Sonia Pierre

Solange, better known as Sonia, Pierre was born in Villa Altagracia, San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic, in 1963 to parents of Haitian origin. Her mother migrated with a temporary work permit in 1957, and her father entered the Dominican territory illegally. Both her parents worked as sugar cane cutters.

One of twelve children, she was raised in a migrant worker camp called a batey or a “village slum”, where many of the Dominican Republic's people of Haitian descent (Dominico-Haitians) live. The minority of Dominican-born ethnic Haitians, between 500,000 and a million live in the Dominican Republic, live in bateyes. Most of those born in the Dominican Republic are descendants of Haitians who crossed the border fleeing violence or seeking economic opportunity

Pierre’s career as a human rights activist started at the early age of 13. At 13, she organised a five-day protest by sugar cane workers on one of the country's bateyes, which led to her being arrested and threatened with deportation. However, the protest attracted enough public attention that the workers' demands—namely, to have their living quarters painted and be given better tools and pay raises—were met.

Since then, Pierre fought to secure citizenship and education for the beleaguered Dominico-Haitians. In 1963, Pierre founded and worked as director of the NGO, Movement for Dominican Women of Haitian Descent (MUDHA). MUDHA endeavours to end antihaitianismo or discrimination against Haitians in the Dominican Republic. MUDHA seeks to give visibility and address the needs of Dominico-Haitian and Haitian women, with and for whom the organisation began to develop primary health care, family planning services and educational programs in state neglected bateyes. Pierre and MUDHA’s “thinking on social exclusion has been intersectional from the start, paying attention to the ways in which gender and age make certain groups of Haitian migrants and their descendants even more vulnerable than others. Their analysis and corresponding action over the years has led them to focus on women, children, the elderly, and entire batey communities who are excluded from public services because the Dominican State does not recognize them as citizens, much less rights holders.”

In 2005, Pierre petitioned at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the case of two ethnic Haitian children who were denied Dominican birth certificates. Called Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic, the case "upheld human rights laws prohibiting racial discrimination in access to nationality and citizenship." The court also ordered the Dominican government to provide the birth certificates. However, the Dominican Supreme Court later ruled that "Haitian workers were considered 'in transit,' and that their children were therefore not entitled to citizenship."

The situation is even graver today, following the highly criticised September 23, 2013 ruling of the Dominican Constitutional court which, in practice, deprives many people of foreign descent of their Dominican nationality, making them stateless. It is to be applied retroactively to all those born to parents with irregular migratory status since 1929, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands, mostly Dominicans of Haitian descent.

For her work, Pierre won the 2006 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award handed down by former US Senator Edward Kennedy. In presenting the award to Pierre, Senator Kennedy quoted a long-time friend of hers who said: "I am a better person today for having met, worked, and travelled this road with Sonia Pierre. With certitude, I can affirm that Sonia is one of the most selfless, courageous and compassionate human beings of my generation.” When she received her award, Pierre denounced what she said were "massive abuses" against people of Haitian descent, particularly children.

Pierre also won Amnesty International's 2003 Human Rights Ginetta Sagan Fund Award, and she and MUDHA were nominated for the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education in 2002. In 2008, she was awarded the Giuseppe Motta Medal for protection of human rights, and in 2010, she was also honoured by the United States Department of State with a International Women of Courage Award.

However, her work as a human rights activist was not entirely admired by many, especially Dominican nationalists. Pierre was once chased out of her Santo Domingo office by a man waving a pistol. She was also punched at a stop light by another man who told her, "I know who you are."

On December 4, 2011, In the midst of fighting for the Constitutional Court to grant Dominico—Haitians citizenship, Pierre had a heart attack, and died, at the age of 48. Pierre is survived by three children.

Edwin Paraison, Executive Director of the Zile Foundation, a Haitian group that attempts to improve relations between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, said, "She was like a sister to me. The Haitian community has lost someone who was a huge advocate in the fight for Haitian rights."

Throughout her life, Pierre insisted she was trying to help her people and not criticise the Dominican Republic. "I am not a critic of my country, and this is my country," she said. "I am a critic of my government."

Sources:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/sonia-pierre-human-rights-activist-6272657.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/20/sonia-pierre-obituary

http://mudhaong.org/en/la-lider-sonia-pierre/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Pierre

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King was one of the most influential women leaders in our world. Prepared by her family, education, and personality for a life committed to social justice and peace, she entered the world stage in 1955 as wife of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and as a leading participant in the American Civil Rights Movement. Her remarkable partnership with Dr. King resulted not only in four children, who became dedicated to carrying forward their parent’s work, but also in a life devoted to the highest values of human dignity in service to social change. Mrs. King traveled throughout the world speaking out on behalf of racial and economic justice, women’s and children’s rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, full-employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and environmental justice. She lent her support to pro-democracy movements world-wide and consulted with many world leaders, including Corazon Aquino, Kenneth Kaunda, and Nelson Mandela.

Born and raised in Marion, Alabama, Coretta Scott graduated valedictorian from Lincoln High School. She received a B.A. in music and education from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and then went on to study concert singing at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, where she earned a degree in voice and violin. While in Boston she met Martin Luther King, Jr. who was then studying for his doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University. They were married on June 18, 1953, and in September 1954 took up residence in Montgomery, Alabama, with Coretta Scott King assuming the many responsibilities of pastor’s wife at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. 

During Dr. King’s career, Mrs. King devoted most of her time to raising their four children: Yolanda Denise (1955), Martin Luther, III (1957), Dexter Scott (1961), and Bernice Albertine (1963). From the earliest days, however, she balanced mothering and Movement work, speaking before church, civic, college, fraternal and peace groups. She conceived and performed a series of favorably-reviewed Freedom Concerts which combined prose and poetry narration with musical selections and functioned as significant fundraisers for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the direct action organization of which Dr. King served as first president. In 1957, she and Dr. King journeyed to Ghana to mark that country’s independence. In 1958, they spent a belated honeymoon in Mexico, where they observed first-hand the immense gulf between extreme wealth and extreme poverty. In 1959, Dr. and Mrs. King spent nearly a month in India on a pilgrimage to disciples and sites associated with Mahatma Gandhi. In 1964, she accompanied him to Oslo, Norway, where he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Even prior to her husband’s public stand against the Vietnam War in 1967, Mrs. King functioned as liaison to peace and justice organizations, and as mediator to public officials on behalf of the unheard.

After her husband’s assassination in 1968, Mrs. King founded and devoted great energy and commitment to building and developing programs for the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to her husband’s life and dream. Situated in the Freedom Hall complex encircling Dr. King’s tomb, The King Center is today located inside of a 23-acre national historic park which includes his birth home, and which hosts over one million visitors a year.

As founding President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer, she dedicated herself to providing local, national and international programs that have trained tens of thousands of people in Dr. King’s philosophy and methods; she guided the creation and housing of the largest archives of documents from the Civil Rights Movement; and, perhaps her greatest legacy after establishing The King Center itself, Mrs. King spearheaded the massive educational and lobbying campaign to establish Dr. King’s birthday as a national holiday. In 1983, an act of Congress instituted the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission, which she chaired for its duration. And in January 1986, Mrs. King oversaw the first legal holiday in honor of her husband–a holiday which has come to be celebrated by millions of people world-wide and, in some form, in over 100 countries.

Coretta Scott King tirelessly carried the message of nonviolence and the dream of the beloved community to almost every corner of our nation and globe. She led goodwill missions to many countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia. She spoke at many of history’s most massive peace and justice rallies. She served as a Women’s Strike for Peace delegate to the seventeen-nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in 1962. She was the first woman to deliver the class day address at Harvard, and the first woman to preach at a statutory service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

A life-long advocate of interracial coalitions, in 1974 Mrs. King formed a broad coalition of over 100 religious, labor, business, civil and women’s rights organizations dedicated to a national policy of full employment and equal economic opportunity, as Co-Chair of both the National Committee for Full Employment and the Full Employment Action Council. In 1983, she brought together more than 800 human rights organizations to form the Coalition of Conscience, sponsors of the 20th Anniversary March on Washington, until then the largest demonstration ever held in our nation’s capital. In 1987, she helped lead a national Mobilization Against Fear and Intimidation in Forsyth County, Georgia. In 1988, she re-convened the Coalition of Conscience for the 25th anniversary of the March on Washington. In preparation for the Reagan-Gorbachev talks, in 1988 she served as head of the U.S. delegation of Women for a Meaningful Summit in Athens, Greece; and in 1990, as the USSR was redefining itself, Mrs. King was co-convener of the Soviet-American Women’s Summit in Washington, DC.

In 1985 Mrs. King and three of her children, Yolanda, Martin III and Bernice were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, DC, for protesting against apartheid. 

One of the most influential African-American leaders of her time, Mrs. King received honorary doctorates from over 60 colleges and universities; authored three books and a nationally-syndicated newspaper column; and served on and helped found dozens of organizations, including the Black Leadership Forum, the National Black Coalition for Voter Participation, and the Black Leadership Roundtable.

During her lifetime, Mrs. King dialogued with heads of state, including prime ministers and presidents, as well as participating in protests alongside rank and file working people of all races. She met with many great spiritual leaders, including Pope John Paul, the Dalai Lama, Dorothy Day, and Bishop Desmond Tutu. She witnessed the historic handshake between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Yassir Arafat at the signing of the Middle East Peace Accords. She stood with Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg when he became South Africa’s first democratically-elected president. A woman of wisdom, compassion and vision, Coretta Scott King tried to make ours a better world and, in the process, made history. 

Mrs. King died in 2006. A few days after her death, thousands of Atlantans stood in line in the pouring sleet to pay their respects to her at a viewing in Ebenezer Baptist Church. She is today interred alongside her husband in a memorial crypt in the reflecting pool of The King Center’s Freedom Hall Complex, visited by hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world year-round. The inscription on the crypt memorializing her life of service is from I Corinthians 13:13 –“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Coretta Scott King's biography was taken and can be found at http://www.thekingcenter.org/about-mrs-king 

Friday Feature March Edition

There are numerous celebrations taking place in the month of March; two of them being International Women’s Day and Human Rights Day in South Africa. In light of this, this month’s Friday Feature will look at human rights activists who are women of the African Diaspora. Last week, we featured activist, Faith Bandler and this week we take a look at the life and work of Coretta Scott King. 

The Second Instalment of the Steve Biko Lectures in Philosophy

Join the Steve Biko Foundation at the Steve Biko Lectures in Philosophy on the 8th of March 2016.

The Steve Biko Lectures in Philosophy

The Steve Biko Lectures in Philosophy

March 2015 -November 2016

“We believe that in the long run the special contribution to the world by Africa will be in this field of human relationships. The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa – giving the world a more human face.” 

-Steve Biko, Some African Cultural Concepts 

The dehumanizing effects of the South African apartheid regime offered Steve Biko a privileged insight into the general working of the project of Western modernity and of its uncompromising colonial expansion – a colonization of ideas, bodies, and territories – since the 17th century. 

The modernization of Western economic and political structures, the rise of individualism and of the principles of negative liberty brought in their wake the loss of the authority of tradition and of its substantive values.This has led authors such as Hegel, Marx, Arendt, Habermas, McIntyre and Deleuze to think of alternative possibilities of human relationships that transcend the terms set by the model of the self-interested and calculating subject. Biko’s call for the humanization of the oppressed also targeted the notion of the liberal subject.Inspired by the ethical notion of Ubuntu, meaning that “one should become more human by communing with other human beings”, this humanization would offer the world a new way of thinking about human relationships, a new kind of Sittlichkeit. 

The aim of this lecture series is to continue this interrogation and critique of modernity from the epistemic standpoint that Steve Biko’s life and thought represents and symbolizes. This is a standpoint that is at once developed inside the hierarchy of the system, colonized by its norms, and yet formulates a perspective outside of it as the oppressed other. 

Our six invited speakers will address themes that have a direct bearing on the political and cultural situation that a post-colonial and post-apartheid society such as South Africa tends to find itself in, a situation that is exceptionalfor casting light on the limits of the project of modernity.Our speakers will address issues including the nature of political subjectivity, tradition, and community; liberalism, politics, and religion; memory, forgiveness and trauma;the constitution of personal, racial, cultural and political identities; the rationalization of society and technological progress; and the discourse of humanism, agency and empowerment. 

Our six speakers will be engaging on these themes with leading scholars based in South African institutions, with an exchange between characteristically sub-Saharan and Continental perspectives. 

Lecture series organized by the Centre for Phenomenology in South Africa, the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, the French Institute of South Africa and with the support of the Steve Biko Foundation.

   

Faith Bandler

A leading campaigner for Aboriginal rights from the 1950s through the 1980s, Faith Bandler was the daughter of Pacific Islander, Peter Mussing, brought to Queensland from the island of Ambrym in the then New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and an Australian-born mother, Ida Venno, of Indian-Scottish descent, who taught her the importance of education, self respect and elegant dress.

Bandler was born in 1918, one of eight children and raised in the small community of Tumbulgum in northern New South Wales and later Murwillumbah, where she attended high school. The schoolyard was the site of harassment and racial abuse.

In her adult life, Bandler became best known as the charismatic speaker and broadcaster, who advocated a 'Yes' vote in the 1967 referendum, which was overwhelmingly successful, with more than 90 per cent of Australians agreeing to end constitutional discrimination against Indigenous peoples. 

Her father was taken as a boy in 1883 from Biap, on the island of AMbrym. His kidnapping was part of 'blackbirding', the practice which brought cheap labour to help establish the Austrailian sugar industry. He was later known as Peter Mussing, a lay preacher and worked on a banana plantation outside Murwillumbah. However, Bandler's father died when she was just five years old. 

Bandler's childhood memories of her father's stories became the basis of her first novel, Wacvie, published in 1977. Her second novel Welou: My Brother documents, as the title suggests, her brother Walter's life growing up in Australia as a boy torn between two different cultures. It was published in 1984.

The Mussing children understood their father's situation in terms of the well known narrative of American slavery. They were inspired in their political campaigns for freedom from the racial discrimination they experienced in the local cinemas, hotels and shops, by the American publications of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People ( NAACP) and by the songs of Paul Robeson, which Bandler also heard when she didn't attend school one day to see the legendary film, Showboat, in the local picture theatre. As a young adult, Bandler would drive her car to Sydney airport to meet Robeson on his first trip to Australia in 1960.

Thirty years later, when Bandler left the north coast to live in Sydney, and joined, on the outbreak of war, the Australian Women's Land Army and worked in rural New South Wales picking cherries. Here she had her first taste of independence and modern urban life. After the war she became involved in the left wing pacifist circles of King's Cross, leading to her participation in the Margaret Walker Dance Group and a trip to the International Youth Congress in Berlin, in 1951. There she was the leading performer in the so-called 'The Dance of the Aboriginal Girl', based on a poem about racial discrimination in the South of the United States called 'The Merry Go Round' by the popular Harlem Renaissance writer, Langston Hughes. 

After her return from Europe, Bandler met her future husband Hans Bandler through their shared love of classical music. Hans Bandler was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who had been incarcerated in Dachau and Buchenwald before escaping to the United Kingdom and then Australia. They married in 1952 and their daughter Lilon was born in 1954. 

Working with the Australian Peace Council, Bandler met the courageous Aboriginal activist, Pearl Gibbs, with whom she formed, in 1956, the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship, which played a key role in launching in 1957 at the Sydney Town Hall, the petition campaign to the federal government requesting a referendum on the sections of the constitution that discriminated against Aborigines. The ten year mobilisation that ensued, for which Bandler provided tireless leadership was just as important to achieving the vital amendments to the constitution as was the referendum vote in 1967.

At the same time Bandler became involved with the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), formed in 1958, with which the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship was affiliated. 

In the 1970s Bandler turned to an investigation of the history of her father's people and the role of South Sea Islanders, as they were then termed, in developing the north of Queensland and in particular the sugar industry. She embarked on a trip to Vanuatu and met up with her father's relatives. She also documented their lives and exploitative experience at the hands of traffickers in labour and the sugar cane growers. She became an active member of the Women's Electoral Lobby after it was founded in 1972.

By the 1970s, Bandler was a much loved public figure, who testified to the long history of racist oppression in Australia, provided an example of courage and grace in overcoming racism and serving as a moral beacon to the cause of social justice, human rights and equal opportunity for all.

She received numerous awards and honours. In testament to her moral leadership of the nation she was awarded the Human Rights Medal from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission in 1997. In 2000, Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace prize winner and former President of South Africa presented Bandler on behalf of the Sydney Peace Foundation, with a 'Meritorious Award in Honour and Gratitude for a Life of Courageous Advocacy for Justice and for Indigenous People, for Human Rights, for Love and Reconciliation'. In 2009, Faith was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest honour by Governor General Quentin Bryce In 2009.

Hans passed on, and at the age of 96 in February 2015, Bandler died. 

Bandler's published works include: 

·        Bandler, Faith (1977). Wacvie. Adelaide: Rigby. 

·        Bandler, Faith; Fox, Len (1980). Marani in Australia. Adelaide: Rigby. 

·        Bandler, Faith; Fox, Len (editors) (1983). The Time was Ripe: A History of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship. Chippendale: Alternative Publishing Cooperative.

·        Bandler, Faith (1984). Welou, My Brother. Glebe: Wild & Woolley. 

·        Bandler, Faith (1989). Turning the tide : a personal history of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. 

Sources: 

http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0231b.htm 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Bandler