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Biography

Adrien Wing was born in California, grew up in New York and New Jersey. As a child watching the events of the Civil Rights movement, she determined to become a lawyer and work with human rights issues. She became a successful International lawyer in New York City then moved to Iowa to become a professor of law at the University of Iowa. She has traveled the world in service to others, working as an administrator in a hospital in a war zone, helping to write constitutions, supervising the French Summer School session of the University of Iowa’ Law School and now their London semester. She has become an internationally known speaker and advocate.

Transcript

Date of Interview: March 14, 2010

Tajeria Beacham: Hi my name is Tajeria and today I’m going to be interviewing Ms. Adrien Wing from the University of Northern Iowa. Hi, how are you?

Adrien Wing: Hi! I’m from the University of Iowa.

Tajeria: I’m sorry, yeah. Ms. Wing I have noted that you have done a lot for your time, like traveling with school and you’re a professor at Iowa? You say you’re a....

Adrien Wing: A law professor.

Tajeria: Yeah, for the Sun Murray...or something like that?

Adrien Wing: Yes, well I have a title and the title I have as a professor is the Bessie Dutton Murray, Distinguished Professor of Law. That’s a title that indicates that someone donated money in the name of that person. So it’s an honor to have a title as a professor like that. It means that I’ve published a lot and I’m recognized internationally for the work that I do.

Tajeria: That’s great. How long have you been living in Iowa?

Adrien Wing: I’ve been living in Iowa twenty-three years now and it’s gone by really, really fast. I came here from New York City and I thought, “Oh maybe I’ll be here a couple of years.” And I’ve ended up being here and raising a family and really, really loving it.

Tajeria: So from your move from New York to Iowa, what was the biggest transition? Did you come from school? Or did you decide to move.....?

Adrien Wing: I was a lawyer; an international lawyer in New York City, practicing four years with a large law firm and then one year with a small firm. The reason I came to Iowa, people often ask me, “How did you get to Iowa from New York?” Is because at that time I was married to a man named Rico Melson and Rico was a medical doctor and he was assigned by the US government, as part of his obligation to the public health service, to go to places where there were not enough doctors. And so the Mesquakie Indian Settlement, in Tama was a place that needed a doctor. So at the same time that was maybe going to happen, that he was going to get assigned to Iowa, I was invited to give a speech here at the University of Iowa Law School by Professor Burns Weston and I came and gave the speech and I said, “You know, I might have to move here to your state. What would I do as an international lawyer?” And he said, “Would you like to be a professor?” And it was something I had thought about before, I come from a family of educators, but I wouldn’t have become a professor at that moment and I wouldn’t have moved from New York City to become a professor. So, it was just this fate where I happened to be following or needed to follow a husband and so we came here and it worked out fabulously well.

Tajeria: That’s wonderful. Like if you without move to Iowa you thing you would end up now if you weren’t in Iowa?

Adrien Wing: I probably would have become a professor, maybe in a few years after that time, but I only would have considered being a professor in either in New York, where I had just been and I’d also grown up in the New York/New Jersey area, or in California which is where I was born and I went to graduate school for a masters at UCLA and I went to law school at Stanford in the San Francisco area. So I might have considered living out in California, but nothing in between.

Tajeria: From Iowa.

Adrien Wing: So I’d like to think that ultimately I would have become a professor, but on one of the coasts.

Tajeria: I noted you traveled a lot. Like is the travel based on your international law work?

Adrien Wing: Yes. As a lawyer I’m a specialist in international and comparative law. Then within that, I specialize in Africa and the Middle East. Then also, I’m the director of Iowa Law School’s summer program in France. So this summer will be my eleventh year going to France for five weeks and then this semester, it’s my first time as the law school’s director of our semester program in London. So I happen to be in Iowa City for a few days right now in the middle of the semester, so I could do this interview, but otherwise I’m based in London, for the semester. So some of my travel now-a-days, has to do with being the director of study programs for law students. Otherwise a lot of the travel, I get invited to do conferences and be a speaker or I’m doing research in mainly Africa and the Middle East, but also sometimes like last summer, I gave lectures in Indonesia and also I lectured last spring in New Zealand and Australia. While I’m based in London, I went over to Barcelona, Spain and gave a lecture. So while I’m here, actually I am here in the states, because I gave a lecture on Wednesday in Florida at Florida A & M Law school, I spoke yesterday at my own law school, then on Tuesday I’m going to USC to do a lecture and then on Friday I’ll speak at UCLA . So I have just been fortunate enough to do a lot of traveling primarily in the US, but of course also internationally and a lot has to do with these speeches and talks about my specialties. And people say, “Well what are your specialties?” I focus on women’s rights in Africa, the Middle East, and in the United States and I also focus on race, race and gender. So I’m interested not only in general Women’s Rights, but on the rights of women of color; of Black women: How are we treated because we are discriminated against based on both our race and our gender? So people will do something to me and it’s because I am because I am a “Black woman”, not just a Black or a woman. So this intersection of discrimination on the basis of race and gender is a specialty of mine and I’m known worldwide for this and so that’s part of the reason I get invited to places. Then also I said the Middle East. Part of my specialty involves the Muslim World, the Middle East in particular the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. So there is always a lot of request for me to speak on that issue because it’s an ongoing global problem. So I’ve been focusing on that area of the world for about twenty-eight years now.

Tajeria: I can see that’s something you hold near and dear to your heart. Is the reason why that it is so close that it’s interesting, or is that a certain area or that a part of studying?

Adrien Wing: Well for studies, I mentioned I got a master’s degree at UCLA and that was in African Studies. But I got involved with the Middle East, not because of my academic training when I was a student, but when I was a lawyer. Rico who was a new doctor at that point, volunteered to go to the Middle East during a war, that was happening in Lebanon and so we were young and in love and I went with him. So he worked in the hospital as a physician and I worked in the hospital as an administrator. Right after we left that location in Lebanon there was a terrible massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians there and so after that, the fact that we survived that war and also that where we were working, many people we knew were killed, we decided that we would each become more involved in the Middle East. So I learned, studied, and started preparing myself as a lawyer. So when I was your age in high school I had no idea I would have any interest at all, in the Middle East, I knew I might become a lawyer and I knew I liked Africa and I knew I liked race issues, back then the Civil Rights movement was going on. But I would’ve never imagined I would become an expert in the Middle East, so a lot of things can happen to you in your life just because of who you meet and who you’re with and current events.

End of part one, beginning of part two.

Tajeria: How did the Civil Rights Movement affect you as a person or growing up in New York City and California?

Adrien Wing: Well, the Civil Rights Movement started in the ‘50s when I was born. So when I was a little girl I remember watching the Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and watching the college kids who were doing sit-ins. I remember the Civil Rights act and things like that in the ‘60s. I remember Malcolm X. That’s how I grew up. I was very much affected by what was happening in society and the fact that Black people, we were then called, when I was born, we were called “Colored” or “Negro”. When I was aware we became known as “Afro-Americans” or “Black Americans” and so that all affected me growing up in that time, and I realized from a young age that I would want to become involved in the struggle for African Americans to get their civil rights. I knew even from high school that that would be part of my life and back then, the big issue in America was busing. Should children be bused from close to their house, far away in order to desegregate? And this was highly contested; many people, especially the whites did not want to bus their children to Black schools. So that whole issue of school desegregation was important to me. Also my mom, my mother who’s now retired, she was a high school teacher, all her family were teachers. So issues of race discrimination in the schools; underachievement was all a part of my upbringing and interest. With the Civil Rights Movement, at the same time, especially in the ’60s, there was a thrust on Blacks should be involved with Africa. And so I was part of that as well. That this is a place that we should know about that we should visit. And so I got involved and was interested in not only in Black America, but also in Africa and our roots with respect to Africa.

Tajeria: Would you consider yourself to be more privileged than others, with your parents, parents and siblings being teachers and educators, do you see yourself more privileged than others?

Adrien Wing: Yes. My grandmother went to college, so I am third generation college and my son’s are fourth generation college. There are very few people in the United States of any color, who can say they have four generations of college educated people. So in that sense my family, my mother’s side of the family, are incredibly privileged. On the other hand, my mother’s family was very much involved in civil rights and in human rights, dating back to the ’40s and even before that. So I grew up in a family, I was predominately around my mother’s family, where the idea was, we are incredibly privileged that we have education, but with that privilege comes service. So one of my favorite phrases I use and that my children have grown up knowing is a phrase that Marion Wright Edleman became famous for and she’s the director of the Children’s Defense Fund. And that statement is, “Service is the rent we pay for living on the planet.” And that was really part of my family that the more education you have, the more ability to travel, the more you have to help others. My mom’s family is from the Bronx; the south Bronx, in New York, which was a poor area. My father was from Harlem. He died when I was very young. He was a medical doctor; he was the first generation college in his family. So I’ve tried to also teach my children, that you have this education, but you have to help others. I have one of my son’s is in New York, getting a master’s degree at NYU and he’s a “Big Brother” in one of the Big Brother/Little Brother programs. So he’s also involved in service as actually are others of my family.

Tajeria: That’s awesome. What are you doing now to try and continue on your family legend? To stay involved?

Adrien Wing: Well actually right now, as I said, I am based in London. This is the first time I’ve spent a whole semester in London. So I’m spending a lot of time in the Black community of London. In London they have a lot of Blacks who are from Africa or from the Caribbean; a few Black Americans are there, but mainly Africans and the Caribbean and they are also discriminated against, inside of Great Britain. So I’m learning about their discrimination, so that I can bring back to the states, some of their issues so that Black Americans can learn about them. Then I am also teaching the Black Britons about our issues. So last week for instance, I did a speech at the City University of London on, “ African Americans in the Age of Obama”, talking to them about what does it means to us, as African Americans, the fact that we have the first Black President. The whole world was interested in that, not just the US. So they wanted my assessment of, “How is he doing so far?” Or how do you all feel, you’re his group. I feel a big part of what I’m doing now is education on both sides of the Atlantic, to explain to people on both sides about the similarities in struggle, the similarities in oppression and the need to move forward, even though things are bad, even though the economy is bad, even though many people have lost their jobs. That it’s important on both sides of the Atlantic for people to move forward. I happen to be lucky that I’m a professor and I have a tenured job, which means I cannot get fired, unless they shut down the whole law school or I commit a crime, I have a job for life. So that also is a very rare circumstance and so I think, people like myself, whose jobs are right now not in jeopardy, we have a salary freeze issues going on, but that it’s important to be involved. So that’s one thing I’m doing now on each side. But going back in time a bit, I’ve been involved for the past fifteen years or so with a group that’s out of Los Angeles, that’s owned by Jim Brown, who’s a former football player, world famous football player. A group called “Amer-I-can”. American with a capital “I” in the middle and it is a youth program for people at risk. So that program I actually brought to Iowa at one point and they taught the program in Des Moines. It can be taught to anyone. It can be used in prisons or it can be used with people who are juvenile offenders and so that was one of the projects that I did here in Iowa and I also brought that program to New Orleans, some years ago before the flood times. Since I have only sons, I’ve always been concerned about Black males getting caught up in the criminal justice system, getting derailed from a rich future. So I’ve tried to focus my service on trying to make sure, fewer Black men end up getting derailed.

Tajeria: Would you consider that one of your major accomplishments, helping others?

Adrien Wing: Oh definitely. To me that’s my major accomplishment. To me it doesn’t matter whether I got a degree or whether I have a title behind my name, but it is what have I done for somebody else? So I would hope, that I would be remembered for helping people through the Amer-I-can program. I also have helped write three constitutions of other countries. So I’ve done the helping from local levels involving my own group, all the way to global levels and I hope at some point people would look at that. That I was able to get my advice to Palestine which is the west bank and Gaza, not yet independent, but they have a basic law constitution. And I also advised on the South African Constitution and also on the Rwanda Constitution. So I’ve tried to, hope that I would be remembered for service on all levels, all the way up to the global level.

End of second part, beginning of part three

Tajeria: That is so amazing. Like, I can’t believe an African American woman has helped to go beyond means, not in America but in other countries as well. Going beyond means, writing a constitution like this is like almost unbelievable, dating back from going back in time when we couldn’t even read books.

Adrien Wing: We were property! We were property! We were slaves; we were chattel property all the way to the point where we have a Black man in the White House, we have a Black first lady; we have a Black man who’s the Attorney General of the US. We have achieved on levels beyond, what our ancestors could imagine. So to me, we have to keep serving and you don’t have to feel that you need a doctorate degree in order to serve. What’s been most impressive to me, or that I’ve had the opportunity to go around the world with people who can be very poor and have no education and yet they devote everything to helping others, starting with their families, starting with their community, so to me, that’s incredibly inspirational. For me, living in the US and having a nice office and being able to fly around that’s one thing, but for people in, I’ve been in Soweto Ghetto, in South Africa, I’ve been in the Gaza Strip, I’ve been in you know of course in Harlem and the South Bronx, and my ex-husband he’s from South Central L.A., and yet there are people in these areas; high crime areas, war zones, and yet they help and serve. So those kinds of people inspire me, when I get depressed about whatever is going on, to keep moving forward.

Tajeria: That’s great. Besides those people, is there anyone, besides other people in other countries that does other things for other people, they’re like sat there for you, that’s always been there for you, always give you the extra push, for you to do what you needed to do?

Adrien Wing: Well that would be my mother. After my dad died when I was nine, my mother had to all the sudden, take care of three small children and she had not been working; she was a housewife. So she had to go back to work, after nine years not working and became a teacher; a beginning teacher and worked very hard. She sacrificed all of her money and resources and put us in private school, in New Jersey, the public schools were really bad. So she paid and we also had scholarships and we went to very wealthy private schools that gave us the proper education, so we could go on to college. I went to Princeton, an Ivy League school, where I was one of the first girls admitted, maybe five years into the girls being admitted and very few Blacks. You know, I was one of the early Blacks there. None of that could have happened if my mother had not been willing to sacrifice, so she didn’t get a new car, she didn’t get herself nice clothes, she didn’t get a boyfriends, she just focused on us. She’s still alive; she’s in her ‘80s, she lives still in New Jersey. She’s in early Alzheimer’s now so her memory’s slipping, but I just talked to her today. I could not have done anything without her. Also today, my current partner, James Summerville, who I’ve known since 1980, when we went to Stanford together, he’s been living with me here in Iowa City, for fourteen years and so he has helped me with my sons. I have two sons, who are the sons of my ex-husband Rico. Then I became like a surrogate mom for three other boys whose mom had passed away. And so one of those boys lived with us as well and then the other two brothers didn’t live with us, but we’ve done a lot of things with them. James has been the father figure for all of these boys and so that’s truly tremendous. There’s not a lot of people who would move from California to Iowa and help raise other people’s children. And he’s a commercial artist, he works out of our house; he uses the computer. So while I have done all this traveling, trying to save the Universe, he was the one that was there at the house, to take care of all the issues that involve the house and the boys and the family. So I couldn’t have done anything as a professional, over the last fourteen years, if he wasn’t there to do that. So I tell women, recycle! Because he was somebody I dated, back when I was young for a year. We ended up breaking up, meeting other people, marrying, divorcing, and then had just kind of stayed in touch a bit, and then literally got back together. So somebody that you meant when you were fifteen or eighteen or twenty-five and it doesn’t work; it might work when you’re thirty-five or forty or fifty or sixty, or even older. So I think between my mom and James, certainly I think I owe a lot of my present success to them. And then you heard me mention this ex-husband. If it hadn’t been for him, of course I wouldn’t have had my two kids, but also he took me to the Middle East, “Following him for love.” So it gave me a whole specialty that I wouldn’t have had if not for him and then he was the reason I came to Iowa. And so Rico and I, we get along very well, and so I wouldn’t have major aspects of my life if not for him.

Tajeria: That’s wonderful. Between those three people, do you think, is there a saying or anything they ever told you that has stuck with you?

Adrien Wing: Not any one saying in particular, but just their example of all three of them actually, in different ways, of dedication, service, hard work. In James’s case he’s very low key. He stays in the background to help do things. He doesn’t want to be out in the front. So his kind of approach of being very humble has always inspired me. Then Rico, he’s always been out front, very bold, doing something crazy like going into a war zone. So that kind of approach of thinking out of the box and taking on risks, has affected me as well, then just my mom’s quiet strength and prioritization of the children, over her own interests, has inspired me a lot, too.

Tajeria: If you were to give advice to anyone, what would your advice would be besides being determined, humble, and outgoing? What kind of advice would you give there?

Adrien Wing: Advice for who?

Tajeria: Anyone in general, like teenagers in general.

Adrien Wing: Teenagers in general. OK. I would say for teenagers, of course hard work. You’ve got to work two or three times harder, especially if we’re talking about Black people,

Tajeria: Of course.

Adrien Wing: you’ve got to work two or three times harder. We often shoot ourselves in the foot when we come late. Or we’re not reliable, because people will look at that, not as just your personal failing, they will look at it as “That’s how Black people are.” Whereas if a white male does the same thing, that’s “Bob’s problem.” And so I think for young people have to learn, about having to work double or triple as hard, I think they also need to focus on education; getting an education and not looking at things like can I go and be in the NBA, or something like that. A lot of people still.....

Tajeria: Yes, or out partying.

Adrien Wing: Yes. You can party. Nobody’s saying you have to be... I was a bookworm, I studied, but I also went to parties on the weekend. I think it’s important to have social outlets. I would also tell teenagers, “You have to do service.” You have to do it from when you are born and certainly in high school. You can do service in your high school through a lot of the groups, or in your family, and no matter how limited your own resources are, you can certainly help others. So that’s something people should start doing when they’re in high school. I would say, delay having children, until you are grown and finished all your schooling and have sufficient money to support your children. That shouldn’t be until your mid-twenties at the earliest, if you stay in school. So I think those are the messages that I would certainly send to our children.

End of Part Three Beginning of Part Four

Adrien Wing: Life is very complicated. There’s a lot of stresses that you’re going to have, but there are also a lot of strengths that you’re going to get. So to me, I draw a lot of strength from my inter-actions with various people, including my own children, my job, my family, people I meet all over the world. I realize that’s all a part of me and the other thing is me is never done. Even though I’m a professor, I’m always learning. It isn’t that professors finished learning and they just teach. No, I am constantly learning and I expect to learn, about life, about other people until I die; until literally I can’t function or absorb any more. So, I think that’s a big part of my character and what gives me strength is to look at myself on a journey and different problems happen in the journey, but if you draw strength from those problems rather than letting them defeat you; rather than say, “Oh things are hard so I’m going to start smoking too much, or drinking too much, or using illegal drugs or things like that.” Those are not the approaches that are going to get you through. And so I draw strength and joy not from these substances, but from learning from other people and enjoying the successes of other people and staying in touch. I am on Facebook, now. A lot of people think that “Baby Boomers” shouldn’t be on Facebook. I am a friend of my son’s, except my youngest one; he doesn’t think the old people should be on Facebook. But through social networks like Facebook, I’m staying in touch with people all over the world, including young people and they inspire me. I met some young people in Indonesia last summer and so they’ve been staying in touch with me and they inspire me a lot because conditions are a lot harder in Indonesia than in Iowa. So through the Facebook you can look at so many people; what they’re doing and what their friends are doing. So I think being able to use, keep being able to use new technology. I don’t want to get to where I can’t learn whatever’s the new thing and then kind of just get on the sidelines. I think all of these things are part of what makes me, me, or makes me tick and gives me strength. You’re going to have stress, so you got to think what’s going to make you function through the stress? For instance Black people, we got to exercise. Too many Black people are too heavy and are eating too much junk. So like, two years ago I became a vegetarian. I feel a million times better as a vegetarian. I now work out three, four, five times a week. This morning I did a palates class. You can walk outside or you can walk inside of a mall or a gym nearby. So this is a serious issue. The First Lady’s focusing on this childhood obesity. It’s a whole life style change you have to do in terms of your attitude toward your body and so I think that’s another aspect that I’m trying to get to grips with, over the past few years. Because otherwise at my age in the fifties, a lot of people are dying; you know, just dying from stroke, heart attack, stress, high blood pressure, diabetes, all the neglect, of our bodies that we’ve done since we were teenagers; it catches up with you and you keel over. You say, “How did that person die? They were just so young.” But it’s often neglect of several decades, starting from the teen years. So that’s another thing I tell teenagers. You have to start respecting your body, in terms of what you eat and even if you’re thin, you could still be eating a bunch of very unhealthy, junky things and setting yourself up to get a whole lot of illnesses, especially since they’re already in our families, a lot of these illnesses.

Tajeria: So will this be one of your goals in the future, trying to do something to benefit African American women and their health?

Adrien Wing: Yes. I think that’s certainly an issue I’m more and more concerned about and also I am concerned about the Black family. Because 70% or more of our families are headed by women, that we don’t have men. That we don’t have the fathers that relate to all these children that the women are dealing with. I think this is critical. So that’s why I also try to talk to Black families and Black professional women who they have the job, they have all of this, but don’t have a man. They want to have kids, so I tell them, take in kids, adopt, mentor. I mean here I got involved with three other young men, they were not my biological sons, but I’ve been involved with them for nineteen years. They are my sons; they are my family and so anyone can do that and particularly Black people with education. We wouldn’t have to worry about whether our children are being adopted by white people, if just even some more of the Black people, who have a means to support people would say, “I need to take in these children.” So for the women the high stress we’re under, because we are usually on our own taking care of children means that we have to do more for our health. A piece of cake is really, really nice, when you feel like I need something. Well actually, if you have some yogurt with fresh fruit, or something that is so much healthier, that can still satisfy your sweet tooth, and then say, “I’m going to go out walking; I feel so agitated.” I find if I even go out and walk around the block once; take ten minutes, you feel so much different, just from that. And so I’m sure for the next period of time that I’m in, I’m going to continue to talk to Black women and Black families, about things we can do for our health and for the stress level, the high stress level that we’re under.

Tajeria: Before the end of the interview, would you like to share anything else with me or anyone else that you consider close and dear to you?

Adrien Wing: I’m just very delighted that the museum; it has such a project and that you’re choosing to interview people in Iowa. Sometimes people think history is only like famous people in Washington, or the President, or Astronaut Mae Jemison, or CondaLisa Rice, Secretary of State. So I think it’s really important for those of us in Iowa, where we are a small percentage of the population, to learn something about other Black people in Iowa. I’m excited to have been asked to be part of this project. I can’t wait ’till all the taping is done and it’s up on a website, so I can look at it and learn about other people. So I’d just like to say, I hope the museum will continue to do projects like this. And that you, when you go off to college, that you and I will continue to be involved in issues like this. So thank you very much for having me participate.

Tajeria: I’d like to thank you as well. I would also like
to thank the African American Museum in Cedar Rapids for giving us the opportunity to interview Mrs. Adrien Wing as well. Thank you.

Adrien Wing: Bye.