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Biography

Born in New York City, determined to be a lawyer from her junior high years, Marcella David graduated from the University Michigan with a degree in law. In Michigan she discovered the joys of a Midwest life. She interviewed for a position at the University of Iowa thinking that after a few years the East would be calling her back. Instead, she has found her home and home base in Iowa City. An avid world traveler and amateur photographer, her degree, her profession, and her outlook on life has enabled her to seek a variety of ways to help others set and achieve their goals.

Transcript

Date of Interview:  6 March 2010

Arianna: Hi, my name is Arianna and today I have with me
Miss Marcella David. Nice to meet you.

Marcella David: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Arianna: Thank you. You have been recognized as an African American History Maker in Iowa City. How do you feel about that?

Marcella David: I’m a little surprised and humbled, because I know this is a community; well first I’m surprised because I’ve only been here about fifteen years, which seems like a short period of time. I’m also humbled because I know there is a long history of folks who have lived in this community and done really wonderful things. I’m just a little surprised to be in their company.

Arianna: OK, ok. Where were you born at?

Marcella David: I was born in New York City. So I grew up not too far from Shay Stadium; the home of the Mets, where tennis is played, all those kinds of wonderful things.

Arianna: What made you come to Iowa City?

Marcella David: I came to Iowa City to work at the University of Iowa. I’m a professor in the law school and it’s a great law school. It was a place where I thought I would be able to succeed. I met with the colleagues and visited and thought that Iowa City would be a comfortable place for me to live. And like many other people, I thought that I’d just stay here for a few years and move on. So I’m a little surprised to still be here, as I said going into my fifteenth year, but it’s been all of those things I have expected it to be.

Arianna: Ok, So you studied law?

Marcella David: I studied law. I studied at the University of Michigan, so I was familiar with Iowa through the Big Ten and had lived at least somewhat in the Midwest. I think Michigan’s very different from Iowa and Iowa City, but in some ways there are similarities in the way people think. So it was one of the reasons why Iowa was appealing enough to come and interview and then Iowa and Iowa City sold me on the rest of it.

Arianna: What made you want to study law?

Marcella David: Ooo! When I was a little girl there were things that were happening on the news. My area of scholarship is International Law. And so on the news I used to see about the conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis and I also saw about what was going on in South Africa. And I said, “Oh my goodness! I don’t understand!” And I’d say to my parents, “Isn’t there a law against these kinds of things happening and can’t we stop people from treating each other this way?” And they’d say, “We don’t know, but maybe you should go to law school and find out.” So I went to law school.

Arianna: How did they feel about that when they found out you were actually pursuing that?

Marcella David: I think they were really pleased, because it made me happy and it was fulfilling. Not everybody has the opportunity to work in a job where they’re really excited by what they do. And I was really excited by studying the law. I’d think about the law all times. Walking down the street I’d think about the law or watching the television I’d think about the law, because it surrounds us. If you have that opportunity to do something like that and get paid for it at the same time that’s a wonderful thing. So I think my parents were happy about that.

Arianna: Has there been one person in particular that has supported you a little more than others or that you think is like, a little more proud of you for doing what you’re doing?

Marcella David: Well both of my parents have died. So certainly they were big cheerleaders for me. I have some friends who are friends from law school and friends who are friends from college and you know we’re still very close and there are people that I get on the phone with and they cheer me on, when things are tough and I do the same for them. But, once you lose your parents, I think you lose your biggest cheerleaders, or at least that’s my case.

Arianna: What’s the biggest accomplishment that you’ve made or had or something that you still want to achieve, from doing this?

Marcella David: Well, that’s a really good question. That’s a tough question. I have lots of things that I’m always trying to achieve on a personal level and on a professional level. On a professional level, I think something that’s very important to me is access to the law school. So trying to make sure that people all over from different backgrounds, from different socio-economic backgrounds, rich kids, poor kids, kids who’ve had lawyers in their family for years and years and kids who, you know, grew up in welfare and they’re the first person in their family to go to college, let alone think about going to law school and we have access and we are able to help them succeed. And I am proud of the fact that the law school, if we invite you to be a student, most of our students graduate. That’s something I’m proud of, but it’s something I’d like to see us continue and expand on.

Arianna: I noticed that you did a lot of traveling to different places. What took you to those different places? What was the reason for going?

Marcella David: That’s another good question and it’s complicated. I like international law, because I like learning about different people and different culture. So the travel sometimes goes along with that, but I also love to do things like photography and go to places and see things and take pictures. So that’s part of it as well, but mostly I like to go to some place and have a chance to be there long enough to just learn about a different culture or learn about a different system or learn about a different way of doing things or eat different food or see different kinds of art. So those are some of the reasons why I have traveled to the some of the places that I’ve traveled and sometimes I’ve been able to combine it with work and even if it’s not work it’s fun.

Arianna: Did you have a favorite place out of the places you have been? I noticed you were in Cambodia and Australia and Thailand.

Marcella David: They’re all wonderful places for different reasons. Cambodia was a place that was a very different place from other places that I had traveled to. So that was really interesting getting to see a little bit of Cambodia and get to know people there a little bit. Australia and New Zealand was great for different reasons. I mean it was a vacation so it was kind of fun, but it’s a beautiful place and I was with people and we were enjoying ourselves. You have different reasons for going. Probably the place that I have been the most to is England.

Arianna: OK.

Marcella David: When I was a student in college, I spent a year there. It’s a place where I still have friends and I go back and it feels like a home to me so it is a place; it is all most a second place for home and that’s comfortable. Which is a different reason for traveling, is to go someplace and just relax and feel comfortable and do favorite things and that’s another good place for me.

Arianna: When you were in England did you notice any major differences between being there and being here?

Marcella David: Oh there’s lots of differences. The first time I went to England was a very long time ago; actually it was when Jessie Jackson was running for president.

Arianna: Wow!

Marcella David: Yes, that means I’m old. And it was really interesting to see how people in England were thinking about the United States, at a time that we were thinking about the election and how things were going forward. And I think that our perceptions of ourselves and the way others look at us are very different. That was an interesting thing to see. How people look at the U.S. and how we look at the U.S.

Arianna: When you were younger did you think that you wanting to study law when you were older would actually happen?

Marcella David: I did, I did. I took a law course when I was in junior high school and we had a mock trial competition and I was the lead lawyer. I was like ‘Ben Matlock’. I enjoyed it and everybody said, “Oh yes, you should definitely do that!” So I never really had a doubt that I would study law. I studied other things as well, because law is a course of study you can take with different majors. So first I studied engineering and that was great, ’cause I had a math background and I had done a lot of math and science in high school, so I studied that first and that was a very rewarding course of study, but not as wonderful as law was.

Arianna: If you didn’t get into where you are now, do you think there’s anything else you would have tried to pursue, or study in?

Marcella David: I wish I were brave enough to be a singer. I can sing a little bit, but I’m not brave enough to say OK, I don’t need a regular job; I’m just going to be a singer. I don’t have that kind of courage. I wish I could be a writer, ’cause I like to read a lot of mysteries and other kinds of books and it would be great if I were brave enough to do that. And I’m really excited about photography because unlike being a writer or being someone who sings for a living, I can take my camera with me anywhere and take photos and share them. That’s something I will be able to do in the long run, so I try and have opportunities to practice and make my skills a little better.

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Arianna: Who’s someone that you look up to for any reasons at all?

Marcella David: Oh, wow! Well, I looked up to my parents a lot and to my grandmothers. Both of my grandfathers died when…my father’s father died when he was a baby and my mother’s father died when she was a little girl. So I had grandmothers and they were very strong at an age when women were not expected to have their own household, to do things that women were not supposed to be able to do and that black women were not supposed to be able to do. So they were very strong and I looked up to them a lot. And my parent’s I looked up to, because they went to school and got their degrees after my sister and I were born and I think I was in kindergarten when my mother started going back to school and I always looked up for them for going back to school and getting their degrees. My father went from making bagels and moving refrigerators; you know in New York you’d tie furniture to your back with straps and walk them up the steps and he got a business degree and started working for a big firm. So I was very proud of him for that. I was very proud of my mother; she got a degree and learned how to be an occupational therapist and she worked with handicapped children in the New York City public school system. So they were great role models.

Arianna: From either your parents or your grandmothers, was there something that you still remember that they taught you or anything they used to say or anything that kind of just stuck to you?

Marcella: Well my grandmother, like many women of her age, always used to preface everything with, “If I live ’til tomorrow...” And we’d laugh at her a little bit, because you know it was like, “OK, grandma, can you just guess that you’ll be here tomorrow? I’m not asking for five years from now, but just tomorrow.” But she was right in that you never know, so try not to have regrets. I’m very proud that even though both of my parents died suddenly, that I am confident that they knew that I loved them and respected them and was proud of them and the same was true that I knew that about them and their feelings for me. Another saying my grandmother had was, “Don’t assume anything, because you make an ass out of you and me.” So try not to just look at something and make a snap judgment. Those are both things to remember, I think.

Arianna: Do you think that from her telling you those things that you followed them?

Marcella David: Definitely as a lawyer. I try not to assume too much. You have to ask questions, which goes with my personality. I’m an academic because I want to know the answer to things, I want to research things; I want to understand things. So being a lawyer and being an academic those two things, I think go together with having a questioning mind and not making too many assumptions. Living each day and remembering that it could be your last, I think is just something that could help you no matter what your field is.

Arianna: Your field of law, studying that, do you think there is anything you don’t feel is right about it that you think should change or be better about it?

Marcella David: Well I study international law and so these are trying times for international law. It’s a moment when people sometimes say, “You’ve got wars here, there, and everywhere; you’ve got crises in Haiti, crises in Chile. We’ve had disaster with rain in Europe; you’ve got mud slides in Uganda. And that’s all in the past three weeks or four weeks since you’ve had these kinds of disasters, which implicates climate and international cooperation. So I think these are challenging times for international law. I still believe in international law and I think that it is a force for us going forward in respect for others in different nations and that’s the reason why I’m glad I do it, because we are in a more interconnected world and if you don’t recognize those connections and that what I’m doing here today might have an impact; you know the clothing that you’re wearing could have come from anywhere in the world. You don’t think about it, but your decision to buy it had a huge impact on the lives of those people and are we dealing with them in a respectful way?

Arianna: What advice, if any, would you have for someone wanting to pursue law as a career?

Marcella David: Well, good lawyers have a few skills. One is the ability to work hard and sacrifice for a client or for an idea or for an ideal which is an important thing. You have to be able to read a lot....

Arianna: Oh yeah.

Marcella: ... because there’s a lot of reading just to become a lawyer and then, if you’re doing research around a topic; if you needed to enter into a contract for example, I might need to do research about the kind of contract in the kind of area that you are interested in pursuing, so I need to be willing to do that kind of thing. Be interested in writing, because it’s not creative writing, but it is really important to be able to write very clearly and to really be able to analyze things.

Arianna: OK.

Marcella: You can learn that by studying engineering or math the way I did, or taking a really hard philosophy course where you get one of those really fat books and you have to figure out what the author’s trying to say, from the beginning to the end. Those are going to be some skills that will help you I think, be a good lawyer.

Arianna: Is there any advice that you got from anyone, before you made it this far that you took throughout the years and used?

Marcella David: Don’t have regrets. Give yourself the best chance. So if I were taking a test or writing a paper, I want to make sure that at the end of it, I’ve studied enough and I’ve given myself the best chance I can to do well, so that I don’t turn around and say, “Oh well, if only I hadn’t done such and such, I would have done better.” That involves making a choice. So sometimes you might choose. You know, OK, now is the time for me to de-stress by going to see a movie or taking a weekend off, but then you don’t regret it. You recognize that you’re doing that for an equally important reason which is to not go crazy, but to try and not have regrets and give yourself the kind of preparation for the tasks that you want to be successful at.

Arianna: There’s been a lot of different things going on on certain sides of Iowa City, like the southeast side versus the other side. Do you think that, what’s your input on that? Do you think that....have you experienced anything that you can kinda say, “Well yeah, this side’s better, this side’s badder? What do you think?”

Marcella David: I haven’t had a bad experience living in Iowa City, but frankly I’m privileged, because I work at the University and I’m a professor and I think also I have the status and the stature that people don’t tend to give me grief. But, I have heard and seen things that cause me to be very concerned, particularly the way some people will equate being black with being from Chicago and start talking about, “Oh those people from Chicago,” and give people all sorts of attributes that they’ll just make up. Like, “Oh well those people from Chicago, they don’t have good educations, those people from Chicago they’re all on welfare, those people from Chicago they all are thieves.” I’m really troubled by that. I know it is not just for the African American community; it’s for being in an increasingly diverse city, which Iowa City is. It’s much more diverse than it was when I moved here, I can see it. I hope that Iowa City together with the University and the big companies in town will begin to embrace the idea of being proactive and not just saying, “Well as long as we have good intentions, it’ll all work out.” Well, but saying, “We are becoming more diverse, what do we need to do to make sure everyone has a good experience?”

Arianna: Ok. Is there anything else that you think you’d want to share?

Marcella David: I will tell you that one of the things; before I went back to the law school and when I was still working in central administration on diversity matters for the University, I had a chance to work with a lot of students in high schools. I hope that students in the high schools wherever they’re from and whatever they think they want to do, that they persevere and try and do as well as they can in high school and think about going to college, ’cause I think in the future that’s going to be more important than anything else for people as individuals and for the economy of Iowa and for just the success.

Arianna: Thank you so much for your time today, and I’d like to thank the African American Museum for allowing us to be able to do this. Thank you.