by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
As a licensed clinical social worker of long standing, I have to stay constantly focused on earning Continuing Education Units (credits) - also known as CEUs - in order to keep my license renewed and current. Usually that involves time spent in boring classes held in remote or inconvenient locations, or long hours in front of a computer screen taking on-line courses. It is a necessary part of staying current in my professional training that often proves to be tedious and expensive - but not always.
Back in late 2006 when I was plying my trade as a civilian social worker at the army base at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, I came across an opportunity to earn CEU's that was unique in that it held the potential for having a bit of fun as I became educated. The National Association of Social Workers was joining forces with Ms. Magazine and sponsoring a "feminist cruise" across the Caribbean that would offer enough CEUs to meet half of my two-year requirement as well as present an opportunity to interact with some preeminent figures of the feminist movement.
At the time I was working for a civilian contracting agency that offered, as part of its employment package, assistance in paying for CEUs. I called my contractor and asked if that payment could include chipping in on a cruise. To my surprise and delight, the contracting agency kicked in nearly half of the cost for the tropical adventure.
The cruise left from Ft. Lauderdale, made a stop in Key West, and then sailed on southward to Mexico and Central America where we visited ports in Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. There were sightseeing excursions at each of the ports - such as one that I took to a American-owned banana plantation where some of the labor was being performed by children. Most of the "education," however, occurred shipboard while we were at sea. It was there that lectures, programs, and small group sessions were held and social workers who had come along were able to earn their CEU's.
The group was small enough (probably less than 200 total) that it was easy to interact with the celebrities who were in attendance and often directing the educational efforts. The first night of the cruise, at a booze and cheese reception, Eleanor Smeal, a founder of The Feminist Majority and a former president of the National Organization of Women (NOW), came up and introduced herself to me with a cheery "Hi, I'm Ellie Smeal." She was an engaging conversationalist and seemed particularly interested in hearing about life on an army base. Later, at that same event, I took the initiative and introduced myself to Tyne Daly, the actress, and also found her to be personable and engaging.
Other fellow travelers that I remember encountering on that cruise were Dr. Martha Burk (an author who gave a stinging indictment of Walmart), pollster Celinda Lake, and LaDonna Harris whom I had previously met at a campaign stop in 1972 when her husband, former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris, briefly ran for president before being knocked out in the primaries by Jimmy Carter.
But all of those celebrities were just the second string as far as I was concerned. The real star of the whole trip was Dolores Huerta, a civil rights and labor icon whose social protests reached back into the 1950's. Huerta served alongside Cesar Chavez in the struggles to unionize migrant field laborers, and she had been on the stage with Bobby Kennedy in Los Angeles just minutes before he was shot and killed.
Dolores Huerta spoke to one of the workshops about prisoners rights in California. At that time I was working with a foster student whose mother was in prison in California, and Ms. Huerta and I had a discussion about her case. She gave me the names of some people to contact in California - and, more importantly, she expressed a sincere interest in the case. (The mother - actually an adoptive grandmother - was elderly and infirm and was eventually released for humanitarian reasons.)
And the reason I am thinking of Dolores Huerta is that DailyKos has chosen to publish a piece on her today focusing on her continuing activism - at the age of eighty-seven! Dolores is not happy with Trump, and she is livid about his efforts to end DACA. But the seasoned fighter sees some good in with the bad, noting that Trump is serving to fire up progressive activists. She was quoted as saying that she thinks the '60s are back.
I hope she is right. It would be a comfort to realize that something positive has germinated in the terrible time of Trump.
The DailyKos piece ended with this challenge and call to action:
Citizen Journalist
As a licensed clinical social worker of long standing, I have to stay constantly focused on earning Continuing Education Units (credits) - also known as CEUs - in order to keep my license renewed and current. Usually that involves time spent in boring classes held in remote or inconvenient locations, or long hours in front of a computer screen taking on-line courses. It is a necessary part of staying current in my professional training that often proves to be tedious and expensive - but not always.
Back in late 2006 when I was plying my trade as a civilian social worker at the army base at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, I came across an opportunity to earn CEU's that was unique in that it held the potential for having a bit of fun as I became educated. The National Association of Social Workers was joining forces with Ms. Magazine and sponsoring a "feminist cruise" across the Caribbean that would offer enough CEUs to meet half of my two-year requirement as well as present an opportunity to interact with some preeminent figures of the feminist movement.
At the time I was working for a civilian contracting agency that offered, as part of its employment package, assistance in paying for CEUs. I called my contractor and asked if that payment could include chipping in on a cruise. To my surprise and delight, the contracting agency kicked in nearly half of the cost for the tropical adventure.
The cruise left from Ft. Lauderdale, made a stop in Key West, and then sailed on southward to Mexico and Central America where we visited ports in Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. There were sightseeing excursions at each of the ports - such as one that I took to a American-owned banana plantation where some of the labor was being performed by children. Most of the "education," however, occurred shipboard while we were at sea. It was there that lectures, programs, and small group sessions were held and social workers who had come along were able to earn their CEU's.
The group was small enough (probably less than 200 total) that it was easy to interact with the celebrities who were in attendance and often directing the educational efforts. The first night of the cruise, at a booze and cheese reception, Eleanor Smeal, a founder of The Feminist Majority and a former president of the National Organization of Women (NOW), came up and introduced herself to me with a cheery "Hi, I'm Ellie Smeal." She was an engaging conversationalist and seemed particularly interested in hearing about life on an army base. Later, at that same event, I took the initiative and introduced myself to Tyne Daly, the actress, and also found her to be personable and engaging.
Other fellow travelers that I remember encountering on that cruise were Dr. Martha Burk (an author who gave a stinging indictment of Walmart), pollster Celinda Lake, and LaDonna Harris whom I had previously met at a campaign stop in 1972 when her husband, former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris, briefly ran for president before being knocked out in the primaries by Jimmy Carter.
But all of those celebrities were just the second string as far as I was concerned. The real star of the whole trip was Dolores Huerta, a civil rights and labor icon whose social protests reached back into the 1950's. Huerta served alongside Cesar Chavez in the struggles to unionize migrant field laborers, and she had been on the stage with Bobby Kennedy in Los Angeles just minutes before he was shot and killed.
Dolores Huerta spoke to one of the workshops about prisoners rights in California. At that time I was working with a foster student whose mother was in prison in California, and Ms. Huerta and I had a discussion about her case. She gave me the names of some people to contact in California - and, more importantly, she expressed a sincere interest in the case. (The mother - actually an adoptive grandmother - was elderly and infirm and was eventually released for humanitarian reasons.)
And the reason I am thinking of Dolores Huerta is that DailyKos has chosen to publish a piece on her today focusing on her continuing activism - at the age of eighty-seven! Dolores is not happy with Trump, and she is livid about his efforts to end DACA. But the seasoned fighter sees some good in with the bad, noting that Trump is serving to fire up progressive activists. She was quoted as saying that she thinks the '60s are back.
I hope she is right. It would be a comfort to realize that something positive has germinated in the terrible time of Trump.
The DailyKos piece ended with this challenge and call to action:
"May we all find the tenacity and courage to actively organize and fight this battle in whatever ways we can—and may we all channel our own inner Dolores. "That would be a truly worthy goal for any of us. Dolores Huerta is a beacon of tolerance and justice from out past that needs to forever shine into the future.
1 comment:
49 years later and the mention of the assassination of RFK continues to jolt me.
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