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Martin Luther's Month

I call it Martin Luther's month, but actually all of February is African American history month. All races get to talk about, research, and debate the accomplishments of African Americans both dead and living. For a while there I was intent on introducing a new name to the list of eminent black people who had a hand in making our country great and proving that black people can do anything that white people can do. Maybe even do it better.

Her name was Merze Tate, and she was from Michigan. Her parents were farmers who cultivated their 60 government-granted acres and sent their children to school, first in a one-room school house close to their home and then later to schools of higher education. Merze must have been at the very least an accomplished reader because she graduated with honors from a school that tolerated (but didn't welcome) students of the Negro race. And Negro was the term used in Merze's era. She grew up in the 1920s and never missed a day of school despite Michigan's yearly amount of  heavy snow falls. Merze shone as a student, but she also had a prodigious imagination built on the hope she could rise as high as her talents could take her.

After public school Merze went to Central Western Michigan University, and was the first black student to graduate from that college. She wanted to teach, but obstacles were thrown in her way. Eventually she did get a job and even became the advisor for a student travel club. And where was the first place she took the members of the club? To Washington, DC, of course. Merze was interested in how government worked, and she wanted her students to learn citizenship from the best possible source.

Through the years Merze racked up many firsts. She was the first African American to win a scholarship to Oxford University in England, and she attended Radcliffe College, which was synonymous with Harvard. Later she became a history and political science professor at Howard University in Washington, DC, one of the first women to join the faculty. During World War II, many of her students were GIs, and they appreciated all they learned from the young professor who eventually would tour the world as a diplomat for the U.S. State Department.

Merze also wrote books, mainly texts intended for college students, but she was also active in the cause of nuclear disarmament. She was one of the first people to recognize the extreme danger of countries stocking nuclear arsenals. This was after the Hiroshima/Nagasaki holocaust of WWII, when hundreds of Japanese perished after the United States dropped nuclear bombs. While the reason was to end a war that was killing dozens of soldiers every day, no one--not even U.S. scientists in the Manhattan Project, the name for the top secret atom bomb project--realized the longterm effects radiation would have on survivors exposed to the blasts. Not only were many Japanese burned and disfigured by the tremendous heat generated by the bombs, but many died or developed cancer and other serious conditions.

Merze heard many of their stories as she circled the globe and vowed to do her best to put an end to nuclear weaponry. Although she was a pioneer in her actions and philosophy, I don't think she would be happy with the current state of affairs. Since her death many countries have developed the capacity to produce nuclear weaponry. Ironically, the most powerful storehouse of all--the United States--has not only failed in its desire to curtail nuclear arms, but this nation also has yet to curtail its racist attitudes. Merze was quite aware of the prejudice that existed throughout the twentieth century, but she never let it stop her from developing her talents and skills.

Professor Tate is probably best known by those living in her native state of Michigan, but her influence went far beyond those borders. She was an international ambassador for her country.

Before her death Merze recognized that she had one more frontier to cross: space. She wanted to become the first passenger to fly into outer space. I don't know if Merze had a sense of humor, but she certainly had the Puritan work ethic well engrained in her character. What would she say today if she had the opportunity to work in a less discriminatory environment? She might just smile and say, "I knew we could do it."





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