Ken Neubeck
After 32 years of teaching sociology at the University of Connecticut,
where he established an academic curriculum in human rights and wrote
books including Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's
Poor, Professor Ken Neubeck accepted a "golden handshake" retirement
offer at age 60. His wife Mary Alice, an assistant dean at the school,
also retired, and in 2003 the couple arrived in Eugene, where their son
Michael and his family were living. "I made a decision to not go back
to academia," he says, "except for occasional lectures. Instead, I
threw myself into activism." He brought his golden retriever Tanner to
River Road Elementary School to listen to kids practicing their
reading, and he began volunteering at the Amigos Multicultural Center,
an immigrant rights group. He was invited to join its board, and he
served as executive director from 2006 to 2012. "I worked hard to
support the youth group, Juventud FACETA," he says, "Immigrant youth
who graduate become human rights ambassadors." As a member of the
Eugene Human Rights Commission since 2008, Neubeck has promoted human
rights as something broader than civil rights to not be discriminated
against. "Back in 2011," he relates, "I put forward a proposal to
revise the city's human rights ordinance, to promote the full range of
human rights as found in the Universal Declaration: rights to food,
housing, and medical care. It was unanimous with the city council." In
recent years, he has volunteered as a crisis counselor for Occupy
Medical and a legal observer with the Civil Liberties Defense Center.
He has also been active with Showing up for Racial Justice, with the
Integration Network for Immigrants of Lane County and with the Western
Regional Advocacy Project, working for an Oregon Homeless Bill of
Rights.
happening people
photograph and story by Paul Neevel
Eugene Weekly / 10 May 2018
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