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Randall Robinson Delivers Keynote Address During Trinity's Celebration of Black History Month

Randall Robinson, author of the controversial bestseller, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,  and founder and president of TransAfrica Forum, came to Trinity on Monday, February 4 as keynote speaker for the College's celebration of Black History Month.   Over 100 students and members of the faculty and administrative staff gathered to listen to the prominent and widely respected activist.  Robinson, with two companions, once entered the South African Embassy in Washington, DC, and announced he would not leave until apartheid was abolished, setting in motion a series of events that led up to the release of Nelson Mandela.  He has since been voted "Person of the Week" by ABC, and has been honored with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Service and Humanitarian Award. Robinson holds a bachelor's degree from Virginia Union University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.

LEARNING		Descatur Potier '03
		Setting the standard for community service

While Descatur “Dez” Potier ’03 was still a high school student at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the former semi-professional dancer volunteered his free time to give free break-dancing instruction to inner city children in Boston. Since coming to Trinity, Potier has made even more time to reach out, setting a high standard for service, while enriching the lives of children in the neighboring community.

“When I came to Trinity, I guess I wanted to make up for lost time,” says Potier, who, understandably, had to limit his high school service activities during the busy college preparation period. “I had a lot of ideas in my mind about what I wanted to do and what I wanted to bring here.

“Community service is something I’ve always wanted to do,” says Potier. “There’s so much that we can learn from the community and so much that they can learn from us.”

Creating a new place for children to learn

The result of Potier’s vision is the Adolescent Mentoring Project (AMP), a widely praised Saturday morning program at the Boys and Girls Club at Trinity College that provides breakfast, academic tutoring, and social activities for local children. Now in its second year, the entirely student-run AMP has grown in enrollment and in the number of Trinity students who give their time each week to be tutors.

“When we first started, only one kid came, and we had about 15 tutors there,” says Potier. “Now we have about 22 kids enrolling and close to that many tutors from Trinity giving their time.”

A political science major and former co-chair of the College’s Men of Color Alliance (MOCA), Potier reserves time during AMP sessions for occasional screenings of films and documentaries on topics such as the civil rights and Chicano movements. “Some kids just don’t get the complete social history that they deserve to get or that they need to get to be productive citizens,” he says. Potier recently gave a presentation on AMP to representatives of Sovereign Bank, who were impressed with the program and awarded it a grant of $5,000.

“It’s something that I want to do,” Potier says of AMP. “It’s something that, in my heart, I think needs to be done, and I really love the kids.”

A march fit for a King

In celebration of Black History Month, Potier recently organized the “March for King,” which attracted over 100 students and members of the faculty and administrative staff, who marched through the campus and in the surrounding neighborhood to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The idea of the march was to get a lot of students together to honor this man and honor his ideal about creating a better nation,” Potier says.

Potier’s adviser, Assistant Professor of Political Science Stefanie Chambers, says, “The whole time he’s been at Trinity he’s been very active. He’s really set the standard for student activism on campus.”

After graduation, Potier says he will either pursue a Ph.D. in political science, or go to law school. He hopes to someday bring his passion for civil rights issues and criminal justice into the classroom or the courtroom, professionally.

“Dez can really run with different ideas,” Chambers says. “He’s trying to figure out the causes of inequality and trying to come up with solutions to those problems.”

-- Michael Bradley