La Sierra University special event to celebrate Civil Rights Movement

On Sat., Feb. 7, La Sierra University will celebrate the movement that helped bring about this landmark legislation and the individuals and groups who were so instrumental in the struggle to change the nation’s thinking and its laws, work that continues today.

Titled “A Celebration of the Civil Rights Movement,” the program will be held at 4 p.m., at the La Sierra University Church and will feature civil rights activist Terrence Roberts, one of the famed Little Rock Nine, regional community activists and educators Gloria Macías Harrison and her sister, Marta Macías Brown, and the music of Riverside-based, award-winning gospel choir, Another Peace.

Roberts will address his experiences as part of the Little Rock Nine, a group of students who in the fall of 1957 desegregated Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, a test of the landmark 1954 school desegregation decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. As the first black students to attend this school, and due to the overt racism they faced, the Little Rock Nine and their cause attracted widespread media attention. 

This case is considered one of the main chapters in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and the students viewed as heroes who stood up for their rights for equality in education. In 1999, President Bill Clinton awarded the members of the Little Rock Nine with the Congressional Gold Medal. 

Roberts continued his schooling earning a Ph.D. in psychology at Southern Illinois University. His background includes positions on the faculty and in the administrations of Pacific Union College, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Antioch College. His career has included maintaining a practice in clinical psychology and a Pasadena management-consulting firm. 

Macías Harrison and Macías Brown, San Bernardino natives and lifelong activists, will discuss their background and continuing work in community activism, education and politics, and their experiences creating and growing the “El Chicano” newspaper. It was founded in 1968 under the auspices of the University of California, Riverside, by a group of community leaders from San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Macías Brown was one of two first editors of the volunteer-driven paper which served as a voice and educational platform for the Chicano community. Articles focused on social justice, civil rights, school integration and other issues. It became part of the Chicano Press Association, an organization of like newspapers and newsletters around the country, and served as an organizing tool for voter registration, rallies, meetings and political campaigns.

Macías Brown was also a founding member of the first United Mexican American Student chapter, a precursor to the Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán, or MEChA, at California State University, San Bernardino. MEChA, which sought Chicano empowerment and unity through political action, sprang from the civil rights and Chicano Movement sweeping through Southern California and elsewhere around the country during the 1960s.

Macías Harrison and her husband, Bill Harrison, were active in the Progressive Action League advocating for equal access to education, housing, and employment opportunities. In 1969, “El Chicano” came under independent ownership with Macías Brown as editor, Macías Harrison as publisher and Bill Harrison as its business manager.

Forty-five years later, “El Chicano” publishes weekly along with nine other community weeklies that make up the family publishing business, Inland Empire Community Newspapers. The Harrisons serve as co-publishers while their daughter, Diana, is editor/general manager. 

Macías Brown’s career includes local coordination of the Robert Kennedy campaign, and assistance organizing regional interaction with farm workers’ advocate and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. She taught at community college, and served as press secretary and administrative assistant to the late Congressman George E. Brown, Jr., whom she married in 1989. She is now active in the preservation of her husband’s congressional papers on science and technology, conservation, energy and civil rights through the Brown Legacy Project at the University of California, Riverside.

Macías Harrison, currently a board trustee with the San Bernardino Community College District, served as president of Crafton Hills College for 12 years until 2012. Previously she served as vice president of instruction for six years, and as dean of humanities at San Bernardino Valley College where she taught for 20 years.

The sisters are recipients of many local, state and national awards, including an NAACP award last October for their contributions to the community through “El Chicano” newspaper. Both have served as governor appointees on California commissions and remain advocates for social justice, equity and equality in education, the arts, women’s rights, and energy and conservation issues.

Gospel choir Another Peace was founded at La Sierra University in 1985 by the late Joseff Jones. The choir has been under the direction of La Sierra alum Alan B. Woodson since 1989, and is widely known for its unique sound. The group’s significant events and awards include first prize in the 1986 McDonald’s Gospelfest, a statewide choir competition, and collaboration with many renowned gospel and contemporary Christian artists including Daryl Coley, the L.A. Mass Choir, Edwin and Walter Hawkins, Take Six, Michael O’Brien and Crystal Lewis. Another Peace also served as guest choir for the wedding ceremony of actor celebrities Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, and performed with pop star Chaka Khan for an ABC television sports special. The group’s original arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner” has been performed at Los Angeles Clippers home games and for the Los Angeles Marathon.

In 1990 Another Peace founded Another Peace Ministries Inc. whose mission is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ through music and the creative arts. The group has established music scholarships, prison ministry and homeless outreach programs. Another Peace will celebrate its 30^th anniversary with a special concert in October.

“A Celebration of the Civil Rights Movement” is an Isaac Backus American Freedoms Endowment event. The Florence and Eleanor Backus American Freedoms Endowment was established in 1986 at La Sierra University with a gift from the estate of sisters Florence and Eleanor Backus. The long-time Riverside residents were descendants of Isaac Backus (1724-1806), a leading Baptist preacher, member of the first Continental Congress and a dissenter who fought the imposition of religious taxes and generally championed the cause of religious freedom. Among other things, he published a sermon in 1773 articulating his desire for separation of church and state.

Admission to “A Celebration of the Civil Rights Movement” is free. The La Sierra University Church is located at 4937 Sierra Vista Ave., Riverside. For further information call 951-785-2341.