Two of the NEA Human and Civil Rights Awards for 2009 were given to retired United Teachers Los Angeles member C. Jerome Woods and San Francisco resident, union and civil rights activist LeRoy King. The program honors individuals and affiliates who stand up and defend human and civil rights.
Woods received the Carter G. Woodson Memorial Award for his efforts to help enrich the lives of students through cultural awareness and the celebration of racial heritage, as well as improving the conditions of their lives and extending the capacity of schools to serve their local and world communities.
NEA writes about Woods, “He knows the importance of preserving cultural memory and revealing it as a way of encouraging personal and racial pride, and he recognizes the value of sharing life and heritage experiences across cultures. As he sees it, not only is it necessary for all people to honor their own heritage, but they need to learn about and respect the racial and cultural heritage of others.”
King was honored with the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award for his work as a union and civil rights activist and neighborhood advocate. “For 60 years he has organized and marched and demonstrated for peace, for human and civil rights, and for the labor movement,” writes NEA. “A year ago, when the teachers and paraprofessionals mounted a demonstration opposing layoffs, a demonstration that had a pink theme to protest ‘pink slips,’ some of the men in the event balked at wearing pink. But LeRoy King showed up for the demonstration and showed all who had eyes to see that real men can wear pink.”
The NEA Human and Civil Rights Awards program honors individuals who have expanded educational opportunities for minority students and educators and improved intergroup relations in the public schools.