Public Employee Press

Union Scrapbook
For Etta Dixon, education is forever

Etta Dixon was among the proud class who received diplomas May 28 from City College, but at 75, she is older than most of the graduates.

“Education never stops,” said Dixon, a Secretary for the Retirees Association who worked for 35 years at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “You start your education the minute you are born and you continue it until you die.”

Dixon, a devoted dancer in her free time, earned a degree in social studies at the Center for Worker Education and completed her studies for an associate’s degree when she was 28, but she pursued her bachelor’s seriously only in recent years.

“Too many people go to college just to get their diploma for a job, but I waited until I was ready to study again to improve the quality of my life,” said Dixon, a former member of MTA Clerical-Administrative Employees Local 1655.

She enjoyed studying key historical figures in the struggle against racism, such as Ida B. Wells, the African American journalist who used her pen to fight for civil rights and women’s rights. “She was a gun-toting woman, because she lived when the Ku Klux Klan was lynching Blacks,” she said.

Wells’ story triggered childhood memories. Dixon said, “My grandfather used to tell us about the KKK, which is why he moved north.”