While growing up in Texas, Francis McMillan Parks attended segregated schools. The textbooks in her classrooms were always 10 to 15 years old and dilapidated from excessive use. The buildings themselves were often literally collapsing around students, and teachers were paid next to nothing for their work.

Signs delineating ‘white’ and ‘colored’ areas of town were prominent, and racism was everywhere. At age 15, Parks led her classmates in protest, walking for miles to downtown Greenville to demonstrate against the American Red Cross’ collection of black and white blood. Years later, she participated in the highly publicized lunch counter protests in North Carolina. And even though the Civil Rights Movement ended decades ago, Parks has never stopped dedicating her life to service and the search for social justice.

For years, Parks has served as the director of Students Offering Service, a Syracuse University organization that provides students opportunities to work within the local community. This year marks the 15th anniversary of S.O.S., which maintains a wide variety of service programs, from Habitat for Humanity to the yearly Sojourner Storytelling Conference.

‘Students came together and developed a shared perception of the need to respond to issues of social justice,’ Parks said. ‘S.O.S. has become the basis of a different sort of culture at the university, one in which all students can participate in meaningful community service. It’s an engagement that allows us to be in concert with the spheres of both knowledge and service.’

Parks herself has lived by these intersecting spheres since childhood. Her parents grew up in well-off families and became teachers, but never saw themselves as better than those with fewer resources, Parks said.

‘My siblings and I saw our parents as remarkable human beings,’ Parks said. ‘We emulated them – they taught us to share, to take clothes and give them to others. My mother could never teach a child in her class if he came to school hungry.’

At 15, Parks graduated from high school and attended Southern University in Louisiana, where she studied anthropology and sociology. She continued her active role in society, choosing to spend Saturdays at a juvenile detention center teaching illiterate boys how to read and write.

Parks taught at several colleges, moving frequently because her husband was an Army officer. The couple, who eventually ended up in Syracuse, imparted the importance of service work on their three children.

‘Our children worked alongside us,’ Parks said. ‘Every Christmas day, we would volunteer at the Samaritan Center. We hoped they would see beyond themselves and put their self-interest aside to help others.’

One of Parks’ daughters currently works at SU, while her son living in Phoenix works with an organization protecting children from abuse. Her other daughter is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose work often focuses on the themes of racism and sexism.

Parks said one of her favorite S.O.S. programs is International Young Scholars. She helped organize it more than a decade ago to help acclimate Haitian refugee children to American life, and today it includes refugees from all over the world.

‘To see victims of apartheid and the Lost Boys of the Sudan grow through this SU program is remarkable,’ Parks said. ‘It’s quite a testimony to how we can learn from others’ struggles and recognize our own capacity for sustaining hardship.’

Sophomores Lauren D’Angelo, a policy studies major, and Allison VanSciver, a graphics major, met Parks last year through S.O.S. and said she is unquestionably the most selfless, compassionate, determined person either of them knows.

‘Francis has an incredible heart and doesn’t take anything for granted,’ VanSciver said. ‘Every day she’s thinking about new projects, and it’s not just talk; she actually sees things through.’

D’Angelo and VanSciver organized this year’s Crop Walk with Parks’ help. The annual event raises money and awareness for global and local hunger, and Parks helped the students to truly understand the nature of hunger, D’Angelo said.

‘She’s not serious all the time though; she’s got a great sense of humor too,’ VanSciver said. ‘We were talking about getting a band to play after Crop Walk, and Francis said, ‘What about that guy, 50 Cents?’ It was hilarious.’

In today’s consumer culture, people are often quick to accuse students of being materialistic, self-involved and unwilling to contribute to the communities around them. However, Parks said she sees evidence quite to the contrary.

‘There have been too many students who have given up their Saturdays to play chess with underprivileged children, too many students who, year after year, help me load boxes of food into my station wagon for local food pantries,’ Parks said. ‘I am continually encouraged by students who care deeply about those around them, whether they be athletes, ROTC participants or graduate students.’

‘Sometimes students feel that their service work isn’t recognized at all,’ D’Angelo said. ‘That’s never the case with Francis, because she thanks and praises you continually.’

Parks sees the recent incidents surrounding HillTV as a reminder of how far this country still has to come in terms of racism. She remembers the day Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1956, and her feelings that change was just around the corner.

‘It was such a time of celebration that the Supreme Court would have overturned the segregation of schools,’ Parks said. ‘We saw the beginning of a new history for this nation.’

However, what followed was disappointment rather than elation. Schools were slow to implement the new policies, and sadly, racism and segregation are still evident in many aspects of life, Parks said.

‘I have deep regret that in 2005, we still must wrestle with issues of racism,’ Parks said. ‘We have to pause and decide whether we will continue to live with it or have the will to purge it from our communities, our lives, our future generations.’

Last year, Parks co-chaired a conference at SU to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board. These kinds of anniversaries cannot go by quietly, Parks said.

‘After the Supreme Court decision, I went to Washington, D.C. and saw the photos and desks from segregated schools, and I thought, ‘That’s from an ancient era,” Parks said. ‘But 50 years later, the old ideas still permeate systems of learning, and we still look at race, class, gender and resources as a way of assigning space to people.’

Parks takes a deep interest in peoples’ lives and is incredibly humble about everything she does, both in and outside of the SU community, D’Angelo said.

Doris Sage of Syracuse has known Parks since the 1970s, and considers her a wonderful mentor and friend.

‘When I was ill about a year ago, Francis was there being supportive in every way she could,’ Sage said. ‘Often I come home to find a book, a plant or flowers in my breezeway, just because she thought it would be a nice thing to do.’

Currently, Parks is assisting D’Angelo and VanSciver in coordinating a new program titled ‘Hunger is not just the holidays.’ Offices and buildings around campus will have baskets for students, faculty and staff to place nonperishable food items in year-round. All of the food will be donated to local pantries and churches.

‘This is a wonderful way members of the university can help ameliorate hunger,’ Parks said. ‘We are moving beyond the theoretical constructs of hunger and letting students accept the responsibility to help people feed their children.’

S.O.S. has built wonderful relationships between the university and the people of Syracuse, and will continue to do so, Parks said.

‘This is a remarkable school, and the students have such vision for what can be accomplished in society,’ Parks said. ‘I’m going to keep traveling this road; for so far, it’s been a lovely journey.’

Published on November 13, 2005 at 12:00 pm