Coloring books featuring Kalamazoo’s Black leaders bring ‘history to life’
Updated Feb 20, 2021;
Posted Feb 20, 2021
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KALAMAZOO, MI A local publishing company has created a book series for children to color in the vibrant history of Kalamazoo’s Black community.
Season Press, run by Sonya Bernard-Hollins and Sean Hollins, has published its second edition in the “Your Turn” coloring book series highlighting Black history-makers in Kalamazoo.
The project started last year during Black History Month out of the Merze Tate Explorers, founded by Bernard-Hollins.
The travel club honors the late Merze Tate, who was the first Black graduate of Western Michigan Teachers College and first Black woman to attend the University of Oxford.
Credit Courtesy of Sonya Bernard-Hollins
Sonya Bernard-Hollins graduated in 1993 from Western Michigan University with a degree in English and journalism. She named her Merze Tate Explorers travel club after a fellow alumna, Merze Tate, who, in 1927, became the first African-American to earn a bachelor’s degree from WMU. The group s members, who are in fourth through 12th grades, are exposed to careers and the world through traveling, meeting trailblazing women and doing multi-media projects.
Tate spoke five languages. She was a world traveler and high-school and college educator in history. Tate would expand her students’ world view by taking them on trips. Bernard-Hollins has authored a children s book about this accomplished woman. She also developed a traveling exhibit about Tate. It debuted at the Michigan Women s Hall of Fame in 2011.
KALAMAZOO, Mich. Loving husband, father, Tuskegee Airman. The words inscribed on
Dr. Hackley Woodford s grave cover just a fraction of the immense impact the Western Michigan University alumnus had on thousands of lives in Southwest Michigan and beyond.
Dr. Hackley Woodford
Born in Kalamazoo in 1914, he spent his childhood performing as a soloist and violinist with his family s band, The Woodford Family Musical, at churches around town. While he was musically gifted, Woodford knew medicine was his calling at a young age. After graduating from Kalamazoo Central High School in 1932, he enrolled at Western State Teachers College now WMU. I received a good foundation in chemistry, biology and psychology, which helped later in my medical career, Woodford said when he was given a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1991. During his time at Western, Woodford helped bring Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity to campus and was the first chapter president. He graduated with a bachelor s degree in 193
February 1, 2021
KALAMAZOO, Mich. Professor. World traveler. Journalist. Inventor. This 20th century renaissance woman may not have made it to the moon, but
Dr. Merze Tate s resolve to boldly blaze her own path puts her among Western Michigan University s brightest stars. Fueled by a thirst for knowledge and boundless ambition, she became the first Black student to receive a bachelor s degree from Western State Teachers College which would later become WMU in 1927. But the road to get there was not easy. She took the limits off herself, as an African American and as a woman, says
Sonya Bernard-Hollins, a Western alumna and founder of the Merze Tate Explorers. She lived her entire life with the attitude that, I m not going to let that stop me. There may be some barriers, I may have to fight through them, but I m not going to let that define me.
Shae O. Omonijo is a first-year graduate student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
One hundred years ago today on January 29, 1921 at Radcliffe College, Dr. Eva Beatrice Dykes successfully submitted her dissertation “Pope and His Influence in America from 1715-1850” to become the first Black woman to complete the requirements for a Ph.D. in the United States. The morning I first saw Dr. Dykes’ dissertation submission for her Doctor of Philosophy in English Philology degree, Harvard announced the closure of campus due to the rising Covid-19 pandemic. Minutes after receiving the email from University President Lawrence S. Bacow, I rushed to Schlesinger Library archives to spend as much time as I could with Dr. Dykes’ Radcliffe records.