By Willie Burnley Jr., Staff Writer, Emerson College
Feminism saved the life of Kelly Bates. She sits across from me in her office on the tenth floor of Walker and tells me this not as an overinflation of its exaggeration, but as a survivor of severe physical and emotional abuse. I knew none of this, though, when the new executive director of Emerson’s Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research greeted me at her door with a smile.
Feminism saved the life of Kelly Bates. She sits across from me in her office on the tenth floor of Walker and tells me this not as an overinflation of its exaggeration, but as a survivor of severe physical and emotional abuse. I knew none of this, though, when the new executive director of Emerson’s Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research greeted me at her door with a smile.
“The goal,” she tells me, as we began to talk about the purpose behind the newly opened institute, “is to really use our frames as artists and communicators to bring to bear on social change and to figure out ways we can use our strengths and skills to help the community in a variety of ways.”
The goal is an ambitious one. As we talk, Kelly tells me of her plans to utilize the center as something of an institutionalized megaphone and helping hand to begin conversations about the issues facing the Boston community as well as to partner with schools in the area. In the latter regard, she pays homage to the Emerson graduate for whom the center is named after.
Graduating among few women of color in 1943, Elma Lewis became an arts educator who tirelessly helped cultivate the artistic sensibilities of black youth in the Boston area through the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts. Her selfless work would gain her national distinction and over 400 awards by the time she died in 2004, including the Presidential Medal for the Arts in 1983. It is clear that Lewis’ legacy exists on in the center and influences the impact that Bates wants to have moving forward.
“Because Elma Lewis was an arts educator, she was a black women who was insistent and unapologetic about educating black children about the arts,” she tells me adamantly. “I want us to be more strategic about which schools we partner with: I want them to be higher need, I want them to be black and brown children and low-income children who often don’t have access to the arts and communications.”
Kelly has experience developing partnerships between organizations. Right after graduating from Boston University Law School, she went to run The Women’s Statewide Legislative Network in which she brought together fifty diverse women’s organizations from across Massachusetts and helped them build a common women’s agenda in terms of policy. Due to this kind of work, in the mid-90s, Massachusetts passed a law requiring companies and organizations to have policies against sexual harassment and to train individuals on the subject.
It was in college, at the State University of New York at Albany, where Kelly Bates fell in love and entered into her first serious relationship. As the relationship developed, he eventually became physically and emotionally abusive to the point that she thinks she would not be alive today if she had stayed with him. At the time, though, there was a disconnect for her between the issue of domestic violence and what was happening in her life. It took her residence hall director inviting her to a feminism course before she was able to realize the situation that she, and many other women, were in. Through the help of conscious-raising groups where she was able to meet one-on-one with members and talk about her daily life, she gained the courage to leave her abuser.
It is at this point that I realize the story of the Elma Lewis Center is not simply one of an institution flexing its resources in the community and that it was is instead one of women, especially of color. It is a human story of the empowerment of people, influenced by the struggles of their experience, and trying to go out into the world to make a change for the better. Elma Lewis dedicated her life to the education of underserved, black children, during a time when she could not be expected to vote in many parts of country. Kelly Bates took her experiences and used them to grow as a leader, trying to serve the interest of those communities who need it the most, to such an extent that she was recently honored for her pro bono work with the 2013 Victor J. Garo Public Service Award by BU Law. Most importantly, the center seeks to inspire the same amount of leadership and passion within the community.
“We’re going to be building relationships with everyone from... Chinatown to Roxbury to the Statehouse to other academic institutions,” Bates tells me, after I ask her about the importance of diversity and inclusion, “and having a competency around diversity helps you to do that very, very effectively.” She is ever- cognizant of whose work this center is in remembrance of, saying that she thinks “we need that voice of [Elma Lewis] to continue in the work that we do in terms of lifting up communities that typically don’t have a voice or as big a role as they should in arts and culture.”
If you are at all interested in working with the center, feel free to call, email, or simply walk by in to learn more. Still in their launch phase, the center is interested in working with student organizations to see what kind of civic engagement we’re interested in and what we think Emerson can do. Ever personable, Kelly made it a point to say that she wants to meet as many student groups and leaders as possible.
The goal is an ambitious one. As we talk, Kelly tells me of her plans to utilize the center as something of an institutionalized megaphone and helping hand to begin conversations about the issues facing the Boston community as well as to partner with schools in the area. In the latter regard, she pays homage to the Emerson graduate for whom the center is named after.
Graduating among few women of color in 1943, Elma Lewis became an arts educator who tirelessly helped cultivate the artistic sensibilities of black youth in the Boston area through the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts. Her selfless work would gain her national distinction and over 400 awards by the time she died in 2004, including the Presidential Medal for the Arts in 1983. It is clear that Lewis’ legacy exists on in the center and influences the impact that Bates wants to have moving forward.
“Because Elma Lewis was an arts educator, she was a black women who was insistent and unapologetic about educating black children about the arts,” she tells me adamantly. “I want us to be more strategic about which schools we partner with: I want them to be higher need, I want them to be black and brown children and low-income children who often don’t have access to the arts and communications.”
Kelly has experience developing partnerships between organizations. Right after graduating from Boston University Law School, she went to run The Women’s Statewide Legislative Network in which she brought together fifty diverse women’s organizations from across Massachusetts and helped them build a common women’s agenda in terms of policy. Due to this kind of work, in the mid-90s, Massachusetts passed a law requiring companies and organizations to have policies against sexual harassment and to train individuals on the subject.
I can hear a tinge of amazement in her voice when she talks about this triumph, since she says it was during “a time before people talked about [sexual harassment].” The work she’s done as a part of feminist and women’s organizations has taught her to develop a leadership style that encourages collaboration and a viewpoint that centers on women’s issues. As a black woman who has lived through some of these issues firsthand, it goes deep for her.
It was in college, at the State University of New York at Albany, where Kelly Bates fell in love and entered into her first serious relationship. As the relationship developed, he eventually became physically and emotionally abusive to the point that she thinks she would not be alive today if she had stayed with him. At the time, though, there was a disconnect for her between the issue of domestic violence and what was happening in her life. It took her residence hall director inviting her to a feminism course before she was able to realize the situation that she, and many other women, were in. Through the help of conscious-raising groups where she was able to meet one-on-one with members and talk about her daily life, she gained the courage to leave her abuser.
It is at this point that I realize the story of the Elma Lewis Center is not simply one of an institution flexing its resources in the community and that it was is instead one of women, especially of color. It is a human story of the empowerment of people, influenced by the struggles of their experience, and trying to go out into the world to make a change for the better. Elma Lewis dedicated her life to the education of underserved, black children, during a time when she could not be expected to vote in many parts of country. Kelly Bates took her experiences and used them to grow as a leader, trying to serve the interest of those communities who need it the most, to such an extent that she was recently honored for her pro bono work with the 2013 Victor J. Garo Public Service Award by BU Law. Most importantly, the center seeks to inspire the same amount of leadership and passion within the community.
“We’re going to be building relationships with everyone from... Chinatown to Roxbury to the Statehouse to other academic institutions,” Bates tells me, after I ask her about the importance of diversity and inclusion, “and having a competency around diversity helps you to do that very, very effectively.” She is ever- cognizant of whose work this center is in remembrance of, saying that she thinks “we need that voice of [Elma Lewis] to continue in the work that we do in terms of lifting up communities that typically don’t have a voice or as big a role as they should in arts and culture.”
If you are at all interested in working with the center, feel free to call, email, or simply walk by in to learn more. Still in their launch phase, the center is interested in working with student organizations to see what kind of civic engagement we’re interested in and what we think Emerson can do. Ever personable, Kelly made it a point to say that she wants to meet as many student groups and leaders as possible.
- Willie Burnley Jr is a feminist, anti-racist, and all around anti-oppressionist who believes that societal progress is almost always made through active effort. He likes politics and anime, though not always in that order. Follow him on Twitter.