Excess of Success : NAACP Legal Defense Fund Honors 14 Women of Achievement at Luncheon
To be 50 and still growing is a good sign for any organization. Sometimes it’s too good.
The California Committee of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is expanding so rapidly it turned away more than 200 requests for tickets to its Black Women of Achievement Awards Luncheon on Thursday.
“It’s growing by leaps and bounds,” said chairwoman Karen Shaw, “but that’s money we’re turning away. Next year we’ve definitely got to seek a larger room.”
This year’s site was the Grande Ballroom of the Sheraton Grande, where 600 guests raised $50,000 while honoring 14 black women. The Key Honorees were singer Gladys Knight, attorney and former congresswoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, and Renge Film co-founder Karolyn Ali, who received the AT&T; Black Woman Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Also receiving award medallions for their community service and professional accomplishments were:
USC’s Dr. June Brown; retired program specialist Marian Phillips Caldwell; Johanna Martin-Carrington of the U.S. Bureau of the Census; Dierdre Downing-Jackson, aide to Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy; Martha Brown Hicks, president of the Skid Row Development Corp.; AT&T;’s Sandi Johnson; Victoria Jones of the Southern California Gas Co.; Ophelia Long of Oakland’s Highland General Hospital; Olivia Mitchell, director of the mayor’s Office of Youth Development; AT&T;’s Jimetta Mignon Moore; Southern California Edison’s Arvella Strong, and Ruth Washington, publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel.
“We have too few opportunities to recognize women of color,” said co-chairwoman Berlinda Fontenot-Jamerson, who co-chaired the event with Mary Cryer. “There are too few role models. The way the media portrays the African-American community, I don’t even want to go there. And I’m an African-American.”
There was some suspense at the beginning of the lunch when Knight failed to arrive before dessert was served. It turned out she had plenty of time because the event, which began with a reception at 11 a.m., ran until almost 3 p.m.
Knight received her award after slide-show presentations on the Defense Fund’s work and speeches by Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, Janell Byrd and Theodore Shaw of the Defense Fund, who said “the jury’s still out on President Bush’s civil rights record. . . . It’s not good enough to talk the talk, now he has to walk the walk.”
The luncheon ended with a song by Billy Dorsey, who, if all goes well, will be singing for at least 200 more guests next year.