MEET MARSHA

Author, Scholar, Whistleblower, Civil Rights Leader

A celebrated community leader, Dr. Coleman-Adebayo is best known for her historic court victory over the U.S. Envirionmental Protection Agency in a lawsuit that found the agency guilty of racial, sexual and gender discrimination and tolerating a hostile work environment toward her. This victory propelled Marsha into the lead role in a two year struggle for whistleblower protective legislation that was passed unanimously in both houses of Congress and signed into law in 2001 by President George W. Bush when he affixed his signature to the Notification and Federal Employees Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation Act (NO FEAR), the first civil rights and whistleblower protection law of the 21st century.

MAY 15, 2002 The signing of the NOFEAR Act into law. Marsha given the honor of standing directly behind Pres. George W. Bush, as he signed the legislation into law.

“While my struggle with the US government was easily the most trying experience of my life, it was also clarifying. It taught me who I was not, but more importantly it distilled who I am—a writer, an activist, a community organizer, and a fighter. All of these have served me well moving forward into a future that, admittedly, I could not have imagined when I entered public service but about which I am thankful and tremendously proud.”

Chair, Social Justice Ministry, Macedonia Baptist Church, Bethesda, Maryland

I was deeply honored to accept and it was with a strong sense of urgency that I approached my appointment as the Chair of the Social Justice Ministry of Macedonia Baptist Church. I discovered very soon after taking this position that a battle loomed that would be every bit as challenging as taking on the Federal government—fighting the local Developer Industrial Complex. I soon learned that this complex composed of the local government, its positioning as neither exactly a county or a state agency but rather as a “quasi-government” agency that until very recently was inoculated from the oversight afforded either—and the multi billion dollar developers who fund most of the campaigns for the officials who will ultimately make land use decisions. These are the contemporary embodiments of their colonial predecessors : the so-called “Masters” who first sanctioned the kidnapping, enslavement, torture, sex trafficking, and industrial scale breeding of Africans in all directions around Macedonia Baptist Church in what is now Montgomery County in what was then the enslaving State of Maryland. The current iteration of white supremacy that is my immediate concern is the ongoing desecration of Moses African Cemetery and the recalcitrance of County leaders both appointed and elected, coupled with corporate developers in colluding to ignore and outright conceal the history and very existence of Moses Cemetery, the hundred or even thousands of Africans interred there, and the complete obliteration of the history of a once thriving African Community on River Road in what is now among the wealthiest counties in the United States. An overview and in depth presentation of that history and the struggle to preserve it in a museum and memorialize the souls lost to white supremacy begins on the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition page of this website.

After 75 Years, Barnard Makes Activist an Alumna

Honorary Status Is Given Woman Who Was Turned Away. Seventy-five years after she passed an entrance exam to Barnard College, Dorothy I. Height Thursday became an alumna. Click here to read story.

Eyewitness to America's Betrayal of Mandela's South Africa: The Gore - Mbeki Commission, Part II

As the Executive Secretary for the Gore-Mbeki Commission Environment Committee, I sat at the negotiating table while the newly elected government of Nelson Mandela formulated its environmental policies. This position provided a unique vantage point for an African-American woman who had marched in front of the South African embassy against apartheid ... read more.

See Marsha on Moral Courage

Noam Chomsky Applauds Whistleblowers

Video interview. Marsha interviews Noam Chomsky. http://vimeo.com/bobgeile/review/42871390/0d25ec1e8e

Jacob Ngakane And Benedict Sebone

2005 Barnard College International Conference on Vanadium Poisoning. Speakers: Jacob Ngakane, COSATU vanadium mine organizer and vanadium victim, Benedict Sebone. Jacob Ngakane, former COSATU vanadium organizer describe the plight of vanadium workers and his role in organizing the community. Benedict Sebone worked for Union Carbide Vanadium Mine. Benedict described working conditions at the mine and the serious and at times fatal health effects of exposure to vanadium pentoxide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0fZ7x4IgA4

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo MIT Interview

Laura Flanders interviews Marsha Coleman-Adebayo (Whistle Blower) author of NO FEAR, at ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXlYzewg9Y4

Un-Convention-al Coverage:
Ry Cooder

Guitarist Ry Cooder shares his new album "Election Special", including the song "Kool-Aid", which he wrote after listening to the Marsha Coleman-Adebayo conversation on Smiley & West last November. http://ow.ly/dnWOX

Marsha speaking at the Black Agenda Report team gathered at Harlem's historic Riverside Church. To see the entire program, click on: http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/oct-12-2012-evening-harlem-black-agenda-report-friends

OccupyEPA and No FEAR:
Narrated by Noam Chomsky

The Leonard Lopate Show

NPR - WNYC-AM (New York City)
December 6
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo describes her efforts to get the government to investigate allegations that a U.S. multinational corporation was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of South Africans mining vanadium—a vital strategic mineral.
Click here to listen

University of Virginia
MLK/No FEAR lecture

MARSHA'S FIRST BOOK LAUNCHING AT BUSBOYS and POETS CAFE

See link below to the pictures from my first book launching at: Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC.
www.victorholtphotos.com/client/no-fear-booksigning

Noam Chomsky on Marsha in Understanding Power

Well, the woman started presenting her dissertation proposal, and you could just see people turning pale. Somebody asked her, "What's your hypothesis?"--you're supposed to have a hypothesis--and it was that media coverage of Southern Africa is going to be influenced by corporate interests. People were practically passing out and falling out the windows. Then starts the critical analysis: "What's your methodology going to be? What tests are you going to use?" And gradually an apparatus was set up and a level of proof demanded that you just can't meet in the social sciences. It wasn't, "I'm going to read the editorials and figure out what they say" you had to count the words, and do all sorts of statistical nonsense, and so on and so forth. But she fought it through, she just continued fighting. They ultimately required so much junk in her thesis, so much irrelevant, phony social-scientific junk, numbers and charts and meaningless business, that you could barely pick out the content from the morass of methodology. But she did finally make it through--just because she was willing to fight it out. Now, you know, you can do that--but it's tough. And some people really get killed.

MARSHA ON THE
TRAVIS SMILEY SHOW

Please let Tavis Smiley know that you enjoyed this show by providing a comment, blog, Facebook or twitter.

C-SPAN Book/TV Video Library

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo talked about her book, which recounts her case against the Environmental Protection Agency, her former employer, which attempted to quell her claims that a corporation was responsible for hundreds of ..
Read More

Fearless Fighter

Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo has never been afraid to take a stand for what she believes is right. As a young woman growing up in the Detroit area during the time of the 1967 riots, she showed her solidarity by volunteering at Black Panther Party-sponsored breakfast programs for children. As an undergraduate, she joined campus demonstrations against the racist apartheid government in South Africa.

Read entire article here

Black Agenda Report Conference

FROM "THE ROOT": THE HIGH COST OF BEING AN EPA WHISTLEBLOWER

Read the full story here.

How an agency employee spoke out against government corruption, faced retaliation and triumphed.

Learn More About the No Fear Institute

http://thenofearinstitute.wordpress.com

Marsha speaking at USDA in support of Black Farmers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27JWK7onZXQ

WMNF 88.5 FM News: Whistleblower Marsha Coleman Adebayo

Dr Marsha Coleman Adebayo got her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and became part of the staff at the EPA working on environmental and minority rights ...
http://www.wmnf.org/news_stories/whistleblower-marsha-coleman-adebayo

Visit www.eparafaelmustgo.com

Retaliation Against Females And EPA Lawlessness (R.A.F.A.E.L.) exposes retaliatory attacks, and racial and sexual name calling by the EPA Director of Civil Rights, Rafael DeLeon. The National Whistleblower Center has called upon EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to fire him. EPA Administrator Jackson must provide ethical and a justice-centered leadership that will result in meaningful environmental justice programs and protection for EPA employees from abusive managers. Tell Congress and Tell the President.

Read Ms. Magazine's review of NO FEAR

Grist.org: Here's What Happens to EPA Whistleblowers...

Coleman-Adebayo says she faced racial and gender-based discrimination during her time at the office. But her real problems started when she questioned her supervisors' reaction to a problem she found out about while working with the 1996 Gore-Mbeki commission in South Africa. Read more...

Push Play to Hear Marsha on KEEPING IT REAL with Al Sharpton

Why does Marsha call Al Sharpton "The X Factor"? He was instrumental in getting the attention of Senator Joe Lieberman on the subject of the Whistleblowers' Act. To hear more, listen to Marsha's interview.

LISTEN TO MARSHA ON THE JOE MADISON SHOW

Listen HERE to Marsha's interview on Joe Madison's Show, "The Black Eagle." What are you going to do about it?” It’s a signature question that talk show host Joe Madison asks his listeners who tune in every weekday morning coast-to-coast on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio channel 169.

Interview with Cornell West & Tavis Smiley

Click Here to Listen

Exclusive NO FEAR Bonus Chapter

Only available here! Read Jon Grand's personal letter to Marsha and a new afterword.

Marsha on NPR's
TELL ME MORE

Listen to Marsha's interview on NPR's TELL ME MORE. She discusses her new book, NO FEAR: A WHISTLEBLOWER'S TRIUMPH OVER CORRUPTION AND RETALIATION AT THE EPA.

Listen to Marsha on The Michael Eric Dyson Show

"On The Michael Eric Dyson Show, an EPA whistleblower shares her story of discovering environmental neglect in South Africa and the racial and gender discrimination she faced on her path to uncover the truth. She’s the impetus behind the first whistleblower protection law to be passed in the 21st century."

Marsha on WPFW Pacifica Radio's WHAT'S AT STAKE

Hit the play button above to hear Marsha's interview on WHAT'S AT STAKE

Janice Peak-Graham's
"OUR COMMON GROUND VOICE"

Interview of Marsha Coleman Adebayo discussing "NO FEAR: A Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retatiation at EPA"

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ocg/2011/10/09/race-discrimination-at-the-epa-a-whistleblower-ordeal

Check out my
about.me profile!

Honesty without Fear Radio program co-hosted by Marsha

First show: http://honestywithoutfear.podbean.com/mf/web/3dc7dv/Honesty011712.mp3

No Fear Gear

Help spread the word and look good while doing it--check out the No FEAR Store for t-shirts, buttons, stickers, and more.
http://www.cafepress.com/nofear53