Bahati Ansari’s sonorous voice carried over the hundreds of people gathered outside Autzen Stadium for a march Aug. 28 in remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.
Quickly, she roused the crowd into song.
“If I had a hammer,” Ansari sang, “I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the noontime … I’d hammer for love, I’d hammer for justice.”
The event was one of many Ansari has participated in or organized in the name of human and civil rights. The Eugene resident has been hammering away at racism, intolerance and other forms of persecution for almost thirty years. She is currently the director of the National Racism Free Zone, which she operates from Jefferson Middle School. She also works as a counselor and Safe and Drug Free middle school coordinator at the school.
Ansari said the Racism Free Zone, which she started in response to prejudice her sons experienced at a Eugene middle school, is a project that allows people to create a space where racism and its effects can be addressed.
“It is a concept where you’re creating an environment where you can deal with racism,” she said.
Apart from Jefferson Middle School, other places including Lane Community College and the city of Eugene have adopted racism-free or diversity zones. Ansari has traveled throughout the nation to talk about the project’s value and even presented at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001.
To implement a zone, each group goes through an initial training, then the group declares their area racism-free. Each group tailors its own program in ways they feel will be the most beneficial. Ansari said they must rededicate the space annually as a constant reminder of their commitment.
“Kids get involved in it,” she said. “They make it their own.” She said Jefferson has become a school were everyone feels included. In order for the concept to work, Ansari said it’s vital to create awareness and have zero tolerance for harassment.
While the racism-free zone may be her most prominent service now, Ansari, 55, has carried the torch for many social causes. Her desire to reshape a world full of inequalities was ignited when she witnessed a race riot at Jackson State University in Mississippi when she was 11 years old. Ansari, who grew up just outside of Chicago, said she told herself she had to do something about it.
“I was always a fighter,” she said. “I was always a person who didn’t believe in people being treated with disrespect.”
Her recognition of the rift between black and white deepened when she attended a predominantly white high school. There, she had to contend with racial slurs and with teachers who had no real interest in her academic ambitions.
“You can’t be a nurse,” she said the teachers told her. “Black folks can’t be nurses.
“I never could understand why, due to the color of my skin, people thought I was different.”
In the years after high school, her social activism flourished as she took on everything from women’s rights to housing issues in Chicago. When she lived in New Mexico she immersed herself in more work for women, black farmers’ rights and Native American rights. In Eugene, she not only started the racism-free zone, but also worked for the city as human rights commissioner until earlier this year. She said she also started the first citywide Martin Luther King Celebration in 1986.
“The universe carried me to a lot of people who’d been struggling,” she said.
City of Eugene Human Rights Program Manager Greg Rikhoff has known Ansari for almost 20 years and said the strong, energetic, humor-filled woman is committed to human rights in all aspects of her life.
“Her life is not separated into what she does for a living and what she does for human rights,” he said. “It’s all seamless.”
He added that Ansari had continued to show everyone they all have a stake in creating an equitable and caring community.
“She’s really done a remarkable job of showing how interconnected we are,” Rikhoff said. “You can’t work on race and ignore issues of disability and you can’t talk of women’s rights and ignore ageism.”
Ansari said it’s a big challenge to educate people and build inclusive communities. Oregon’s history is heavily marked by its exclusion of blacks. And while Eugene prides itself in its “liberalism,” Ansari said there are many issues that people still have to rally for.
“They think that it’s OK, but it’s not,” she said.
Retired University Professor Edwin Coleman, a staunch social activist who has worked with Ansari many times, agreed, saying that the civil rights movement is not over.
“You must always remember and keep going because we as Americans, and especially we as African-Americans, are not free,” he said.
Coleman said Ansari has availed herself to a lot of issues in a variety of ways.
“She’s continually working for the betterment of all people, not just people of color,” he said.
While her work for others gives her great pride, Ansari believes one of her greatest accomplishments is raising her two sons. She also has five grandchildren. She said she is concerned about the future of black youth, especially with so many young black men in penal institutions.
“I think it’s atrocious,” she said. “More of them are in the institutions than in college over things that the average person wouldn’t go into institutions for.”
Ansari said she isn’t about to slow down. She still has dreams. She wants to go back to school for a graduate degree and she wants to build a retreat center where people who have experienced persecution can heal. She also wants to skydive and learn how to fly.
“I’m still growing,” she said. “Every day I wake up and say, “What am I going to do now?”
She says her belief in herself has allowed her to envision and work for what she wants.
“Love yourself first,” she said. “When you do that you command that out of others.”