PROFILE OF ALAN ANDERSON BY PATRICK SMITH (12/06)
Today, race is not discussible; poverty is not very discussible either. The color line is still drawn, but one man has spent his life simply trying to make a difference. He sits patiently poised, speaking in a deep raspy voice, weathered with time. He takes a long drag from his cigarette, ashes nearly falling off the cherry into his lap.
Dr. Alan Brauer Anderson is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Western.
Though he walks hunched over with a cane today, years ago Anderson marched at the forefront of 25,000 people during a march with Dr. Martin Luther King as part of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago.
Anderson was the central figure in organizing Dr. King’s visit; each time Dr. King would travel to a different segregated neighborhood and speak for a short time.
“How would you like to arrive in your neighborhood in a limo and have Dr. King speak?” Anderson would say to Civil Rights supporters while preparing for what has become a historic visit to Chicago by Dr. King.
“We’d have three trucks, used as speaking platforms,” Anderson said. “Over the course of two days, he spoke over 25 times, losing his voice by Sunday. He had to be placed in the hospital. Then Dr. King was marching Monday.”
As the former Philosophy and Religion Department Head, Anderson mainly teaches two classes today. Anderson specializes in teaching Social Ethics and Racial Justice. He sits at the front of the room, rarely standing, he speaks to classes about social injustices. Words seep through his pale white skin and thick beard. Each time a student gets a question right, he’ll throw a piece of candy, usually way off target.
Many years ago while attending the retirement dinner of colleague, several former students said that they’d always remember the teacher for giving out candy.
“Well, I decided it was better to be remembered for something, rather than nothing it all,” Anderson mentioned cracking a smile, since then he’s carried on the tradition daily.
After a divorce and losing a second wife to cancer, Anderson let technology partake in the new dating process. Anderson met Denise, his tall robust wife of only a few months.
“I spent the better part of six months in front of the computer talking to Denise on instant messenger, it practically caused me to have a sciatica in my back,” Anderson chuckled. The sciatica now causes him to walk hunched over with the need of a cane.
Anderson would talk to Denise at all hours; there was a large time difference because she was living in China at the time. Soon after visiting the United States the two were engaged.
Though Anderson met the new love of his life, four years ago he lost one of his most important colleagues. Since Anderson’s time in graduate school at the University of Chicago, he had become best of friends with fellow philosopher George W. Pickering. They were two like-minded individuals charging the world of Philosophy with new ideas.
In 1986, Anderson and Pickering co-wrote “Confronting the Color Line: The Broken Promises of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago.” Later that year the book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Today, Anderson sits outside Cherry Hall on the campus of Western, reflecting on his career. Yet, according to him, there are still at least four books to come regarding social ethics and his work with Pickering.
And while Anderson is still attempting to prepare Bowling Green for its future as a metropolitan area, he teaches a class each spring entitled Social Ethics Research. The course outlines racial segregation here in Bowling Green.
“I don’t expect to see a rapid change in society. I teach for the long haul. I simply want my students to understand the issues,” Anderson said before taking a drag off his fourth cigarette.
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