Union College Freshman and Chautauqua Performer with the Kentucky Humanities Council Attends Convocation to Hear Fellow Council Member Speak

Union College freshman and Kentucky Chautauqua historical impersonator, Haley S. Bowling from McKee, Kentucky, attended Fall Convocation at Conway Boatman Chapel on Union's campus. Bowling is an historical impersonator with the Kentucky Humanities Council. She attended Convocation with her college peers to hear fellow humanitarian, Dr. Aaron Thompson, deliver his address entitled Four Steps to Living an Unbiased Life. Thompson is also with the Kentucky Humanities Council.

Bowling is the youngest ever Chautauqua performer. She performs throughout Kentucky by request through the Kentucky Humanities Council. Bowling appeared on her own Union College campus just last year. She portrays the historic character of Anna Mac Clarke.

Clarke was a native of Lawrenceburg who graduated from Kentucky State College in 1941. She rejected the usual domestic work that most black women were employed to do in the 1940's and moved to New York to work in a Girl Scout camp.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Clarke volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (renamed Women's Army Corps in 1943). During officer's training in Iowa, she led the successful opposition to a proposal to segregate black soldiers into their own regiment. At Douglas Army Airfield in Arizona, Lieutenant Clarke made history when she became the first black WAC officer to command a white unit. And she made national news after her protest against segregated seating in the base theater convinced the commanding officer to ban segregation on the base. Just a few weeks later, the 24-year-old Clarke died of complications from a ruptured appendix.

September 15, 2004

 

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