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Program

Welcome: Rick Trietley, President, Viterbo University

Musical Invocation: Dodie Whitaker accompanied by Judy Stafslien

Opening Remarks: Hosts Dr. Ezana Azene and Dr. Nicole Azene

Lynda Blackmon Lowery Student Leadership Award presented to Davoneya Brunn by Vanessa DaughterofLois and John Horman

Dr. King Beloved Community Recognition presented to Hope Restores cofounders Tashyra Jackson and Shamawyah Curtis

MLK Leadership Award presented to Antoiwana Williams by Shaundel Spivey

Special Recognition of Thomas Harris presented by Shaundel Spivey

Musical Selection: Viterbo Concert Choir directed by James Wilson, DMA

Virtual Keynote Address: Dr. Sylvia Hood Washington

Closing Remarks: Dr. Ezana Azene and Dr. Nicole Azene

Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing: All

 

Biographies

Musical Invocation

Dodie Whitaker
Dodie Whitaker is a multifaceted performer, activist, and educator who brings her diverse musical background, creative enthusiasm, and passion for social justice to her unique body of work. A resident of Viroqua, Whitaker enjoys affiliations with many local organizations including Black Leaders Acquiring Collective Knowledge (B.L.A.C.K.), Hope Restores, Viroqua Area Schools, and the Enduring Families Project. Recently serving as edutainment coordinator for the 2020 White Privilege Symposium, she is honored to be sharing the stage with her esteemed colleagues at the 2022 La Crosse Area Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration, and dedicates this performance to her extraordinary parents, Judith and Calvin Morris, and 96-year old stepfather, Lorne MacHattie.

Hosts

Dr. Ezana Azene and Dr. Nicole Azene

Dr. Ezana Azene is a native of south Louisiana. He moved to La Crosse from Baltimore, where he completed his PhD and medical degrees at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He completed additional residency and fellowship training in diagnostic radiology and vascular and interventional radiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Dr. Azene currently practices at Gundersen Health System where he is the director of the pulmonary embolism response team, chairperson of the Cancer Advisory Council, and serves as a member of the Medical Governors.

In his spare time, Dr. Azene enjoys exercising, fishing, firearms, spending time with his family, and serving as a deacon in his church.

Dr. Nicole Azene is a native of St. Louis, Mo. She moved to the Coulee Region from Baltimore where she worked as a staff veterinarian in small animal private practice, received post-doctoral training in laboratory animal medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and worked as a staff veterinarian for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) operating her division's Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Dr. Azene relocated to La Crosse in 2013. After a hiatus from clinical work, she accepted the positions of attending veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse as well as associate veterinarian at an area animal hospital. Dr. Azene is slated to open Onalaska Animal Hospital in June 2022.

The Azenes have been married for 18 years. They have three active children ages 5, 11, and 13. The family can be found bouncing between activities at church, dance, and basketball games.

Student Leadership Award

Davoneya Brunn
Established in 2018, the purpose of the Lynda Blackmon Lowery Youth Leadership Award is to recognize a student in 9th or 10th grade who has shown commitment to building community, enhancing diversity, and working for justice. The 2022 Lynda Blackmon Lowery Youth Leadership Award will be presented to Davoneya Brunn. Brunn has been participating in racial justice activities for many years. She contributed long hours to both the Enduring Families Project and the Amplifying Black Voices documentary. She also hosts a lemonade stand to donate funds back to her community and uses skills learned from the Ujima Circles program to continue impacting younger youth. Brunn truly is a change-maker when it comes to promoting social and racial justice in our community.

As this year's student leadership award recipient, Brunn will receive a $500 scholarship from B.L.A.C.K.

Beloved Community Recognition

Hope Restores
This year, the award committee gives special recognition to a new community resource in La Crosse: Hope Restores. Co-founders and co-directors Tashyra Jackson and Shamawyah Curtis will accept the recognition plaque. Hope Restores Corporation is a non-profit 501(C)(3) organization aimed at uplifting, empowering, and restoring the African American community through education, preservation, and advocacy. This corporation is an actualization of Dr. King’s vision: bringing people together to build a strong and holistic community by advancing the framework for our future.

MLK Leadership Award

Antoiwana Williams
The MLK Jr. Leadership Award was established in 2009 with the purpose of recognizing an individual who demonstrates leadership in and commitment to building community, enhancing diversity, and working for justice. The 2022 MLK Jr. Leadership Award will be presented to our friend and community leader, Antoiwana Williams. Fighting for others is a value instilled in her since a very young age. She has been serving the La Crosse community for almost 30 years. She has served as director of multicultural student services at UW-La Crosse for the past 11 years. She has also served on several community boards including the YWCA, La Crosse Public Education Foundation, and New Horizon Women’s Shelter. Williams promotes change by helping local organizations such as B.L.A.C.K. and planning community events such as Juneteenth. She also advocates that we need to address gaps in opportunities related to Black and Brown bodies in our schools, while also working as a community to empower youth with the tools and skills needed for their own mental health. As this year’s recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award, Williams reflects the good fight and resilience that the late and great Dr. King embodied.

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Sylvia Hood Washington

Dr. Sylvia Hood Washington is a highly accomplished environmental epidemiologist, clinician, and historian with over 30 years of research experience addressing the impact of industrial pollution on human health.

Dr. Washington is the author of Packing Them In: An Archaeology of Environmental Racisim in Chicago, 1865–1954 and Echoes from the Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Injustice. She is also the creator and editor-in-chief of the first international environmental health disparaities journal, Environmental Justice, and regularly serves as a consultant to environmental law firms and grassroots community groups about the history of industrial operations, transportation systems, and municipal planning's imact on human health and environmental health disparities.
Lift Eve'ry Voice and Sing

Words by James Weldon Johnson
Music by John Rosemond Johnson

  1. Lift ev’ry voice and sing
    Till earth and heaven ring
    Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
    Let our rejoicing rise
    High as the list’ning skies
    Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

    Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
    Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
    Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
    Let us march on till victory is won.

  2. Stony the road we trod,
    Bitter the chast’ning rod,
    Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
    Yet with a steady beat,
    Have not our weary feet
    Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

    We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
    We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
    Out from the gloomy past,
    Till now we stand at last
    Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

  3. God of our weary years,
    God of our silent tears,
    Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
    Thou who has by Thy might; led us into the light
    Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
    Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
    Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
    Shadowed beneath, thy hand, may we forever stand,
    True to our God, true to our native land

     

Past Award Recipients

Martin Luther King, Jr Leadership Award

Lynda Blackmon Lowery Student Leadership Award

 

In Appreciation

Financial Partners

In-kind Partners

MLK Celebration Planning Committee

 

 

For Our Patrons

Viterbo Fine Arts Center
900 Viterbo Drive
La Crosse WI, 54650
608-796-3737 | finearts@viterbo.edu
www.viterbo.edu/fac

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