Racine Journal Times – Saturday, January 23, 2012

Commitment to the dream: GTC honors three with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award

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Promoting equal opportunity for all. Serving as a role model for the disadvantaged or under represented, by striving for excellence in one’s own endeavors. Demonstrating a strong and growingcommitment to service.

These principles — which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived and worked by — are also those exemplified by three area people who recently received the 2012 Gateway Technical College Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award.

Olatoye Baiyewu, executive director of the Human Capital Development Corp./First Choice Pre-Apprenticeship program; Al Levie, a social studies teacher at Horlick High School; and Veronica King, secretary of the Kenosha Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, were honored at Gateway’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration on Jan. 16. And two of the three — Baiyewu and Levie — were honored for their work in Racine.

In 2005, Baiyewu — who most people know as “Ola” — started the Human Capital Development Corp., a nonprofit organization that prepares low-income, unemployed and underemployed minorities, women and others to take the Apprenticeship Qualifying Test for the construction trades.

With just his assistant, himself and a couple thousand dollars in seed money, Baiyewu began creating programs that would not only prepare people to take the test, but teach them life skills ranging from money management to nutrition and critical thinking. He and his assistant worked long hours to get the agency off the ground, with Baiyewu teaching all of the classes, until he could afford to hire others to help.

His desire to make the program successful was strong enough to make him rise at 5 a.m. every day for a month to drive one HCDC participant, who didn’t have transportation, to his job in Elkhorn. “I told him that I’d do it for a month, if he would save his money to buy a used car.”

That’s just one example of Baiyewu’s devotion to the mission of HCDC, which today works with corporate, public and private partners, to enhance the upward mobility of Racine’s residents through career paths in the construction trades.

HCDC holds the state contract for the Transportation Alliance for New Solutions (TrANS), which trains and provides workers for highway construction projects. Its programs have also helped residents be able to purchase homes, work out child support issues and much more (go to

“People are our business,” Baiyewu said. “We believe in them and we help them to believe in themselves.”

Focus on youth

The recent focus of Levie’s humanitarian work has been with Racine’s youth. A teacher of world, Latino-American and African-American history at Horlick, Levie enjoys connecting his students with their community.

One way he has done so is by helping them form a group called Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES), which works on social justice issues such as the Dream Act and Get Out The Vote.

YES student leadership lobbied for and won the right to have the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observed in the Racine Unified School District. And they recently organized an all-day King Celebration which brought more than 500 people from throughout the community together.

Since the club’s formation at Horlick, YES has grown to have a presence in 15 schools — three in Racine and 12 in Milwaukee, Levie said. “This is much bigger than just our school.”

Prior to his 12 years at Horlick, Levie worked as a machinist and was involved in the United Auto Workers and machinist unions, working on civil rights and democracy issues.

He also worked as a community organizer with various agencies in Milwaukee, focusing on issues ranging from fair lending to low- and moderate-income people, and drug abatement.

He currently serves on the board of the NAACP and Voces de la Frontera, and is a representative for the Racine Education Association teachers’ union. His involvement in such organizations is as much for his students as it is for the wider community, Levie said.

“I see it as a way to get my kids involved in the community, and have them work on issues that are important to them.”

What drives him, he said, is his love for the kids. “I love to see when they develop an understanding about themselves and the world we live in. When they gain confidence in who they are, they find their own power. And I see a lot of that.”

Parents playedkey role

Both Baiyewu and Levie say their parents played a key role in shaping who they are and what they work for today.

Having grown up in Nigeria, Baiyewu remembers his father paying the high school tuition for many children in their village. An unassuming, humble person, his father believed in the power of educating people and showing them how to be independent, rather than giving them money to buy groceries, Baiyewu said.

Today, he carries on that faith and encourages people to take advantage of the opportunities available to them, such as the free education offered in American public schools. “In my country, people have to pay to go to high school, and they learn to read and write by the street light,” Baiyewu said.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Levie recalls a lesson about equality and oppression his mother taught him when he was in elementary school. Having come home from the playground one day and using the “N” word, without actually knowing what it meant, he remembers how upset his mother was by the word.

“She cried, and told me she never wanted to hear me say that word again,” Levie said. His mother went on to tell him how 6 million of their people (Jews) were killed, as the result of a movement that started with such hateful name-calling and jokes.

And the power of her emotion struck a chord with Levie that led him to pursue a lifetime of working for equality for all.

“Even as a kid, I became a champion for other kids,” he said.

‘No task is too big’

The third recipient of Gateway’s Humanitarian Award, Veronica King, is a social worker for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections and a Gateway Technical College graduate.

Her nominator said “No task is too big for Ms. King to take on. She puts service before herself, and is always willing to go the extra mile. Whoever is in need, whatever the need is, Ms. King is there to assist in any way she can.”

For more about Gateway’s MLK Annual Celebration and the Humanitarian Awards, go to