Image of the African continent by Planet Volumes, Unsplash.com
Edited from a news release
A narrative of the complex journey that led Benzie County resident Ron Atkinson to become an international citizen will take place at 7 p.m., Thursday, July 10, at the Mills Community House in Benzonia.
Atkinson’s presentation, “How a Benzie Boy Became a Global Citizen,” is part of the Benzonia Academy Lecture Series occurring every second Thursday of the month. A $5 donation is suggested for admission. The Mills Community House is located at 891 Michigan Ave. The event will also be available on Zoom.
Atkinson’s was “a journey he could not have begun to imagine while growing up in Benzie County,” according to a statement in the news release.
He graduated in 1963 from Benzie Central High and attended Michigan State University as a mathematics major. While a sophomore, he stopped studying math and instead took humanities and social science courses at MSU. He then transferred to Kalamazoo Community College, known for its “comprehensive foreign study program.”
At KCC, he majored in history, spent six months studying abroad in Nairobi, Kenya, and graduated with a B.A. In 1968, he received his M.A. in African History from Northwestern University in Illinois before joining the Peace Corps to work on an eye disease project in eastern Uganda. After leaving the Peace Corps, he spent 18 months doing precolonial history research among the Acholi people of northern Uganda.
He returned to Northwestern in 1972 for three years of Ph.D. coursework, after which he spent three years working with autistic children and their families, writing his dissertation, and earning his Ph.D. He spent two years teaching and conducting research in Ghana, West Africa, and followed that with mostly non-academic positions in Tampa, Florida.
In 1984, he was hired as a faculty member at the University of South Carolina, where he taught and researched sub-Saharan African history until his retirement in 2011. During his tenure, he also spent time training black teachers in educational management and leadership in South Africa. This was while the country was transitioning from apartheid.
In 2000-2001, a Fulbright Research Fellowship took him back to Uganda. After a three-year break, he returned to Uganda in 2005 and continued research and project work there until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. During that time, he worked with dozens of people from Uganda, North America, Europe, and beyond on their Ph.D. research in northern Uganda.
For more information about the July 10 lecture, visit benziemuseum.org. Follow the Benzie Area Historical Society on Facebook and Instagram. Those with questions may call the museum at 231-882-5539 or send an email to: info@benziemuseum.org.
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