Ignite | Spring 2022
The Rent We Pay
The activist and novelist Alice Walker used to say, “Activism is my rent for living on the planet.”
That comment struck Judith E. Barnes Lancaster, Esq., when she heard it.
The late Canton attorney had lived her life that way, but never thought of it as a mantra. But she made it her own when she added a little something of her own in a speech later in life, saying “Activism and service are the rent we pay for living on the planet.”
CONTRIBUTING TO CHANGE
Accepted to Howard University, the prestigious Historically Black College and University (HBCU) institution in Washington, D.C., she attended for a time but returned to Northeast Ohio and commuted to Kent State University. There, she was one of a handful of women in the sciences, and often the only Black woman taking a pre-med curriculum. In a video about her life, Barnes Lancaster unblinkingly recalled the bias against her in her pre-medical coursework.
Barnes Lancaster had become interested in medical technology while at Kent State, and although she had passed the medical boards, she chose to pursue an interest in medical research. After marrying and graduating, she followed her husband to Cleveland. While she had her pick of five job offers, discrimination still reared its head, as she recalled in the video: Although she was the person who operated a specialized medical testing instrument, when the time came for a photo shoot by a media crew at the hospital where she worked, a blonde female secretary was posed in the photo in Barnes Lancaster’s place.
Judith Barnes Lancaster didn’t forget the hurt that systemic bias and discrimination caused her, and others. She raised her children with the desire to change attitudes and systems for the next generation. One way she will be remembered is through her establishment of the Judith E. Barnes Lancaster Diversity Student Scholarship in 2008. It stands as an investment in students’ futures from one who always looked ahead.