His grandfather was a bronc buster, his grandmother was a schoolteacher and he was the first person of color to be mayor in the entire state of Idaho.
Now, Thomas “Les” Purce is the president of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. A Pocatello native, Purce will return to his home state Thursday to speak to University of Idaho students, staff and faculty in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. day and Black History Month.
Purce will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Administration Building auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Purce said his life was shaped by his experiences growing up in a small town in Idaho and by his parents, who were both activists for social justice and human rights.
“People are always surprised when I say how diverse Pocatello was,” Purce said. “Pocatello was one of the largest railroad yards of the Union Pacific anywhere in the West … I grew up with not only a lot of African-American friends, but there were Greeks and Italians and a lot of Eastern European people … So while the population wasn’t huge, it was very diverse. And it shaped my life.”
Purce said his parents were very much concerned about human rights. His mother was a founding board member of the Idaho Human Rights Commission, serving as chair of the commission for almost 13 years. His father was president of the Pocatello branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and also helped establish the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment.
“And our lives were shaped by our parents, me and my two brothers and two sisters,” Purce said. “So growing up in my family was a family where there were very high expectations in regard to being involved in a community, being a part of a community and my mother and father always shared those stories and reinforced that for all of us. That’s how I grew up.”
Purce himself has had a long career of public service and administration, starting in 1973 as city council member in Pocatello. Since that time, Purce said he’s seen some dramatic changes in the landscape of human rights and social justice.
“The most dramatic change is of course that we are seeing the population is shifting with the greater number of people of color immigrating and their demographic becoming a more active and significant political force in our country,” Purce said. “And a big question really is is how well we’re going to be committed to being able to support their educations because it’s such a critical piece to the future economics of our country.”
The U.S. has always been a country of immigrants, but Purce said the biggest difference now is those immigrants are coming from different places — places like Latin America and Asia.
Purce said he believes the biggest challenge for people of color is access to higher education. He said the dropout rate of people of color is a huge issue, but that at this point, people of color are progressing at a good rate once they get to college.
“It’s just the sheer number that are falling through the cracks that aren’t coming (to college) that are really the biggest educational challenge that we have,” Purce said.
Purce said his talk on Thursday will touch on these issues, among others that Martin Luther King Jr. would have been concerned about.
“So I think that students — the most powerful way for them to grasp and understand our challenges is to become engaged civically in internships and on a volunteer basis,” Purce said. “But not to just do that on a (short-term) basis for a week or two, but to really academically understand them as well as what the structures and functions are.”
In addition to his speech tomorrow, Purce also will give remarks at the annual Latah County Human Rights Task Force MLK breakfast at 9 a.m. Saturday at Moscow Middle School. Tickets can be purchased at Paradise Ridge CDs.
Kaitlin Moroney can be reached at [email protected]