Change — especially meaningful change — rarely happens overnight. And that’s exactly why Elbra Wedgeworth encouraged members of Denver Section of the National Council of Negro Women to never give up on their efforts to give inspiration and encouragement to young people of color.
Speaking at the organization’s 19th Harambee Brunch, the former Denver City Council president congratulated members for never losing sight of the fact that “We’re a proud, proud people … a family that can make (things) happen, if not for ourselves then for the next generation.” By taking the time to find suitable candidates for the Dr. Dorothy I. Height Youth Leadership Award, Wedgeworth said, the chapter is letting teenagers know that someone is watching and that it’s OK to “dream, and dream big.”
The 2010 recipients, Traci Morgan, a senior at Denver School of Science and Technology, and McKenna Newsum Schoenberg, a senior at Cherry Creek High School, are wonderful examples of those who will carry on the fight to insure that “People of color have a seat at the table. We’ll probably never have a perfect world,” Wedgeworth predicted, “but we will have a much better one.”
Morgan, who is using her experience as a youth ambasssador to Argentina to encourage her peers to think globally about education and adventure, is also active in her church and with groups that include Colorado Black Women for Political Action, 9Cares Colorado Shares and Jabbawock.
Schoenberg, whose grandfather is former Tuskegee Airman Fitzroy “Buck” New- sum, will graduate in the top 12 percent of her class. She’s also a champion swimmer, a National Honor Society tutor and co-president of the Sign Language Club.
Annie Howard and Elizabeth Lee chaired the brunch that also had Sheri Hunter- Miller, owner/manager of the family-owned Hunter’s Beauty Supply, recieving the Salute to Black Women Award, and Frances Furlough Jefferson receiving the Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Legacy Award. Jefferson retired in July from the U.S. Department of Labor and now works full time as director of the Oleta Crain Enrichment Academy, which she founded in 2007.
In addition, Claudette Sweet led a tribute to Stephanie Cross, Sylvia Brown- Smith and Valeria Cooper, the three youngest presidents of NCNW’s Denver Section.
Former state Rep. Rosemary Marshall emceed the event held at the Doubletree Hotel and helped president Gloria Parsons-Gray welcome such guests as newly elected state Reps. Angela Williams and Rhonda Fields; Denver City Council members Carla Madison and Michael Hancock; Lisa Roy, executive director of the Marquez Foundation; retired educator Alice Langley; Annita Menoghan, senior counsel for the Red Robin restaurant chain; Patricia Houston, founder/executive director of the EspeciallyMe mentoring organization; Elma Joyce Hairston; Antoinette Oliver; Janice Gipson-Jennings; Sherry Jackson; and Rose Martin, who grew up next to NCNW founder Mary McLeod Bethune in South Carolina.
Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com; also, davidson and GetItWrite on Twitter
