#ocjuneteenth

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Juneteenth celebration!  The Science Library continues to honor the accomplishments of Oberlin College educated Black medical professionals and scientists past, present and future.

Jé Judson ‘10, PhD candidate in Public Health (Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine), shared her thoughts about our current juncture in time, at the intersection of a pandemic and civil action against police brutality. Thank you, Jé! 

“Right now we’re witnessing the convergence of a novel coronavirus with the chronic nightmare of police brutality. Both disproportionately impact Black people, because at the root of these issues, and many more, is structural racism. Oberlin gave me the language and training to critically examine structures of oppression, and I’ve taken that with me into a field that’s historically focused on changing individual behaviors while not questioning the racism and colonialism embedded in its own practices and methodologies. I’m cautiously optimistic that the tide is turning, but know that we need more people in public health committed to decolonizing their research practices and engaging in anti-racism along every step, starting with themselves as investigators.”

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Freedom on Juneteenth, an original theatrical production from America’s oldest Black producing theatre, debuts on Friday, June 19, 2020 at 7PM EST/4PM PST on social media and streaming platforms.

Rowena Jelliffe, a pioneer in the area of interracial theater, president of the Oberlin Women's Suffrage League, and Oberlin College alumna, together with her husband, Russell Jelliffe (also an Oberlin alumnus), founded a settlement house in 1915 that would later become Karamu House in 1941.  Today,  Friday, June 19, 2020, on Juneteenth, the commemoration of the ending of slavery in America, Karamu House—the country’s oldest African American producing theatre—will debut Freedom on Juneteenth, an original theatrical production and artistic response to the recent murders of Black Americans through music, dance, and spoken word.

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An Allen Work and an Art Book: Willie Cole

You remember works by Willie Cole.

Cole art transforms the shapes of everyday objects.  His two works in the Allen collection use the shape and patterns of irons.  In Proctor Silex (Evidence and Presence) – which fleshed out the Allen's award winning Afterlives of the Black Atlantic – Cole scorches his canvas with patterns evoking slave ships and African masks. The scorched pattern returns in his Man, Spirit, Mask a triptych. 

Proctor Silex (Evidence and Presence)

Willie Cole (1989)

Cole’s influence is evident in the work of Tatana Kellner.  Kellner is a book artist and co-founder of Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY.  

Iron was originally an installation where an automated iron reveals text as it irons out a white dress shirt.  Kellner’s book Iron examines the history of domestic labor and immigration, while the images document the technological progress of ironing appliances (patents included). Printed in invisible ink, the viewer reads the book by ironing the pages. You can see Iron in the Clarence Ward Art Library collection.

Iron

Tatana Kellner [Rosendale, New York]: Women's Studio Workshop, [2008] Clarence Ward Art Library, N7433.4.K456 I76 2008

Want to learn more? 

Anxious objects: Willie Cole's favorite brands

Patterson Sims Montclair, N.J.: Montclair Art Museum, [2006] Clarence Ward Art Library, NB237.C64 A4 2006  

An object maker, musician, poet, and performer, Willie Cole is an artist with remarkably diverse art-making skills and a formidable imagination. Best known for his assemblage, mixed media sculptural works, and prints, Cole liberates and aggrandizes everyday artifacts, including irons, ironing boards, hairdryers, high-heeled shoes, lawn jockeys, bicycle parts, and other discarded domestic appliances and hardware and transforms them into powerful and iconic art works. 

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A Woman to Know: Matilda Arabella Evans, MD.

Dr. Evans attended Oberlin College on a scholarship for nearly four years and left before graduating in 1891 to begin an extraordinary medical career, as seen in the timeline infographic above.  Learn more about the first African American woman licensed to practice medicine in South Carolina, a one-time Obie who made a difference for good.  Celebrate Juneteenth and the liberating force of education. @oberlincollegelibraries

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Kopo Oromeng '18, PhD candidate, shares recollections of OC and POC in STEM

We're celebrating Juneteenth with a look at a few* Black women in science and medicine who began their careers at Oberlin.

(Oromeng at GSA 2019 Conference)

Kopo Oromeng’18 (Economics and Geology)

MS in Hydrology, University of Delaware ’20

PhD candidate in Geography & Spatial Sciences, University of Delaware

At Oberlin

: Oberlin gave me a very wholesome undergrad STEM experience. I learned to be the kind of scientist who interrogated social structures, wrote well, and engaged in community service. As a Bonner Scholar, I spent my time at the Oberlin Public Library working at the children’s desk. My position challenged me to make science fun for pre-k and first graders (which requires a lot of free toys and glitter), but I also noticed that many younger children of color at Oberlin struggled with reading and writing. As a double major in Economics, I took classes in Urban and Development economics along with Geology classes.

Advice

The first time I met a black female geologist was at the

National Association of Black Geoscientists. She was an Obie and would later mentor me over a summer research internship at the University of Arizona. Seeing someone who looked like me excel in a STEM field validated my aspirations. My advice to current Oberlin students is to seek out alumni, connect with us, and we’ll meet you wherever you are because we’ve been there too.

We, of course, need more people of color in STEM now more than ever before. We need Black data and artificial intelligence scientists, physicists, marine biologists, mathematicians, and so many more scientists who can design systems that do not exclude people who look like us, and who will contribute to science that challenges the status quo and changes the way we understand the world.

--contributed by Kopo Oromeng at our invitation, with minor editing

*Please look for the other Black women in science and medicine we will profile this Juneteenth: Matilda A. Evans, MD;  Jé Judson, MPH; Lauren V. Wood, MD; in the Science Library's Instagram,Twitter and posts.  Thank you!

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Gordon Parks & Kendrick Lamar Team Up

Rapper Kendrick Lamar’s music video for ELEMENT – a single off his album DAMN – features beautiful, often haunting imagery drawn from the work of 20th century photographer Gordon Parks. Check it out below!

Gordon Parks (1912-2006), a self-taught, multi-talented artist, was a prolific author, poet, photographer, musician, composer, and filmmaker. 

A famous pioneer among black filmmakers, Parks was the first African American to produce and direct major motion pictures. His films related the experience of slaves, struggling black Americans, and he created the "blaxploitation" genre.  His is best known as the director of the 1971 film Shaft.

Parks was also the first African American photographer to work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and for the Office of War Information (OWI), as well as for Life and Vogue magazines.  He is best remembered for his iconic photos of poor Americans during the 1940s, and for his photographic essays for Life magazine. The themes of civil rights, poverty, and the experience of Black Americans are found throughout his work. 

The following portraits taken by Parks are referenced in the ELEMENT. video.

Boy with June Bug, 1963

Ethel Shariff in Chicago, 1963

Untitled, 1956

The Allen Memorial Art Museum has a photograph by Gordan Parks:

Portrait of a Workman, Ben Wright. 1944

Want to learn more?  Check out the many books about Gordon Parks in the Oberlin College Libraries.

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Dr. Lauren V. Wood, Chief Medical Officer, PDS Biotechnology, graduated from Oberlin College in 1980.

We are happy to profile Oberlin alumna Dr. Wood as we celebrate Juneteenth.  Dr. Wood worked with Dr. Anthony Fauci early in her career, investigating HIV-specific cellular and humoral immune responses.  Along the way, she became a captain in the U.S. Public Health Services Commissioned Corps and was a researcher in the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  A bit of advice from Dr. Wood to those contemplating their career path: “If you want to see miserable people in  life, look at the people who didn’t pursue what was really in their hearts to do.” [video from NIH].  @oberlincollegelibraries