California University’s Jones honored at NAACP Banquet; Burley delivers keynote address
Lauded for her lifelong dedication to public education, California University of Pennsylvania president Geraldine M. Jones, was honored by the NAACP Washington Branch at its 59th annual Human Rights Award banquet Friday.
Jones accepted the 2019 Human Rights Award at the ceremony, held at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Meadow Lands, as family, colleagues and friends stood and applauded.
Jones, who graduated from Brownsville High School and earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from California State College, thanked the NAACP for strongly supporting public education.
During her acceptance, Jones reflected on the impact public education has had on her life.
“Education has been the focus of my professional life for more than four decades and I have seen first hand the countless ways a public education can change lives, including my own,” said Jones. “California has shaped me as a student, as an educator and as an administrator. It has introduced me to profound ideas and unforgettable people from all walks of life.”
Jones said the university is a place of opportunity for men and women who aspire to a better life.
She said she reminds students of the lesson her parents taught her: they can do anything if they set clear goals and work hard to achieve them.
Jones, a former elementary teacher, is the first woman and the first person of color to serve as president of California University.
Jones led the university as acting and interim president for about four years before she was tapped as California’s seventh president in October 2016.
More than 250 attendees also heard an address by keynote speaker Dr. Ulysses W. Burley III, physician and founder of UBtheCURE, which addresses social justice and human rights issues including HIV/AIDS.
Burley recounted the powerful story of his life, beginning when he was 10 years old and lost his mother to breast cancer at the age of 42.
Driven to become a doctor and find a cure for cancer, Burley’s life was transformed following his second year in medical school when he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for a one-year clinical fellowship and ended up treating HIV patients instead of cancer patients.
“It wasn’t my plan, but I made the most of it,” said Burley. “It quickly became clear I was treating a disease. Every patient had a story behind their diagnosis, be it substance abuse, survival sex work, family abandonment, or governmental failure. I realized no matter how much medical care we provided in the hospital, those people would always be sent back into a world that did not provide adequate human care for them.”
Burley, who stepped in at the last minute to replace original keynote speaker Bakari Sellers, used his remarks to focus on human rights, and the responsibility every person has to fight for the human rights of others and touted the importance of activism.
Burley believes the greatest threats to human rights are racism, lack of access to health care, and climate change.
“We haven’t been good stewards of this Garden of Eden, and I fear we are approaching the point of no return if we don’t act fast,” said Burley. “Our brothers and sisters in low-income countries … suffer the worst, and herein lies the human rights violation. We must believe that we are bound by the oppression of our other brothers and sisters who are suffering, and that our liberation is bound with theirs as well.”
He compared society to a “moving walkway toward oppression” and encouraged people to “turn around and run in the opposite direction.”
“If we want to change society, we can’t just stand still and yell at our oppressors running toward an unjust society,” said Burley, who made national news when he resigned from the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. “We must ourselves continue to change our direction, go against the grain, and hopefully bring some folks with us. It’s the work that classifies us as activists. Be blessed. Be encouraged. You be the cure.”