“Never!” she says with a ring of defiance. “I don’t belong to any organization that didn’t allow Black people to be a member. When they finally opened up the door to us, I said, ‘I’m fine in the space you put me in.’”
For the last 25 years, Zauditu-Selassie has been an active member of the College Language Association (CLA), the scholarly organization that sprung up 77 years ago after the MLA — like many other academic organizations — abruptly shut their doors to the legions of African American scholars that were beginning to pave out careers within the academy.
