Gona To Speak About Pivotal Civil Rights Case
By The Post-Journal Staff
Dr. Ophelia DeLaine Gona will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 17, at the Robert H. Jackson Center to discuss her father’s role in a pivotal civil rights case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court as part of Brown v. Board of Education.
‘‘In 1952, two years before the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, black children in Clarendon, S.C., rode to school on buses for the first time,’’ Gona said. ‘‘Against the larger historical panorama, the event has little significance, being dwarfed by the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education on May 17, 1954. But for my father, the Rev. Joseph A. De Laine, a clergyman and former elementary school principal, black children boarding a public school bus in Clarendon County was a wondrous and unparalleled phenomenon for which he had both worked arduously and prayed unceasingly. For him, it was a major personal triumph.’’
Gona was born in South Carolina, the daughter of Rev. Joseph A. and Mattie De Laine. Her elementary and high school years were spent in South Carolina. Violence against the family forced them to move to New York in 1955, while she was in college. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Johnson C. Smith University; master’s degree, Guidance and Counseling from Yeshiva University; master’s and a doctorate in Biology from City University of New York.
Her passion for people and education sparked a 44-year career in science and education which has impacted the lives of both students and teachers from junior high school through graduate and professional school levels, and has seeded the educational curricula in many schools and communities.
During her early career, she taught biology in New York City Public Schools. She also taught biology, general science and English at a boys Catholic school in Ghana, biology at Montclair State College until 1977 and then joined the faculty of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, Department of Anatomy.
While at New Jersey Medical School she both taught and pursued research projects. She developed a highly successful summer course in Medical Gross Anatomy that attracted students from as far away as Chicago and Puerto Rico. She pursued a focus on outreach educational activities directing a high school research apprentice program for students and teachers, and subsequently developed a comprehensive pre-college Science enrichment program inclusive of grades 7-12, both summer and school-year components, and helped support and sustain these programs through national and local grant awards.
‘‘That for which her family paid dearly — the opportunity for a better education — Dr. Gona has shared passionately with countless others throughout her distinguished career as an educator,’’ said Greg Peterson, Jackson Center president. ‘‘We are honored to have her speak as part of the Jackson Center’s 50th Anniversary Celebration of Brown v. Board II.’’
Peterson also noted that in 2004 the De Laine family received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest recognition for a nonmilitary citizen, on behalf of their father, who died in 1974.
Gona’s interest in other peoples of the world is rooted in her involvement with the Peace Corps. She served as a member of the very first group of volunteers to go abroad. Later, she served as a Visiting Professor of Anatomy in Zimbabwe in 1990 and had a similar experience in the People’s Republic of China in 1998.
‘‘These experience have enhanced my awareness and sensitivity to different cultural practices and learning styles, as well as of the things that contribute to personal success,’’ Gona said.
Recently, she has contributed to the literature on Briggs v. Elliott desegregation lawsuit as she has edited The Word Made Flesh, doctoral dissertation about the Rev. Joseph De Laine written by Julie MacGruder Lochbaum. Gona co-wrote, with her brother B.B. De Laine, a brief history and correlated curriculum guide for Briggs v. Elliott now used in South Carolina Public Schools and incorporated into other Brown v. Board curricula. She has completed four articles about the contributions of her parents in the Briggs case and produced a 24-month Briggs v. Elliott commemorative calendar. She is currently working on a book-length account of the Briggs case which includes her father’s biography.
Gona and her husband, Dr. Amos G. Gona, live in Montclair, New Jersey. They have two children and one grandchild.
The community address presented by Gona is one of six events commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board II in which the Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion ordering that the states end segregation of public schools with ‘‘all deliberate speed’’.
For more information on Gona’s speech or other events, call the Jackson Center at 483-6646.