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Johnnetta Cole to speak Jan. 20 during MLK Week at Carolina

By L.J. TOLER
UNC-CH News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, president of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, will deliver the keynote address during events at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Jan. 18-23 to mark the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

In more than 30 years in education, Cole served two U.S. presidents in leadership roles and boosted achievement at Spelman College in Atlanta, where she was the first black woman president. She was commencement speaker and received an honorary degree at Carolina in May 1995.

Cole’s free public lecture, at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 20 in Hill Hall Auditorium, will focus on today’s college students as advocates for social justice. "America is still divided along lines including race, religion, sexual orientation and gender," she said in a 2002 interview. She encouraged today's youth to take action to erase such divisions.

"Dr. Cole is a respected national leader in higher education," said Dr. Archie Ervin, UNC’s assistant to the chancellor, minority affairs director and chair of the Chancellor’s Committee for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration. "Her insights will inspire us to think more deeply about why we celebrate Dr. King’s legacy."

Other highlights of the week will include the 19^th annual University/Community Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Banquet Jan. 18, with Dr. Trudier Harris, UNC’s J. Carlyle Sitterson professor of English, as speaker, and a Show of Hands for Peace and Unity at noon Jan. 21 on UNC’s Polk Place. Except for the banquet, events will be free and open to all.

Cole made history in 1987 by becoming the first African-American woman to serve as president of Spelman, a 2,000-student, historically black college for women. By 1995, Scholastic Aptitude Test score averages of Spelman freshmen ranked among the highest for students at such schools. In 1992, under Cole’s leadership, Spelman became the first historically black college or university to receive a No. 1 rating from U.S. News & World Report magazine.

The first President Bush made Cole a founding director of his Points of Light Foundation. In 1992, then President-Elect Bill Clinton chose her as a coordinator for education on his transition team.

Cole is on the boards of the Carter Center in Atlanta, the National Visionary Leadership Project (offering videotaped biographical interviews with some 70 prominent African-Americans) and the United Way of Greensboro. She is chair-elect of the board of trustees of the United Way of America.

Cole has received 48 honorary degrees; an Outstanding Contribution to Higher Education Award from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators; and the American Anthropological Association’s Distinguished Service Award.

She co-wrote "Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities," and wrote "Conversations: Straight Talk With America’s Sister President." Her two textbooks are used in classrooms nationwide.

Cole entered Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., at age 15 and completed her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College in Ohio. She completed master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology at Northwestern University in Chicago. She was an anthropology professor and director of the Latin American and Caribbean studies program at Hunter College in Manhattan and a graduate faculty member at the City University of New York.

Besides Cole’s speech, the Jan. 20 program will include presentation of the 22nd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship: $1,000 to a Carolina junior whose activities demonstrate commitment to the humanitarian ideals King espoused. Two $500 awards will go to runners-up in the competition.

The local University/Community Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Corp., a group of local business, civic, religious and university representatives, sponsors the banquet that kicks off the week of activities each year, set for 7 p.m. Jan 18 in UNC’s Morehead Building Banquet Hall. Tickets, $25 each, are available from the UNC Office of Minority Affairs in South Building, 962-6962.

Harris has lectured and published extensively in her specialty areas of African-American literature and folklore. Her books include "South of Tradition: Essays on African American Literature," "Exorcising Blackness: Historical and Literary Lynching and Burning Rituals" and "Saints, Sinners, Saviors: Strong Black Women in African American Literature."

Harris co-edited and co-wrote the 1998 reference collection "Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition" (Houghton Mifflin Co.). Her alma mater, Ohio State University, presented her with its first Award of Distinction for the College of Humanities in 1994.

UNC will close Jan. 19 for the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, but student leaders will hold their annual Youth Leadership Day beginning at 9 a.m. in room 1505 of the Frank Porter Graham Student Union. They’ll lead area middle school students in exercises to nurture the pursuit of their goals, as inspired by King. Among the activities will be one in which the students mold clay into representations of their futures or of King’s dream.

Also on Jan. 19, UNC students will meet at 9 a.m. at Manning Hall to begin a Day of Service, volunteering for service projects in the community. At 6 p.m. Jan. 19 in the auditorium of the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building on Pittsboro Street, students will engage in an oratorical contest, giving their opinion of the statement "The youth of America’s lack of involvement in political affairs inadvertently destroys their society."

The Jan. 21 Show of Hands for Peace and Unity will recall King’s "I Have a Dream" speech, 40 years ago last August, for which more than 250,000 people gathered around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. An open mike forum will allow participants to share their experiences with peace, unity and diversity.

Besides the Chancellor’s Committee for the MLK Celebration, the week’s events will be sponsored by numerous UNC groups, including the Carolina Union Activities Board, Department of Housing and Residential Education, Division of Student Affairs, Student Government, Black Student Movement, Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, UNC Student Stores, Campus Y, Carolina Center for Public Service and the UNC Women’s Center.

For a detailed schedule of events and names and numbers of organizers to call for more information, visit http://www.unc.edu/depts/uaffairs/schedule.html. For general information, call the Office of Minority Affairs at 962-6962.

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Photo note: To download a photo of Cole, visit http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/lecture/cole_johnetta.jpg

Contact: Dr. Archie Ervin, director, UNC Minority Affairs Office, 919-962-6962
News Services contacts: L.J. Toler, print, 919-962-2091; Karen Moon, broadcast, 919-962-8595