Stereotyping comes in many forms: ethnic, socioeconomic, gender, generational, racial, etc. What are some ways your choices could challenge stereotypes and break down barriers for yourself and others?

Career

Challenge stereotypes!

Take this FREE online course from Yale University to examine the African American experience in the United States from 1863-present.

Education

Take an online class in African American history. 

Find a nonprofit or cause in your area that needs volunteers and apply to help out. Is giving back to your community like this something that's important to you in your career?

Advice

Volunteer in your community.

Social and Community Service Workers

Plan, direct, or coordinate the activities of a social service program or community outreach organization. Oversee the program or organization's budget and policies regarding participant involvement, program requirements, and benefits. Work may involve directing social workers, counselors, or probation officers.

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

First Interest High-Point

Second Interest High-Point

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Third Interest High-Point

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Social and Community Service Managers

Management Occupations

Other Management Occupations

Establish and maintain relationships with other agencies and organizations in community to meet community needs and to ensure that services are not duplicated.

Prepare and maintain records and reports, such as budgets, personnel records, or training manuals.

Direct activities of professional and technical staff members and volunteers.

Evaluate the work of staff and volunteers to ensure that programs are of appropriate quality and that resources are used effectively.

Establish and oversee administrative procedures to meet objectives set by boards of directors or senior management.

Participate in the determination of organizational policies regarding such issues as participant eligibility, program requirements, and program benefits.

Research and analyze member or community needs to determine program directions and goals.

Speak to community groups to explain and interpret agency purposes, programs, and policies.

Recruit, interview, and hire or sign up volunteers and staff.

Represent organizations in relations with governmental and media institutions.

Plan and administer budgets for programs, equipment, and support services.

Analyze proposed legislation, regulations, or rule changes to determine how agency services could be impacted.

Act as consultants to agency staff and other community programs regarding the interpretation of program-related federal, state, and county regulations and policies.

Direct fundraising activities and the preparation of public relations materials.

Provide direct service and support to individuals or clients, such as handling a referral for child advocacy issues, conducting a needs evaluation, or resolving complaints.

Implement and evaluate staff, volunteer, or community training programs.

10-key calculators

Desktop computers

Laptop computers

Multi-line telephone systems

Personal computers

Blackbaud The Raiser's Edge

Client information databases

Corel QuattroPro

Corel WordPerfect Office Suite

FileMaker Pro

Financial accounting software

Healthcare common procedure coding system HCPCS

IBM Lotus 1-2-3

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Publisher

Microsoft Visual FoxPro

Microsoft Word

Oracle Reports

PointClickCare HER

Presentation software

Web browser software

Founding President

Being the first in your family to attend college is daunting, but rewarding.
 
Follow the journeys of four young people-all first in their families to go to college-as they road-trip across the country to interview inspiring individuals who were also first in their families to pursue higher education.
 
After gaining wisdom and guidance from trail-blazing leaders-including Anna Maria Chávez, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, Grammy Award-winner John Legend, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz-the Roadtrippers are emboldened to embrace the opportunities ahead and ask "why shouldn't I succeed?"

Why Not Us

I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. All of the things that you've heard about what discrimination is was a part of daily life for when I grew up and I think you've heard and seen a lot of history that shows you how if you were one race then everything that you did was in facilities with people of that race. And opportunities were limited for minorities. The interesting thing is that the city of Birmingham itself was not a da jure segregated city until the 1920s. When it was first founded in the 1870s there was no legalized segregation here. From the cradle to the grave every social interaction that you could possibly think of is going to legally be segregated in some way. So right here even children's games. This gives you a level of how entrenched segregation was in Birmingham, Alabama. Now Birmingham is going to get a nickname and it's gonna go from being the magic city of "Birmingham" to "Bombingham" the tragic city. (Odessa) My mother tells a story that when my sister, who is 18 months younger and I would play with the dolls, my sister was being the mother of the dolls and I was the teacher of the dolls. So I guess I knew pretty early that there was something about teaching that I liked. I was a teacher in 1963 when the civil rights movement in Birmingham reached its crescendo. And several of the students that I taught then went to jail, marched, etcetera. Now I'm not all that brave, but there are different ways. For example, if there were revolution everybody doesn't have to be on the front line. You don't have to be on the front line. So I ended up being a teacher. Because if you don't, you know, if you don't get out there in the battle then you're going to suffer the consequences of not having been in the battles. You may as well get out there. So, you know you gotta stand your ground there and see that you're equal and you bring something to the table. That may not be money and money isn't everything. I think that sense of being somebody is something that you have to have when you compete in a world that's unfamiliar. (Museum Guide) This kind of violence was rife for a place like Birmingham, Alabama. Or, like I said earlier, 'Bombingham' and we get 'Bombingham' because you're gonna have 50 unsolved bombings if you moved into the wrong house, your house would be bombed. If you talked about voting rights, your house could be bombed. If you were a person that talked about integrating a local swimming pool, your house would be bombed. And because this kind of thing is allowed to go on, Birmingham gets this awful nickname. (Jasmine) Present day when you look across the street to the park and you see  all the different monuments and the statues of what is represented as what happened in the civil rights movement like, how does that make you feel knowing that you were there, you were part of that and to be where you are today, like how does, what is the feeling? (Odessa) It's spiritual. Um, it's spiritual and whenever I go through the park and I recollect those individuals and their lives and how important their lives were. If Doctor King could stand out there and see the variety of people who were coming in. If those four little girls could see what the country is like now. If I'm over there I think about everybody who was a part of that made it possible for you not to have to go through that. That's what I think about. [Martin Luther King Jr. on Television] I don't think anybody who has been successful has had a pain-free life because pain is the stem of us. Embarrassment, falling on your face is a motivator. You owe it to yourselves to look deep down inside and see what do you have that you can bring to make it better for somebody else in another generation. Just find a way to tap into doing something for somebody other than yourself. You just have to do that. 

Choices

Courage

Values

Interview

I was a teacher in 1963, when the Civil Right's Movement in Birmingham reached it's crescendo and several of the student's that I taught then went to jail, marched etc. Now I am not all that brave, but there are different ways. For example if there revolution, everybody doesn't have to be on the front line. You don't have to be on the front line. So I ended up being a teacher. Because if you don't get out there in the battle then you're gonna suffer the consequences of not having been in the battle, so you may as well get out there. So you gotta stand you ground there and see that you're equal. And you bring something to the table. 

Teaching on the Battlefield

Will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last. [APPLAUSE] >> I don't think anybody who has been successful has had a pain free life. Because pain is a stimulus. Embarrassment, falling on your face is a motivator. >> Mm-hm. >> You owe it to yourselves to look deep down inside and see, what do you have that you can bring to make it better for somebody else in another generation. Just find a way to tap into doing something for somebody other than yourself. You just have to do that. 

Conflict

Self-Reflection

Odessa Woolfolk Highlight

Was there like a moment in time like where you saw something in the news, or you read something in the newspaper, that just sparked you, and like made you realize that you needed to join like and help promote civil rights? >> I think that probably, at first may have been when I was a high school senior and one of our programs >> The school superintendent came, and as our choir was singing and all, he made some remarks. He thought they were innocent remarks. But they weren't. He said something like I wanna hear you Black people sing. I know you can sing. And we got the sense that he would have said that to the student who, say was outstanding in medicine, and all or outstanding in something else. And so I said that people who have this narrow sense of us, need to understand more about us. And we need to find a way to break barriers, so that people can get to know each other just on an ordinary basis. So I really became aware then of racism. And then when I went to college, our college was a predominately African-American school. And our professors included people who had been refugees as kids from Hitler's Germany. And they talked about discrimination and talked about what happens if people don't stop tyranny. So my sense of justice was heightened by those kinds of encounters, and those lessons that I learned from people who had been persecuted. I guess that's kind of how I became interested in civil and human rights, which has been my passion, no matter what kind of job I've had. It's been fueled by that sense of justice and equality. 

Culture

Interest in Civil Rights

Our families told us that if you are a Negro, you had to be smarter, work harder to succeed and prove yourself. But my childhood was memorable. I just think that living in a segregated society I did not think about the negatives of what segregation's all about. And then when I got older, I obviously started questioning the system by the time I got to college. Then I started, like other young people in African-American colleges, started railing against the oppressive system that we lived in. 

Beliefs & Faith

Segregation

Present day, like when you look across the street to the parking, you see all the different monuments and the statues of what is represented as what happened in the civil rights movement. How does that make you feel knowing that you were there? You were part of that and to be where you are today? How does, what is the feeling? >> It's spiritual. It's spiritual, and whenever I go through the park, and I recollect those individuals and their lives, and how important their lives were, if Doctor King could stand out there, and see the variety of people who are coming in. If those four little girls could see what the country is like now. If I'm over there, I think about everybody who was a part of that made it possible for you not to have to go through that. That's what I think about. 

Odessa Woolfolk

Founding President

Videos

Odessa Woolfolk

Milestones

Education

Career

Career Roadmap

My work combines:

My work combines:

Non-Profit Organizations

Politics

Upholding a Cause and Belief

Interviewed By

Why Not Us?