10th Year Monthly Celebration Giveaway and MCBD Updates

Barbara is an African American mother of two and grandmother of five.  She grew up in a racially segregated town in Virginia. Her community consisted of only two groups of people — African Americans, blacks, and whites, Anglo-Americans. In her 18th year, she entered an all-white women’s college in New England where there were only two other African American girls.

Barbara finished college and worked as a social worker in the Department of Social Service (DSS) in Boston. Being unable to help clients realize the goals of the DSS – which was to get them off welfare and financially independent –  Barbara decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in Social Work.

Along the way, she met more and more white, black, and other culturally diverse people. In New York City, in her studies of and work with America’s racially and culturally diverse families and children and immigrants from around the world, she learned that race was not the source of differences. It was and is culture.

She married and had two children, and wanted to ensure they had access to learn about culturally diverse peoples and the differences between race and culture! Barbara and her family settled in Altadena, California.  She soon found Pacific Oaks College (PO) and Children’s School, a Quaker founded Graduate college and children’s pre-school. Her two children attended the preschool at the college from ages three until six and Barbara joined the college faculty at Pacific Oaks College.

While her children progressed through schools, Barbara directed and taught courses in the college’s Marriage, Family and Child Counseling (MFCC) degree program and, attended until earning her Ph.D. in Education at Claremont College and Graduate School) in Pomona, CA.

Even at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California, (which prided itself on its valuation of diversity) where Barbara got back into education— of adults — teaching socio/political contexts courses, etc., she had to try to help the college librarian see the value of getting feedback from the parents of our children and the graduate students regarding the diversity of the book collections and the differences between culture and race!  She asked that a slip of paper be inserted in a non-damaging way into books for the reader to share her/his comments but, that was viewed as defacement— and did not happen.

At Pacific Oaks College, Barbara directed and taught courses in the college’s Marriage Family and Child Counseling (MFCC) degree program and, attended until earning her Ph.D. in education at The Claremont Graduate University (Claremont Graduate School) in Pomona, California.

Barbara added a Ph.D. in education from Claremont Graduate School to the MSW as professor and Director of the Marriage, Family, Child Counseling Master’s Degree program (MFCC) at Pacific Oaks. Her teaching in MFCC courses focused on supporting diverse families through anti-racism education and celebrations of multicultural diversity.

As both a mother and a social worker, Barbara saw the need for children to see themselves reflected in the books that they read. She authored a parenting book, Parenting Black Children in a Racist Society. Barbara enjoys diverse picture books, raising orchids, and traveling.

Nancy Tupper Ling is a children’s author, poet, bookseller, and librarian. Basically, she surrounds herself with books! Occasionally, she creates a few books of her own, including:

My Sister, Alicia May; The Story I’ll Tell; Double Happiness; The Yin-Yang Sisters and her latest, For Every Little Thing, with co-author, June Cotner.  To learn more, check out her website and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.