MLK Award Winner

Madelaine Adelman reacts to her selection as a recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Living the Dream Award.

By Glenn Gullickson

Madelaine Adelman

Local GLSEN co-chair recognized with Living the Dream Award

The co-chair of the Phoenix chapter of Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) says that she is overwhelmed to be receiving an award with Martin Luther King Jr.'s name attached to it.

Madelaine Adelman will be among seven individuals honored at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast on Jan. 13 in Phoenix, just days before the holiday that recognizes the civil rights leader.

Adelman will receive a Living the Dream Award at the event sponsored by the Dr. Martin Luther King Celebration Committee and supported by the Phoenix Human Relations Commission.

Adelman said she has studied the U.S. civil rights movement, as well as how it was influenced by the work of Mohandas Gandhi. "The concept that motivates me is the power of the collective to effect change through non-violent resistance," she said. "I am also challenged by the ideal of working in coalition, where my struggles are yours and yours are mine."

Adelman recently became co-chair of the organization's grassroots National Advisory Council and about a year ago joined GLSEN's national board of directors.

Adelman said she is proud of the growth of the local organization's programming. "We are able to make a difference each time we walk into a school or community organization and help students, educators, parents and neighors create schools that reflect their values of respect, inclusion and healthy learning," she said.

An associate professor of justice and social inquiry at Arizona State University, Adelman said she started volunteering with GLSEN in 2002, when the local chapter was accredited.

Adelman said she learned about GLSEN while she was preparing a workshop on homophobia for social workers in the Mesa Public School District. "Once I learned about GLSEN, and met others in the area who shared my commitment to improving our local school climate, I was hooked," she said.

Among her memories is representing GLSEN at a global gathering of safe school advocates in Warsaw, Poland. "The movement is bigger than any one individual, and we are building networks that cross national boundaries," Adelman said.

GLSEN is perhaps best known for sponsoring the National Day of Silence, when students remain silent to bring attention to issues faced by LGBT youth. "It has become a transformative experience for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of high school and university students," Adelman said.

Adelman noted that the Day of Silence was created by a university student who was studying Gandhi. "She wanted to harness the power of silence to bring attention to the everyday violence that LGBT people experience," she said.

Adelman said she's noticed that the lines between her campus work and her volunteer work have blurred over the years as students involved with GLSEN's local initiatives have started attending college.

At ASU, Adelman's teaching and research centers on the politics of gender violence in the U.S. and Israel, sociolegal studies and the safe schools movement.

She is co-editing a volume that analyzes the city of Jerusalem and its sites of conflicts and cooperation. She is writing a chapter on the city's gay Pride celebration for the book. She is also completing a book on the politics of domestic violence in Israel.

Future research could include a study of LGBT domestic violence or a comparative look at the safe schools movement, Adelman said. She recently was in Israel to meet with activists in the anti-domestic violence and LGBT movements.

Adelman grew up in upstate New York and Florida and completed a degree in cultural anthropology at Duke University in North Carolina. She came to ASU in 1997.

Adelman said that her advocacy work is one of the things that keeps her in the state. "Arizona presents myriad possibilities for getting involved in social justice work," she said. -E