(Beth Clifton collage)
Editorial by Merritt & Beth Clifton
Three nights ago, in advance of Martin Luther King Day, ANIMALS 24-7 posted as our lead feature Black humane history found in great-grandpa’s attic near a town called Ark, profiling the lives and work of John W. Lemon and Seymour Carroll.
This article followed up on, and expanded, Four black leaders who built the humane movement, originally posted in 2019, profiling William Key, Richard Carroll, and Frederick Barnwell Rivers, also introducing John W. Lemon and Seymour Carroll, Richard Carroll’s son.
Those five forgotten African-Americans between 1898 and 1942 probably reached more people in person, as employees of the American Humane Education Society, than any humane educators before or since. That their names are not better remembered in the humane and animal rights movements is a travesty.
Two nights ago, for the sixth consecutive year, ANIMALS 24-7 reposted What animal advocates owe to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
Dexter Scott King’s Twitter page.
The King family
This article, among our most-read-and-requested offerings ever, examines the enormous influence that Martin Luther King Jr. had on Henry Spira (1927-1998), in particular, who more than anyone else inspired and rallied the rise of the animal rights movement in the late 20th century.
ANIMALS 24-7 appreciated also the contributions of King’s widow, Coretta Scott King; the ongoing contributions to animal advocacy of their son Dexter Scott King; and King’s influence on Cesar Chavez (1927-1993).
Chavez, though better known as a labor leader and civil rights activist, was a longtime vegetarian who spoke out for animals, too.
Clockwise: Bill Moyer’s book Doing Democracy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Bill Moyer himself.
Bill Moyer
We unfortunately omitted mention of Bill Moyer (1933-2002), a longtime aide to King at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who went on to co-found the Movement for a New Society and later founded the Social Movement Empowerment Project.
Moyer during his last dozen years tried hard to share his strategic experience and insights with animal advocacy leadership.
Moyer’s influence on the thinking of some of the many animal advocacy leaders he met with is much more evident posthumously than it ever was during his lifetime, but few people in humane work today actually have any idea who he was.
Nelson Mandela saying goodbye to his Rhodesian ridgeback on April 20, 1964, moments before being taken to prison. Photographer Alf Kumalo, 1930-2012, himself a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, was probably the greatest news photographer South Africa has ever had.
Nelson Mandela
We might also have mentioned Nelson Mandela, another leader profoundly influenced by Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1994 was elected first president of post-apartheid South Africa.
Retiring in 1999, at age 81, Mandela withdrew gradually from public life, gracefully surrendering most of his titles and affiliations before his death in December 2013, at age 95.
To the end, however, Mandela remained patron-in-chief of the National Council of SPCAs, a post he clearly cherished and had held for nearly 20 years.
Was hunter, not veg
Mandela was not deeply involved in animal issues. He reportedly shot both an impala and a blesbok in 1991 as a guest of KaNgwane (Bantustan) conservation officials.
Neither was Mandela a vegetarian, though he had prominent vegetarian friends.
Among them were the chef Bakshi Vemulakonda, formerly director of catering for Air India, and the spiritual leader Chinmoy Kumar Ghose (1931-2007).
(See Who were the gurus who helped to inspire the animal rights movement?)
From left to right: Lloyd B. Mobiley, DVM, U.S. Army Vet Corps. WWII; John Brown, DVM, first Kansas State U. African-American vet graduate; Theodore S. Williams, DVM, who with Mobiley & Brown was among the first USDA meat inspectors; Charles R. Robinson, DVM, Cornell 1944; Walter C. Bowie, DVM, longtime Tuskegee U. vet faculty member; Eugene W. Adams, DVM, also longtime Tuskegee vet faculty member; Thomas G. Perry, DVM, longtime Wichita small animal vet; Raymond C. Williams, DVM, United Nations Relief Rehabilitation Agency.
Sincere appreciation
But Mandela had a sincere appreciation of animals.
Recognizing that animals do not recognize human political boundaries, and saying so, Mandela in 2001 opened a gate to allow 40 elephants to pass from Kruger National Park in South Africa to an adjoining area in Mozambique.
This was a part of the creation of the 13,510-square-mile Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou transborder park, also including Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe. It was a project Mandela strongly favored.
Mandela later attended the release of a troupe of baboons who had been kept in a laboratory into the Shambala Game Reserve.
The baboons had been rehabilitated by the late Rita Miljo (1931-2012), founder of the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education.
Miljo, who unfortunately later died in a fire at her sanctuary, took in and worked with the baboons against the advice of the National Council of SPCAs and South African wildlife officials that they could not be returned to the wild.
F. Rivers Barnwell of the American Humane Education Society with the Pontiac (1926-1932 vintage) that he drove on his rounds throughout Texas and adjoining states. (Photo courtesy of granddaughter Evangeline Olive Morris.)
“The greatest gift: a more humane society”
“In time,” Mandela said, “we must bestow on South Africa the greatest gift––a more humane society.”
The Cape Town-based Humane Education Trust made extensive use of the quote in support of the South African national humane education program, introduced in 2003.
Unfortunately, the U.S. humane movement today lags as far behind in welcoming, recognizing, and celebrating the contributions of people of African descent as our society as a whole did in Martin Luther King Jr.’s lifetime.
This is why it is necessary to re-introduce the names and accomplishments of William Key, John W. Lemon, Richard and Seymour Carroll, and Frederick Rivers Barnwell.
Their contributions are not only forgotten, but were deliberately expunged from humane history by the next several generations of animal advocacy leadership, as detailed in Black humane history found in great-grandpa’s attic near a town called Ark.
Eartha Kitt, the original “Catwoman” on screen, did cat adoption promo for the North Shore Animal League.
Celebrities
The U.S. humane community does from time to time honor African-American celebrities who help to promote animal adoptions.
Yet this tradition degenerated from singer and actress Eartha Kitt’s promotions for the North Shore Animal League, decades ago, into the use of imagery featuring convicted dogfighter Michael Vick by the Humane Society of the U.S. for several years in ads pushing pit bulls, and then into the near absence of any African-American people in adoption promotion ads, other than stock images of no individual identity at all.
Meanwhile the U.S. humane community remains conspicuously reluctant to hire and advance African-American personnel.
There has been some progress, to be sure.
Dana Brown, 57, on June 24, 2021 became the third African-American to head Los Angeles Animal Services. Unfortunately, Brown left that position in frustration only eight months later, in February 2022.
Meanwhile, because of retirements elsewhere, her hiring meant no net gain over the preceding year in the total number of African-Americans in leadership positions. Her departure meant a net loss. Further, those in leadership positions were and are almost entirely heading animal care-and-control agencies, such as Los Angeles Animal Services, not donor-funded humane societies.
Michael Vick, left, and HSUS president Wayne Pacelle, right. (From HSUS video.)
But why is it even possible, let alone necessary, to count, when representative numbers would mean the participation of hundreds, or even thousands?
Emmogene James, a longtime North Shore Animal League senior staff member, was almost the only African-American to rise into a visible leadership role at a humane society during the preceding 30 years.
Most of the few other African-Americans of any prominence in the U.S. humane community were hired by a single organization, the New York City-based American SPCA, during the decade following the Harlem riots of 1968.
Emmogene James of the North Shore Animal League advertising department.
Lloyd Tait, VMD
Reviewing the original edition of Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff in August 2004, ANIMALS 24-7 noticed immediately and approvingly that it was “dedicated to Lloyd Tait, VMD.”
Tait, who in 1968 became the American SPCA’s first director of shelter medicine, “was everything one could imagine in a friend and mentor,” recalled Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff editors Lila Miller and Stephen Zawistowski.
“Irascible, supportive, quixotic, and fiercely dedicated to animal welfare,’ Miller and Zawistowski wrote, “he laid the early foundation for the formal practice of veterinary medicine in the ASPCA shelters.”
Tait was later for many years a traveling consultant for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, contributing to humane advances in street dog and feral cat population control from the Caribbean islands to eastern Europe to Sri Lanka.
Lila Miller, DVM. (Facebook photo)
Lila Miller
Tait joined the ASPCA staff soon after the hiring former ASPCA Brooklyn shelter director George Watford.
Watford, long ago retired, was only the second nationally prominent humane worker of African descent since Frederick Rivers Barnwell.
Miller, who on January 1, 2019 announced her retirement, joined the ASPCA staff in 1977. Despite her seniority and title, Miller appears to have never been listed on IRS Form 990 as one of the ASPCA’s ten most highly paid personnel.
At her retirement Miller remained perhaps the youngest African-American in a leadership position with any of the several dozen largest humane societies in the United States.
Some black guests are occasionally visible at national humane and animal rights conferences. Almost all, however, are either employed outside the humane cause, or are visitors from Africa. Those appearing at the podium are most often celebrity athletes or entertainers.
Dana Brown. (Beth Clifton collage)
Affirmative action
Since Miller was hired, a few other people of African ancestry have become prominent in shelter work, perhaps most notably former National Animal Care & Control Association board member Keith Robinson, also long ago retired.
Most of these African-Americans, however, like Dana Brown, briefly of Los Angeles Animal Services, have worked in the realm of public service, where affirmative action hiring has long been required by law.
A convention of African-American executive directors of humane societies could probably be held at the average lunch counter, and would still have empty chairs.
Neither the first edition of Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff, nor the second edition, published 10 years later, makes mention of the ethnicity of either Tait or Miller.
Yet it needs to be mentioned.
When two of a tiny handful of people of any particular background make contributions to humane work of the magnitude they have, the rest of the humane community should sit up, take notice, and look for more talent from the same source.
(Beth Clifton collage)
No random accident
It is highly unlikely that Tait and Miller became who they are, doing what they did for decades, by random accident.
It is also tedious and tiresome that until the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the humane conference circuit entirely for two years, speakers at national animal advocacy conferences still suggested, based on long-ago surveys of African-American students enrolled in agricultural veterinary schools, that African-Americans are somehow less emotionally attached to animals than anyone else.
Any survey of agricultural veterinary students would almost certainly find less emotional attachment to animals than among companion animal veterinary students, and would probably find less than among the general public.
This is simply not relevant. It is time to stop looking for differences and excuses, and start looking for African-Americans to hire and train.
Tuskegee Institute first graduating class of veterinarians, 1949.
Abundant qualified talent
The veterinary profession itself offers abundant qualified talent. Harvard first graduated a African-American veterinarian in 1889; the University of Pennsylvania in 1907. The Tuskegee Institute, a historically black university, has graduated entire classes of veterinarians annually since 1949.
Indeed, the percentage of veterinarians of African-American descent has edged up slowly, from about 2% at Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination to 2.5% today, but––except at the ASPCA––African-American shelter veterinarians barely exist.
Charles R. Robinson, DVM, Cornell 1944, lived to see an African-American U.S. President, but not an African-American president of a major U.S. humane society.
SOS
Attentive readers may note that this is not the first time ANIMALS 24-7 has said this. The above editorial is adapted from an article originating in January 1993.
Much of it is word-for-word identical to an opinion column published alongside a review of the first edition of Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff in August 2004, and alongside a review of the second edition in August 2014.
ANIMALS 24-7 posted previous editions of it, as it now stands with only minor updates, in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
By January 2022 these words should have long since become historical artifacts. The message should no longer have currency.
Beth & Merritt Clifton
Instead, it is still time for the humane community to stop looking for differences and excuses, and start looking for African-Americans to hire, train, and promote into positions of influence. It will never be too late.
(See also Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff, Second Edition, edited by Lila Miller & Stephen Zawistowski.)
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Thank you for talking about the often offensive marketing and sloganeering done regarding pit bulls and the African American community. When someone expresses support for stricter laws regarding pit bull ownership, “do you hate black people, too?” is a standard insult that comes up with alarming frequency. (The implication is that pit bulls are like black people, and vice versa. Really?)
On an “animal rights” Facebook page, the moderator made the argument that pit bulls should not be subject to mandatory neutering or similar laws, because the dogs are primarily “associated with black people,” and doing so would be racism. Think about that and let that sink in for a moment. Would such a grossly prejudiced statement be allowed in any other social movement?
Popular social media memes situate images of pit bulls with quotes from MLK Jr., or show stock images of people of various ethnicities along with a pit bull dog and the slogan “Racism is wrong.” You can even buy a shirt with a pit bull image and the slogan, “Racism is the pits.”
It should be of note that the only people I have seen use these arguments and imagery are white people, in particular white women middle-aged and younger. I have never personally seen an African-American person equate him/herself with a pit bull or argue that the prejudice s/he has faced in life is just like that of a dog facing tighter restrictions on how it may be owned.
Even when humane societies and animal advocates don’t directly engage in this behavior, they are totally silent about it when others do. Could this be a reason African American participation in humane work isn’t as high as it may be, because of all of this insulting talk?
It’s an infuriating comparison to anyone with a brain.
Remember a lot of pit pushers are either bots, paid, or volunteers, all akin to telemarketers following a script. Of them all, bots may be the smartest.
Excellent and fascinating. Racism separation by class and silence in our nation are real killers.
I can’t read this article without also tipping the hat to one of our own hometown heroes/groundbreakers, Dr. Marvin Mackie, who pioneered low-cost spay/neuter here in Los Angeles.
Truly, all of us of other ethnicities need to raise our voices and be heard — and seen — in the animal advocacy community. This should not be an issue only ascribed in importance to one group. ALL of us, no matter who we are, can and should care about, protect, respect, and advocate for the most innocent, blameless and vulnerable in our society. If not us, who?
Honestly… it makes no sense to me to pursue someone to fill a position that needs someone with a certain skill set, and to in any way look for someone of a certain race/color to fill it??? Makes no sense. You of all people should understand stats right? If someone is a minority then it’s only common sense that they may show up in a certain field as a minority. And besides…. color is a matter of how much skin pigment is in place and genetics and as far as I’m concerned a person is a person is a person even if they’re green and two feet tall. As a friend, I prefer sweet and loyal and interesting to me. If I were to choose an accountant for my business, it would be based on their financial and math skills as well as dependability. Politicians should be able to communicate and honest and willing to stay up on issues as well as involved with their communities. And so it goes. Why choose a person based on skin color?????
The success of many thousands of churches serving primarily the Afro-American community attests to the abundance of Afro-Americans with all of the skills required to work successfully in nonprofit management, publicity, outreach, accounting, and fundraising. Adjusting for factors such as age, home ownership or renting, and income level, Afro-American families keep pets at just about the same rate as other Americans. Humane societies routinely recruit staff from other branches of nonprofit work, including church work, with no more background in the specifics of humane work than having kept pet dogs or cats –– so why is there no recruiting from the Afro-American church community, to cite just one obvious failure of outreach?
Recruiting should be of all people, all backgrounds. I happen to be part Native American Indian and I have black relatives. So what? I wish people would treat people like people. Skin color is just color. Skills are what’s needed for responsible positions. Noone should be excluded or included because of race…… except perhaps being required to be of the human race.
I am inclined to agree with you. Anyone who has in any way worked as an employee or volunteer in animal resc ue knows that it is often a thankless and difficult job with few long term successes due to the nature of the way animals are cared for all over the world. Yes, there are some good animal shelters and animal rescue programs for domestic animals but after all these many years of sheltering, spaying & neutering, attempting humane education in schools, there shouldn’t be as many good or bad as there are.. Animals in our and many other societies are scapegoats for torture and neglect and are very disposable. We have allowed puppy mills for dogs and cats and factory farming for livestock. Clearly, anyone of any race or color is welcome to jump right in and make as much of a good outcome as humanly possible.
Down here on the local level, I am not seeing African American people joining the ranks of organizations I am in, either. Unfortunate. Especially, unfortunate because we can’t seem to get African American pet owners to bring pets to the local spay/neuter clinics that I have helped with. And believe me, when I am spreading flyers advertising clinics around town, I hit all sectors, and I am always well received regardless of the predominate racial makeup of the places where I put the flyers. Same thing with our local low cost vaccination clinics that our local animal control dept. sponsors – participation is predominately white from what I have seen. Ironically, I have freinds in the African American community. I don’t have any answers. I know we just have to keep trying to advance the idea that all ethnic groups are welcome in our s/n clinics and in our ranks as volunteers and leaders in our humane groups. Maybe we need more articles and letters to editors on this subject – on the local level.
I think one thing we need to think about is that people in disadvantaged communities may not have the transportation to take their pets to a clinic, even if the services are free. Poorer people are also more likely to work in corporate customer service jobs–such as retail and chain restaurants–where calling off work is simply not an option, particularly for a pet.
Thanks for bringing up (again) the lack of diversity in animal shelter work, Merritt. We say a lot about “black dog syndrome” – but fail to mention the racial divide that, among other issues, prevents shelter staff from fully understanding the cultures they’re dealing with.
Here’s something I’ve written that will appear in a forthcoming chapter in Aubrey Fine’s 4th edition of his animal-assisted therapy textbook:
Ethnicity is but one of many factors affecting complex neighborhood connectivity and pet relationships, but studies strongly suggest significantly lower rates of pet ownership in communities with large minority populations. The Pew Research Center (2006) reported that 64% of whites, 39% of Hispanics, and 30% of blacks own pets, and that rural residents (65%) lead suburbanites (57%) and urban residents (51%) in rates of pet ownership. Melson (2001) reported a survey of families in which 75% of whites, 47% of Latinos, 43% of Asian Americans, and 37% of African Americans kept pets.
Marx, Stallones, Garrity & Johnson (1988), Siegel (1995), Brown (2002), and Risley-Curtiss, Holley & Wolf (2006) have reported that white populations are statistically more likely, and Latinos and African Americans less likely, to keep pets, with whites more likely than other racial or ethnic groups to consider pets to be important companions.
Brown (2005) identified nine factors contributing to an under-representation of African Americans in the animal welfare and veterinary professions: economic disparities with whites; ongoing civil rights struggles; moral obligations to serve people and communities taking priority over animal welfare; unattractive career incentives; inadequate career exposure and recruitment; non-supporting environments once hired; negative images of the fields; prejudice and discrimination; and little or no prior animal experience.
Louv (2006) surmised that large numbers of African Americans living in low-income neighborhoods with fewer parks and safe places to walk could presumably influence opportunities and motivations for dog ownership. Beck (1973), using photographic trapping techniques to observe free-ranging dogs, reported as many as 750 stray dogs per square mile in high-density, low-income neighborhoods in Baltimore, MD which were at least 90% black. It is unclear whether these factors are disincentives against pet ownership in African American or other majority-minority communities.
Phil Arkow
Coordinator, National Link Coalition
l The National Resource Center on The Link Between Animal Abuse and Human Violence
Instructor, Animal-Assisted Therapy, Harcum College & Camden County College
Consultant, ASPCA & Animals and Society Institute
Chair, Animal Abuse and Family Violence Prevention Project, The Latham Foundation
37 Hillside Road
Stratford, NJ 08084
856-627-5118
arkowpets@snip.net
http://www.nationallinkcoalition.org
http://www.animaltherapy.net
Once again a remarkable, eye opening article. I am so glad that I accidently discovered your always interesting and timely forum. I came across it whilst reading about the Montreal pit bull ban, which I fully support, and hope is eventually imposed across Canada. Since then I have read every, single post and greatly admire your animal advocacy, and clear sighted vision.
Speaking of Cesar Chavez, see link below to a letter the great man wrote to me back in 1993, one of my most treasured possessions. I had the pleasure/honor of meeting Chavez several times. He once told me that he (and his mother, too) were vegetarians for ETHICAL reasons (not health), a fact that few of his followers know. I circulate this letter throughout the State Capitol (Sacramento) every year on his birthday (March 31). There’s a great deal of lip service paid to Chavez, but all too few emulate his life and goals of nonviolence to all. (Chavez was a disciple of Gandhi.) R.I.P. Cesar Chavez deserves a National Holiday, IMO. Dolores Huerta, too. Si se puede!
x
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS – Oakland
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-white/cesar-chavez-and-animal-w_b_5194358.html
Any superlatives I add pertaining to your editorial risk being redundant, having just commended your piece on the four black pioneers. That said, I can’t let the editorial written by Beth and you pass without imparting how refreshing it is to see the movement’s shameful lack of inclusiveness brought to the fore. Having devoted much of my life to the civil rights cause, I’ll simply add that Beth and you not only did our myopic movement proud, but yourselves as well.
Excellent article, Sharing to social media, because education is a wonderful thing. And recommending a series on Animal Planet, “THE VET LIFE,” which chronicles the life and times of two African-american veterinarians, their families, and some of their patients.
We NEED a society where everyone has equal opportunity to participate and contribute in what they choose to do, including helping and healing the most loyal, loving, and innocent. And while communities historically disadvantaged educationally and in other ways need to be able to be uplifted AS communities, I have always believed it is important to consider individuals as individuals and to give individuals every opportunity to follow their dreams in terms of education and career path. They also need to be recognized and honored for excellence whenever, wherever and however possible.