be attending Berea in the fall.

Fall arrived, and I was finally on campus as a BereaCollege student. I knew only a few other people that werecoming from Birmingham when I first arrived. However,

CARL’S BIRMINGHAM PART FOUR“I came up the summer after I wasadmitted, and I got on a greyhound busby myself and rode 24 hours to Berea,and that was before the Interstate wascomplete, so I took all the backroadscoming up to Knoxville and then coming

up through the gap and coming toBerea, coming through Corbin and all ofthat. Coming from Knoxville you didn’tjust come straight up as you do now.

So its 24 hours, and I get off here[Berea] at a bus stop right out front. I

guess people knew that I was kind ofwandering because I stood out anddidn’t know where to go.

I just sat and talked to people aboutcoming up to visit campus and toldthem that I needed to find [the]

What Birmingham + Berea

after a month of being a student on Berea’s campus, Inoticed that there were a lot of students from my homestate here. I remember wondering, “Why are there somany students from Alabama?” At first I concluded thatit was an attempt to diversify the student body at Berea;however, later on I found out that it was related heavilyto Berea’s Great Commitments. For example, Bereacommits itself to offering educational opportunities to“primarily students from Appalachia, Black or White.”

Most students, including myself at the time, didn’tthink of Birmingham as being a part the Appalachianregion, mainly because our environment and culturewere so different. For instance, Berea had a mountainousrural environment, and the people here had a differentdialect than what we were accustomed to back home.Birmingham, on the other hand, was a large city withvery few mountainous areas, and we also had a differentdialect that was unique to our area. This is what makesBerea great; it offers a chance for people to work and livetogether with different backgrounds to break thestereotypes and prejudgments that we all might have. Italso promotes kinship of all people which is anotherGreat Commitment of the school. These simple facts ledto me making friends with people that I normallywouldn’t have associated with because they were peopleoutside of my own cultural background. For me this wasreally big because I wanted to be in a place thatpromoted understanding and growth for all people.

I graduated from Berea in 2011and returned in 2014 to work as anadmissions counselor over the areas ofAlabama, Georgia, and parts ofTennessee. One of the main reasonsthat I decided to take this positionwas that it offered me a chance toserve my community back home. Iam now able to travel to differentschools in Birmingham and speakwith students about the mission of Berea. This issomething that I really enjoy doing because thestudents still looked at me with the same skepticismthat I had when my counselor first told me about BereaCollege.

I now have the chance to explain what Berea meansto students in Birmingham. It is a chance of a lifetimefor them to experience a new level of diversity andinterracial education, a chance to build leadership skillsthrough our labor program, and most of all a chancefor them to get a high quality education that isaffordable. This work has been a service that I haveenjoyed doing, and I plan to continue to do this workto serve my community back home.

Sylvester Lynn III is a 2011 Berea College graduatewith a degree in Physical Education. He is currently anAdmissions Counselor for Berea College.


admissions office and was supposed tojust stay overnight … and I met someguys here who were from Birminghamand oddly enough these guys livedwithin blocks of me. I knew them, but Ididn’t know they were at Berea

because they graduated two yearsbefore me. Larry Lewis, Larry Penick,Douglas Jackson, Michael Cannon,Jerome Austin, Phyllis West, were allpeople from my high school who werehere at Berea, and there was a guy by

the name of Richie Grissett who didn’tgo to my high school. These guys tookme in, and I ended up staying here foralmost a week. That sealed the deal forme.”

—Carl Thomas

WHAT I’VE

LEARNEDSylvesterLynn III

means to me

Iwas born in the slums of Kingston, a neighborhoodin eastern Birmingham, Alabama. It was a placewhere the villains and creeps hung out in alleyways

and in front of houses talking gossip or gathering forparties. I’ve seen more than my fair share of partiesgoing off right outside my house with cars lined up onthe sidewalks and people partying and fighting. Thiswas the cycle the first few years of my life. It was theworst place for a person to be, especially for a kid. Imoved from place to place, for years traveling throughthe low-income badlands where the corrupt vampires inthe night, sucked out the life from the weak. After myfather gained custody of me, I made my final stop inNorth Birmingham.

I looked at all the broken house windows, collapsedceilings, and old rusty cars. It was no better than the lastplace I lived in other than the fact that my dad tried toblanket the dirty hell with flowers and trees in his frontlawn. But, in a way, it made our house stand out fromthe rest of the old beat up houses around us. North

Birmingham made me into the person that I am today:a person with a tough exterior, yet an extremely softinterior. The soft interior comes from my dad’s overflowof kindness to even the worst of men and women. Oneday we were robbed right outside the apartment we usedto live in before moving to a house not far from there.He simply let the thieves have what they wanted, goingso far as to have a small conversation with them.

I carry the same name my dad did, just with adifferent middle name, keeping me from gaining thetitle of Junior. With all his kindness given to the peoplearound, you would not think that he actually fought inthe Vietnam War. He was a hard-working veteran whobelieved in the notion that work equals success.Although he worked long hours at a postal service, hestill had time to care for his garden and our house. Tohim, your surroundings shaped what type of person youbecame. Our house was filled with elegant artwork andfurniture while our lawn had two small beautiful treesgrowing in front along with a ton of flowers growing


Into the heartland

My name is Kameron Malik Robinson, I am arising high school senior and youth poet at RLP, Inc. Asa youth poet, I perform poems that I’ve written as ameans of self-expression and information distribution. Ihave been a member of RLP since early February 2015,yet within my short tenure I have garnered a great dealof life and artistic experience. I attended workshopsleading up to my first spoken word performance in April2015 at the annual Word Up! Poetry Slam. Afterwards, Icontinued to work with RLP and have since performedin a variety of settings. A few of the broad range ofevents and instances in which I have performed as aRLP representative are the following: the BirminghamMuseum of Art BMA Speaks Race Relations Panel; FirstBaptist Church 9th Street in Bessemer, Ala.; the State ofthe Word Southeastern Youth Poet summit held atVanderbilt University; Social justice camp ANYTOWN;and even a baby shower.

My purpose as a poet is not just limited to writing,memorizing, and performing. It extends to the realmsof advocacy, community service, leadership, socialconsciousness, and much more. RLP encourages me tobe introspective and inquisitive; it also helps in thebuilding of my leadership skills and the expansion ofmy body of experience in serving local communities. Ihave helped to facilitate workshops, promote events,and conduct work within the community on behalf ofRLP, and I have invited others to work with andexperience RLP. In short RLP has functioned as a facetthrough which I am guided and guide others.

In closing, RLP is an organic nonprofitorganization, providing a voice to those in need andthe many amenities that come with that provision suchas safe environments, a safe space, and communitythrough food and access to the local art communitiesand individuals who may help in mentoring and/orinspiration.

Kameron Robinson is senior at Bessemer City HighSchool who will be graduating in 2017.

Real Life Poetscontinued from page 9

behind them. While he worked to make our housereflect the person that he is, he worked to make me intoa better person than him. He always said that work waswhat shaped your personality. “From there the peoplewill see you for who you are and appreciate you for whoyou are,” he used to say. From the year he took custodyof me, I worked to become my own self while workingto become a better person than my dad, just like hewanted. My heart, so sensitive, would start to buildunder the harshest of situations.

The tough exterior comes from the outside worldbreaking me down with each passing day with theirinsults, fights, and undermining. The place wasn’t allbad. There were amusement parks I went to and lots ofpeople that I met. However, there were very few thatgained my trust. I was a soldier amongst the rest of thechildish student body, with one side loving to have funwhile the other was a serious young man looking foranswers that most didn’t have. North Birmingham mademe into a man who wants to be successful, wanting to

live a life where love is in the airand happiness can be achieved insuch a scale that a euphoric highcan’t reach its limits. Findinghappiness is like finding treasure,along the way there are always clues,puzzles, and dangerous and riskypassageways that you have to take.In the end, it’s all about how muchyou really want it—love, happiness,the American dream that everyone so desperately yearnsfor. And for years, up to this very second, I’m stilllooking for answers, still looking for the treasure, stilllooking for love. Birmingham is a series of lessons in theforms of people, places, and interactions. And I feelconfident that these lessons have long been learned andmade me into a better person.

Ronnie Davis is a 2016 Berea graduate with a degreein English.

CARL’S BIRMINGHAM PART FIVE


“I think it’s fairly typical of many[Birmingham] communities now. Thereis no real sense of community. I wish Icould say that people are making a linkbetween the history of Birmingham interms of civil rights and what thatstruggle was about and what thatstruggle brought about and realizingthat dream that King and others had asa result of that. In many ways, we’renot realizing that because the youngerpeople are not connecting. There’sbeen a breach in terms of those stories,and they’re not being carried along.

Something I thought was a hugechallenge to the breakdown of theinfrastructure among the AfricanAmerican community was the war inVietnam. It took a lot of our menaway, many who never came back, andthose that did were very damagedeither with what they witnessed,finding coping mechanisms that arenot positive things and so now youdon’t have that family structure that Ispoke about or I grew up in where youhave the two parent family. You’ve gotstruggling single parent homes. You

don’t have the kind of guidance thatI got from my dad. It bothers me thatkids can’t reference back to what mydaddy taught me. That may notsound important but it wasextremely important for me. Whatwould my father have done in thissituation? You don’t have thatreference, you don’t even have whatthe patriarch would bring to a familyexperience. It’s lost and it’s just notthere, so you see people who aredisconnected.”

—Carl Thomas

WHAT I’VE

LEARNEDRonnieDavis


Established in 1979, the Berea College ServiceAward is an opportunity for the College torecognize an individual who has provided

outstanding service to our society in achieving theideals of Berea’s Great Commitments. Honored at theannual Service Convocation, the recipients of theBerea College Service Award are individuals who intheir daily lives have offered service. This award is aunique opportunity to honor practical service bypersons in all walks of life.

Berea College Service Award nominees approvedby the General Faculty Assembly in a given academicyear become the Berea College Service Awardrecipients for the following academic year. The 2017Berea College Service Award recipients both hail fromBirmingham; they will receive their awards on March23rd at the annual Service Convocation..

Lynda Whitt

Lynda Whitt isan assiduouseducator who ispassionate aboutmaking sure thather studentsmove beyondaccepting a lifeof mereexistence. Sherefuses to allow students to become trapped indysfunctional environments. Ms. Whitt will dig,scrap, and claw to find post-secondary educationalopportunities for students who, as she says, “deservemore than what they have been offered by a brokensystem.” Many of her students have no financialresources or family support to attend college. But

she does not allow these obstacles to stand in theway of her students obtaining a college education.

Ms. Whitt rebuilds broken communitiesthroughout the city of Birmingham by helping onestudent at a time achieve a college education. Shetakes asset-poor students, makes an investment intheir lives by providing higher educationopportunities, and ultimately creates social capitalwithin their communities.

Ms. Whitt has worked for many years as aguidance counselor in high schools located in someof the poorest communities in Birmingham. Yet shehas not allowed these challenges to prevent her fromhelping students move beyond their environment.Currently, Ms. Whitt serves as the guidancecounselor at George Washington Carver HighSchool. For many of her students, Ms. Whitt servesas a parent figure, mentor, and supporter—whateverit takes to get her students to believe in themselvesand to believe that they can be successful. Ms. Whittbelieves that if the younger children in a communitysee the older children succeed, they too will believethat they can succeed in accomplishing their dreams.Ms. Whitt demonstrates an unwaveringcommitment to serve as a catalyst for creating thisbelief in the students not only at Carver, but alsothroughout the Birmingham school system.

She has led several students to Berea College overthe past decade, a large percentage of which havegraduated and gone on to achieve successful careersor pursue graduate studies. In 2010, Ms. Whitt sentCarver’s valedictorian and salutatorian to Berea, bothof whom graduated on time with their entering class.

Ms. Whitt is unparalleled in her service andcommitment to the Birmingham community andschool system and deserves recognition for the wayin which she has quietly changed the lives of somany deserving students.

The Berea CollegeService Awards

OdessaWoolfolk

Harrison Salisbury,reporter for the NewYork Times, oncewrote of Birminghamin the early 1960s,saying, “Everychannel ofcommunication,every medium ofmutual interest, everyreasoned approach, every inch of middle ground has beenfragmented by the emotional dynamite of racism,reinforced by the whip, the razor, the gun, the bomb, thetorch, the club, the knife, the mob, the police, and manybranches of the state’s apparatus.” There is no doubt thatin our nation, Birmingham has been among one of thecities where racism and inequality has wreaked the mosthavoc and caused the most destruction.

For years, however, Odessa Woolfolk, an educatorand civic activist, has been working against this havocand destruction. Woolfolk serves as a beacon of thecommunity for her native Birmingham, Alabama. Whenone looks at her record of service in the area of civicleadership and activism, it is easy to see why. Woolfolkhas done her best to overcome racial and socioeconomicbarriers and prejudices in the areas of housing,community development, public welfare, and education.Her long list of achievements and professional positionssimply hint at all her great work, and include:

n Founding member of Leadership Birmingham;n Administrative work with the Jefferson County

Committee for Economic Opportunity, YMCA ofUtica, NY, and the Urban Reinvestment Task Forceof Washington, D.C.;

n Birmingham High School teacher during the CivilRights movement;

n State chair of the National Conference of Christiansand Jews;

n First African American President of Operation NewBirmingham’s Board of Directors.

For 21 years, Woolfolk also served the University ofAlabama at Birmingham (UAB) as director of the Centerfor Urban Affairs; lecturer in political science and publicaffairs; staff associate, Center for International Programs;and Assistant to the President for Community Relations.Upon retiring in 1993, her service to UAB wasrecognized with the establishment of the OdessaWoolfolk Presidential Community Service Award.

Most notably, Woolfolk is the former President andBoard Chair of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute(BCRI). It is only because of Woolfolk’s work that theBCRI even exists. Many describe her as the force behindthe founding of the institute. This cultural andeducational research center is committed to preservingand telling the story of Birmingham, and championingcivil and human rights by facilitating an atmosphere ofdialogue and understanding. Since opening its doors in1992, BCRI has been visited by more than 2 millionpeople from all 50 states and countries around the world.Each year, BCRI reaches more than 140,000 individualsthrough a variety of programming. Visitors include adults,school children and students, families, teachers,researchers, and scholars. It is only through learning aboutsuch important (and often ignored) historical events thatwe in the United States can better understand ourheritage and shape our future into a better tomorrow.

Her whole life, Woolfolk has done her best topromote and improve community leadership, racerelations, and civic engagement in Birmingham andbeyond. The value of her service to those in Alabama, theSouth, and the larger United States cannot be denied.


A spotlighton Birmingham

On March 23, 2017, Odessa Woolfolk willdeliver the convocation address at BereaCollege in Phelps Stokes Auditorium. Hertalk, Civil and Human Rights: An Agenda forthe Future, will propose new avenues andplatforms for civic engagement, reflecting theaccomplishments of how 50 years ago,college students helped launch a movementwhich, in many ways, transformed Americanlife and culture. The convocation is sponsoredby Berea College’s Center for Excellence inLearning through Service.

NON-PROFIT ORGU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDPERMIT NO. 1LEXINGTON, KY

Loyal Jones Appalachian CenterCPO 2166Berea, KY 40404

Address Service Requested

2016 Celebration of Traditional Music photos.Clockwise from left: Amythyst Kiah, the Local Honeys, theBerea College Bluegrass Ensemble, and the Berea CollegeFolk-Roots Ensemble.

Documents

Birmingham to Berea...Birmingham, Alabama, a city three counties north of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s ... spoken word competition which I never thought I could do in a