The Daily Northwestern Monday, April 29, 2019
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Annual TEDx event held at Welsh-Ryan Speakers touch on conference theme ‘Visions and Voices’
By WILSON CHAPMAN
daily senior staffer
Standing in front of an audience of about 280 at the Welsh-Ryan Arena, Weinberg Prof. Jennifer Lackey shared her experiences teaching philosophy and creative writing to incarcerated prisoners as part of the Northwestern Prison Education Program. Lackey discussed the prisoneducation paradox, the idea that prisons are dehumanizing spaces but that prison-education programs act to humanize the students. She talked about how teaching students non-fiction prose pieces, some of which were eventually published in The New Yorker, helped them express and empower themselves. “Some of the most empowering tools we could give the students was the power to tell their own stories,” Lackey said. Lackey and nine other speakers shared their stories at the TEDxNorthwesternU Conference this Saturday. The TEDxNorthwesternU conference is one of many TEDx events that are unaffiliated with
official TED Conferences but share a similar format and are provided a free license by the TED organization. Executive director Eileen Chen told The Daily that TEDxNorthwesternU is one of the few completely student-run TEDx events in the country. This year’s conference theme was Visions and Voices. Chen told the Daily the themes of TEDx conferences are usually very broad so anybody’s story could fit into them. Chen joked that the team picked Visions and Voices as a theme because of the alliteration, but said the theme was chosen because it encapsulated TED’s mission statement. “TEDx is really just all about people coming up on stage and speaking about their ideas… so we just thought Visions and Voices would be a great way to sort of encapsulate any story,” the Weinberg senior said. “So it would be the umbrella cast over all the topics that we talk about.” The speaker lineup featured several Northwestern community members, from faculty to alumni. Feinberg Prof. Rola Kaakeh discussed the struggles and importance of making medication accessible and affordable to everyone. Jacob Schmidt » See TEDX, page 6
FIRST DANCE Thea Showalter/the Daily Northwestern
Northwestern students dance at Northwestern’s first African Ball. The African Student Association said it hopes the event becomes a “staple” among NU’s other annual formals.
» See BALL, page 5
Church celebrates 125th anniversary Evanston student Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church reflects on community By COLIN BOYLE
daily senior staffer @colinbphoto
With spirits and voices as vibrant as the colorful streamers that were distributed for the day’s celebration, congregants of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church celebrated the 125th anniversary of the parish Sunday morning. During the almost threehour service, parishioners and local officials gathered to commemorate the church, located just east of the intersection of Ridge Avenue and Clark Street, where it has sat for over 100 years. The church was first established as a “church plant” of the Second Baptist Church. In 1894, the congregation broke away from Second Baptist Church and established a separate ministry on the fourth Sunday in April. They first met at a local plumbers’ union hall, which is now the downtown branch of the Evanston Public Library. On Sunday, Sherria Lois Wedlow, a lifelong parishioner who has spent over 70 years at Mount Zion, greeted guests as
launches campaign ‘Educate Girls Everywhere’ helps non-prof its By THEA SHOWALTER
the daily northwestern @theashowalter
Colin Boyle/Daily Senior Staffer
Parishioners wave their streamers during the celebration on Sunday morning. Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church celebrated its 125th anniversary on Sunday.
they walked into the church. “I’m overwhelmed with today’s service,” she said. “I never thought I’d live to see 125 years, although I’m not that old.” Honoring the 125 years of service and those who came
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
before them was one of the themes of the celebration. Melody-Marion Bickhem, the granddaughter of one of the founding members — William L. Marion, Sr. — briefly spoke on the history of the church during the service.
She said Coretta Scott King, wife of the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., visited the parish in 1980. In a conversation with The Daily, Bickhem spoke about her experience as » See ZION, page 6
Brynn Aaronson keeps as busy as any typical high schooler. She performs in theatre, competes on the speech and debate teams, sings with a vocal jazz group and writes for The Evanstonian, Evanston Township High School’s student paper. In spite of all that, Aaronson recently launched “Educate Girls Everywhere,” a platform that aims to raise awareness and financial support for non-profit organizations that help to educate girls worldwide. Aaronson, 15, was motivated to start the project after she visited Belize in 2015 with her family. She was 12-yearsold and said she met some girls who talked to her about their lives in Belize. “I realized they didn’t go to school. That was the first time I’d ever kind of heard about that,” Aaronson said. “I didn’t
realize other people didn’t have schooling opportunities.” For Aaronson’s bat mitzvah project, she said she designed and sold t-shirts to raise money to help educate girls in Belize. She raised over $3000, which put two girls through high school. Aaronson kept in touch with the girls by writing letters back and forth with them. She said the girls told her about their school and Aaronson said she realized that their schooling situation was still not as good as it could be. “I was reading those letters last year, and I was like, ‘I need to do more, this can’t just be a one-time thing,” Aaronson said. Aaronson said that was when she decided to start an annual fundraising campaign for a different non-profit every year. This year she’s raising money for CAMFED Zambia, a non-profit that promotes female education throughout Africa. Lauren Sinai, Aaronson’s mother, said that for her daughter, the trip to Belize was “an awakening of unfairness, and the importance of » See EDUCATE, page 6
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