While this year’s ceremony looked very different from previous years due to the coronavirus pandemic, the award of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize for Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance remained an important celebration.
Alicia Garza, author, civil rights activist and co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, received the 13th award during the virtual event on Tuesday, April 20.
Garza grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from UC San Diego with degrees in anthropology and sociology. For the past several decades, she has worked to improve the lives of others through various organizations including the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Supermajority, and the Black Futures Lab she founded. The activist is a strong voice in the media and often contributes opinion pieces and expert commentary on politics, race and other issues to major news outlets.
Tuesday’s ceremony began with a comment from Professor Nigel Hatton of the UC Merced Institute of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, who described the award as a “moral arc in the valley” and stated that the “celebration of justice itself will be a virtual event. “
When Garza stepped onto the virtual podium, she referred to the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Just hours earlier, a jury in Minneapolis had found the former police officer guilty of murder and manslaughter when George Floyd died.
“At this moment, when we are experiencing incredible, incredible victories that we didn’t think was possible or possible a year ago, five years ago, a decade ago, we still have a lot to do,” said Garza.
In her discourse, Garza said she worked to break new ground, leaving behind the “limited options that lie ahead”. This led them to declare “Black Lives Matter,” a phrase that went from being a social media post to an organization with chapters around the world. Now she’s calling people to think about what kind of builders they are going to be and what they are building for the future.
“I believe that black communities deserve to be powerful in every area of our lives, and we know that black communities are indeed powerful,” she said. “It is black communities who have shown this country what it is made of and what it can be, even if it dares to be free.
“It’s black communities that endure and black communities that are innovators. We have persevered because of and despite all the obstacles that have come our way,” she said. “We are creators, visionaries, leaders, builders, fighters and winners – not because it is something that is inherent in us, but because we had to be it.”
Garza took a moment to pay homage to her mother, who had passed away three years ago. She said her mother taught her that “the most important lessons in organizing and building power are dignity and survival”.
“Freedom is our birthright,” said Garza. “In my dreams of freedom we are building a new world in which none of us will be left behind.”
As the event ended, UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz called it a “privilege” and an “honor” to have the opportunity to hear Garza’s message. He presented this year’s award, albeit virtually, to Garza, who expressed her gratitude and described it as an “incredible honor”.
The Spendlove Prize was launched at UC Merced in 2005 and is made possible by a generous gift from the native Merced-Sherrie Spendlove.
“This award is named in honor of my parents, Alice and Clifford Spendlove, but it is also an elegy for the common man and woman – largely unsung heroes; people who work hard with honesty and integrity, with goodwill towards all People; people who have built and continue to build our community and our country – that is your price too, “said Spendlove during the event.
“UC Merced is very grateful for Sherrie’s generosity and the example her family and parents have given us,” said Muñoz.
The Spendlove Prize Selection Committee, charged with selecting the recipient, is chaired by the Dean of the Faculty of Social, Humanities and Arts and consists of a representative of the Spendlove family or an agent, a student, a PhD student, a faculty member and representatives the UC Merced Community.
That year, the awards committee was chaired by Dean Jeffrey Gilger and included Spendlove as a family representative, Hatton as a faculty member, and Lee Anderson and Charlie Bennet as members of the local ward. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the positions of the undergraduate and postgraduate students have been left vacant after the previous students left.
Past Spendlove Award recipients include former President Jimmy Carter, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, civil rights activist John Y. Tateishi, Harvard professor Charles Ogletree Jr., and 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Peter Balakian, a leading Armenian voice in genocide recognition, alongside many other high profile national and international figures.
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