Reflections on Receiving the Ohio NASW Region VII, Lifetime Achievement Award, March 26, 1997

Friends and Colleagues, Good Evening

I'd like to thank the Awards Committee for selecting me for this honor, the Lifetime
Achievement Award.

I'd like to thank all of you who came out tonight (Magnolia Room, Miami Valley Hospital)
to share in this event.

I'd like to pause, remember and give thanks to those who were mentors along my
professional journey who enabled my professional growth and career.

Special remembrances to the professors at AU (Atlanta University) and the then Dean
of Social Work, Whitney M. Young, who exhorted the students to stand on the side of
the poor and the oppressed. And who gave me early lessons in advocacy that I
successfully advocated against the professors' wisdom and decision to place me at
Duke University Hospital for my Block Field Placement, but at Cook County Hospital
in Chicago. It was called Advocating for the Right to Self-Determination.

Remember, when I entered graduate school in 1957, there was no Title 18 or Title 19
to the Social Security Act, which we know as Medicare and Medicaid. The South was
still a racial caste system.

But, long before I arrived on the scene of that hallowed seat of learning (AU), whose
motto was "I'll find a way or make one," I had learned by example, from a special
person the importance of standing up for your beliefs, and the consequences. That
person was my father, Willis J. Turner, who had a fourth grade education. And, who
lost his job with the with the Department of the Army at the Pine Bluff ( Arkansas)
Arsenal, during WWII, when he refused to be reassigned to the production of
yellow gas. And, was threatened with military conscription. March 31st will be the
eighth anniversary of his death. So special remembrances, Dad.

Special remembrances to the Director, Josephine Taylor, and her Assistant Director
of Social Work at Cook County Hospital who taught by example-who advocated
for compassionate care of homeless men, described as "skidrowites," long before
we had homeless programs.

Special remembrances to Dr. Marie Oswald, the Chief of Social Work at the Dayton
V.A. Medical Center, who gave me my first professional job, and was a mentor, and
rightfully referred to as the Dean of Social Work in Dayton.

Thanks to all those along the way who gave me organizational jobs, yes tasks within
NASW,  even, though I said many times, "Why me?" But, the tasks taught me the
importance of giving service to the professional organization.

Thanks to all of you who provided needed support and helped me along the way in
this wonderful profession of Social Work, which I would choose all over again.

I would like to address briefly a few challenges for the profession:

Credentializing vs Professionalizing
For new social workers in the profession, we need to be mindful of the importance
of professionalizing in the values of the profession, as well as credentializing. Social
Work is not a job! It is a commitment to compassionate service.

Hate Crimes
Hate crimes are increasing in our country. Thus, our national NASW theme, for this
year, focuses on Racial and Ethnic Harmony. Acts of youth violence and violence
towards women are major problems. Our challenge, as a profession, is to work
creatively to change violent acts into peaceful interaction and relationships.

Welfare Reform
For the first time since the New Deal, the Roosevelt Administration of the 1930s,
our country does not have an income policy which supports the economic well
being of poor children and families. Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC) has been abolished with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.

Child poverty is a major problem.
Children are the poorest age group in the country.

Feminization of poverty is real.
A child's chance of being born into poverty is related to the make-up/demographics
of the family. If you are an African-American child in a family headed by a
female, there is a higher risk of being in poverty. If you are an African-American
female, you are four times more likely to have a low wage job. Poor women, poor
women of color, will be pushed off the Welfare rolls into low paying jobs. Rarely,
do these low paying jobs provide health care benefits. Already, there are forty million
Americans without health care benefits. And, these women will be facing little or
no assurance of child care benefits and a hostile economic environment where down-
sizing and plant closings is the order of the day.

Our challenge, as Social Workers, is to rekindle the debate about access and opportunity
to a liveable wage job, health and child care for those who will fall through the non-
existent safety net. Lasly, no matter what the temptations, seductions, we are not to
abandon the vulnerable and the poor in our society.

Willis J. Turner U S Army Arsenal Badge Number 59512

In 1942, my father walked off his maternal grandmother's farm,

near Grady, Arkansas where he was a tenant farmer subsequent

to a "dispute" with her following the spring planting. He

temporarily left behind my mother and I, saying he was "going

to town to find work" and would "be back" for us.

He journeyed to Pine Bluff in the adjacent county, the county

seat of Jefferson County, a distance of about  twenty-

four miles, paritally by foot and hitch- hiking. There, he took

up residence with his Uncle Jonas on Mulberry Street, his

maternal grandmother's oldest son, and soon found employment

at the Pine Bluff US Army Arsenal as a laborer "laying rail-

road tires."

My mother and I soon joined him and my mother later became

employed at the Arsenal, commonly referred to as "The

Bombing Plant," during the war years as women were needed

in the work force on the bomb assembly production lines due

to the shortage of men during World War II.

One day in 1942, my father, a big strapping man, over
six feet, was approached by his foreman with the

command to follow him. The foreman took him him to

an area he immediately identified as the "Yellow Gas" Area.

He told my father to go in there to work. My father's reply

was, " No Sir, I ain't going in there to work." My father was then

taken to the foreman's office and commanded to sit

outside and think about it. About two hours later, the foreman

approached him again but my father would not change his

mind. Consequently, my father was ordered off the base

an escorted by the "MP," Military Police. In their haste, they

neglected to retrieve his picture identification badge.

Footnotes:  US Army Badge Number 59512 was donated to

the  National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center

at Wilberforce, Ohio.

"Yellow gas," was a common term for a chemical warfare agent,

dichlorodiethyl sulfide, which was produced at the Pine Bluff

Arsenal. The Pine Bluff Arsenal was a toxicological center of

the United States Army.

The dispute between my father and his grandmother was over

her lack of recommendation to Mr. Gocio, local merchant,

to supply him credit.

him credit.