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Public
Employee Press Union Scrapbook For
Etta Dixon, education is forever
Etta Dixon was among the proud class who
received diplomas May 28 from City College, but at 75, she is older than most
of the graduates.
Education never stops, said Dixon, a Secretary
for the Retirees Association who worked for 35 years at the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority. You start your education the minute you are born and you continue
it until you die.
Dixon, a devoted dancer in her free time, earned
a degree in social studies at the Center for Worker Education and completed her
studies for an associates degree when she was 28, but she pursued her bachelors
seriously only in recent years.
Too many people go to college just
to get their diploma for a job, but I waited until I was ready to study again
to improve the quality of my life, said Dixon, a former member of MTA Clerical-Administrative
Employees Local 1655.
She enjoyed studying key historical figures in the
struggle against racism, such as Ida B. Wells, the African American journalist
who used her pen to fight for civil rights and womens rights. She
was a gun-toting woman, because she lived when the Ku Klux Klan was lynching Blacks,
she said.
Wells story triggered childhood memories. Dixon said, My
grandfather used to tell us about the KKK, which is why he moved north.
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