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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 2003

News Release

NEA Announces Human & Civil Rights Award Winners for 2003  

Washington, DC - One dozen educators, public servants, and activists who have tirelessly fought to promote social justice and dignity for all will be honored by more than 2,000 educators at the National Education Association's 37th annual Human and Civil Rights Awards dinner on Wednesday, July 2 in New Orleans. 

Reg Weaver, president of the 2.7 million member National Education Association (NEA), will lead the celebration.   The dinner, an event that is held each year prior to the NEA's annual meeting will honor two Members of Congress, a well-known children's author, and several other individuals. They are being recognized for reaching out to all social, racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds, spanning the globe from the rural communities of the Deep South to predominantly Hispanic cities in the West, from the snowcaps of Alaska to the warm seas of the Pacific Islands.  

Each award is named after a prominent human and civil rights leader, and this year's esteemed honorees are: 

Representative Bob Filner, Calif., (Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Award). Congressman Bob Filner showed a deep commitment to civil rights early on in life. First organizing his high school classmates to join the original Youth Civil Rights March on Washington in 1957, Filner then spent two months in a Mississippi penitentiary as one of the 300 or so "Freedom Riders," who traveled to Alabama and Mississippi to fight for integration in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Filner studied at the feet of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., worked for civil rights champions Eugene McCarthy and Hubert H. Humphrey, and won his first Congressional seat in 1993. In his ten years in Congress, Filner has championed causes large and small. He fought to restore equity to Filipino World War II veterans who were drafted into service and then stripped of their veteran benefits at the conclusion of the war.  Filner's commitment to civil rights is evident through his many efforts to open dialogues between Jewish and African-American students in his district and in his fierce battles with insurance companies to prohibit them from dropping policies with black churches due to fear of arson.   A white man representing a district less than 20 percent Anglo, Filner's commitment to civil rights is clearly appreciated by his constituents. 

Gary Watts and Millie Watts, Provo, Utah (Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights). Born, raised, and married in Utah as ardent Mormons, the last role Gary and Millie Watts expected to play in their senior years was that of gay activists. But when two of their six children "came out," the Watts were faced with a dilemma: love for their children versus love for their church, which views homosexuality as an unacceptable personal choice. After educating themselves about homosexuality, the Wattses made it their life's mission to share their new knowledge with the Mormon Church and local elected officials. They also created Family Fellowship, a volunteer organization focused on strengthening families with homosexual members. Gary is also a national board member of the nationally known group, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

Elliot B. Palmer and Juanita B. Palmer, Raleigh, N.C. (Carter G. Woodson Memorial Award). George Washington Carver's peanut butter jars and mementos of the legendary black cowboy Bill Pickett are just a few of the treasures visitors to the African American Cultural Complex (AACC) enjoy.  Co-founded by Elliot and Juanita Palmer in 1984, the AACC is a resource trove of documents and artifacts illustrating the legacy of African-Americans in the United States, with the Palmers serving as live-in curators, greeting visitors at their front door, and beginning tours in their living room. Their three-acre complex in Raleigh, N.C., is the culmination of their decades-long careers as educators and early fighters in the battles for desegregation. Last year alone, the AACC reached more than 1,200 schools with its educational programs.

Art Torres, Los Angeles, Calif. (George I. Sánchez Memorial Award). Former State Senator Art Torres's commitment to public service began over 30 years ago when he worked in the fields with César Chávez for the farm worker's wage of $1.50 per day. The difference was that Torres worked as a lawyer, helping to write the United Farm Workers Constitution. The experience led Torres to spend 20 years in the California State Legislature-eight in the state assembly and 12 as state senator-during which time he organized a demonstration at the 1972 Democratic National Convention that led to the inclusion of boycott language in the national party platform.  Known as a master consensus builder, Senator Torres promotes action informed by dialogue, inclusion, and diversity. 

Barbara Williams and the student cast and crew of The Laramie Project, Newark, Calif. (SuAnne Big Crow Memorial Award). When Barbara Williams, a drama teacher at California's Newark Memorial High School, decided to stage The Laramie Project in the fall of 2002, she knew there would be controversy. The play details the brutal 1998 murder of a gay university student, Matthew Shephard, in Laramie, Wyo. Williams knew that many leaders in the traditional suburban community would be outraged by the subject matter. She and the student cast and crew continued undaunted, until a 17-year-old transgendered student from a nearby high school was found beaten and strangled. The climate in the community snapped: the rhetoric of hate escalated and some parents and local leaders recoiled. Intent on delivering the play's message of tolerance and acceptance, Williams and her students worked through their grief and courageously crafted an epilogue for the play that turned a horrific event into an opportunity to educate the community.

Joseph Bruchac, Greenfield, N.Y. (Author-Illustrator Human and Civil Rights Award). When American Indian storyteller and writer Joseph Bruchac was in college, his writing teacher urged him to give up because he "would never be able to write a good poem."  Obviously proving his naysayers wrong, Bruchac is now one of the premier figures in children's literature, with over 70 books in print and with poems, articles and stories appearing in over 500 publications, including Cricket, National Geographic, and Smithsonian Magazine. His recent book Navajo Long Walk (2002) depicts the forced relocation of the Navajo people from their homelands in what is now Arizona to the Bosque Redondo Reservation in the New Mexico Territory between 1863 and 1865. Bruchac has long been recognized as a gifted individual unafraid to tackle the human rights struggle and the preservation of the Abenaki (the New England tribes of his ancestors) and other Native American cultures.

Byron Mallott, Juneau, Alaska (Leo Reano Memorial Award). Elected mayor of Yakutat in Southeast Alaska at the age of 22, Byron Mallott took to heart the charges given him by his elder Native leaders: preserve the land for future generations and educate the children. Throughout the years, Mallott has conscientiously worked to achieve both goals. As president and CEO of the First Alaskans Institute, Mallott presides over an organization that provides funding to augment the scholarship funds of 13 regional Native corporations.  The institute is also responsible for a program that creates more than 850 training, education, and employment opportunities for Alaska Natives. Central to Mallott's philosophy is the belief that for Native people, education should connect current generations to their history - a foundation that will then serve as a springboard from which they may take hold of the future.

Leonard H. Wesley, Jr., Wichita, Kan. (H. Council Trenholm Memorial Award-Black). A fixture in the Wichita public school system for 37 years, Dr. Leonard H. Wesley, Jr. started out as a 5th and 6th-grade teacher. He was eventually appointed school principal, becoming the first African-American administrator hired under Wichita's desegregation plan. Dr. Wesley spent much of his career promoting diversity and eliminating inequities in schools, establishing alternative education programs for minority and disadvantaged students as director of elementary education and as assistant superintendent for desegregation/integration. His relentless service has not gone unrecognized; he received the United Teachers of Wichita "Friend of Education" Award in 2001, and was named the Wichita Branch NAACP "Man of the Year" in 2002. Today, he continues to work toward the goal of creating equitable schools for all students.

Jean Mitsuko (Togo) Dobashi, Kauai, Hawaii (Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Award). Through tireless efforts in and out of the classroom, Dobashi, a teacher at Kaua'i High School, has done a great deal to increase understanding of and appreciation for the rich heritage of Asian and Pacific Islanders.  A seasoned educator and world traveler, Dobashi has promoted cultural understanding through training sessions and conferences held in the Pacific Islands and Japan. Dedicated to promoting literacy, she has enlisted the help of parents and the community to help her students become better readers.  A well-loved teacher who was Hawaii's Teacher of the Year in 1983, Dobashi was named to "Who's Who Among America's Teachers."

Linda Pondexter-Chesterfield, Little Rock, Ark. (Mary Hatwood Futrell Award). A trailblazer for women and African Americans, Linda Pondexter-Chesterfield has effected change in nearly all parts of the political and educational arenas. As a newly elected State Representative of Arkansas, she has also worked as a writer and spokesperson for numerous Democratic candidates and is a registered lobbyist for the State Association of Arkansas. A powerful role model, Pondexter-Chesterfield was the first African-American to graduate from Hendrix College, a small liberal arts college in Conway, Ark., where she was instrumental in the establishment of a Black History and Cultural Organization.

Dick Molpus, Jackson, Miss. (H. Council Trenholm Memorial Award-Non-Black). Dick Molpus has enjoyed a variety of professional successes throughout his career, from serving as secretary of state for Mississippi to his current role as president of the Molpus Group, a prominent timberland investment management organization. But perhaps his most enduring achievement came in 1991, when he and his wife, Sally, co-founded Parents for Public Schools, a national organization that works to improve public education at the community level.  PPS now boasts chapters in 53 cities and 22 states. Today, the organization encourages middle-class parents of all races to enroll their children in neighborhood public schools, and in doing so has helped bridge racial divides by focusing on the common cause of educating children.

U.S. Representative Hilda L. Solis, San Gabriel Valley, Calif. (César Chávez Acción y Compromiso Human and Civil Rights Award). Waging uphill battles against corporations, anti-environmental groups, and even her own state senate, U. S. Representative Hilda L. Solis (D-Ca.) has been a tireless fighter for social and environmental justice. As a state senator, Solis introduced legislation to increase California's minimum wage and did not give up when the bill was defeated. Instead, she worked with labor groups and used her own campaign funds to organize a statewide ballot initiative, which passed, increasing the minimum from $4.25 to $5.75.  Today, as a member of the U.S. Congress, Solis fights to maintain the legacy of César Chávez and the farm worker movement through her introduction of the César Chávez Lands Legacy Act, which will allow the National Park Service to erect historical markers throughout the West memorializing the saga of the farm workers. A member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Solis cites improving public education and promoting the protection of the environment as her top priorities. 

Joyce A. Kelen and Leslie G. Kelen, Salt Lake City, Utah, (Applegate-Dorros Peace and International Understanding Award). The husband and wife team of Leslie and Joyce Kelen have spent the past 20 years commemorating in words and pictures the lives and stories of thousands of immigrants who have come to America. Leslie, the son of Holocaust survivors, founded the Oral History Institute in 1983, a nonprofit organization devoted to documenting the lives of ethnic minorities in his home state of Utah. Joyce, a partner in the Institute, has been instrumental in developing programs for educating minority and refugee children.

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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing 2.7 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.