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DEPARTMENTS
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NNPA Honors Ruby Dee and CBC Chair Barbara Lee at New Leadership Reception
by Rochelle Boykin Bey
Special to the NNPA from the Howard University News Service
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - As a young girl, Ruby Dee saw pictures of lynchings and African-Americans being burned in early Black newspapers. Dee’s mother took a newspaper away from her because the pictures were too graphic. As she grew throughout the years, however, it became the pictures and words in Black newspapers that ultimately helped to undergird Dee in her work as an activist - even today.
“Black newspapers are going to help us get our children back,” Dee told a packed audience during a Black Press of America reception honoring her and Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Barbara Lee Sept. 25 at the posh W Hotel in Washington.
The legendary actress, activist, humanitarian and wife of the late Ossie Davis brought some in the audience to tears as she recalled her struggles growing up as an African-American woman. But she roused an ovation as she spoke of the future of the Black Press and how its information will impact the next generation.
In presenting Dee a Black Press Champion award, Danny Bakewell, chair of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the Black Press of America, said she was chosen to be honored ''not because she's an actress and a writer and a producer that we honor her. It's because she's an incredible human being. She is one who stands as a model for all of us as a mother, as a wife and as somebody, who in spite of all of her achievements, never left her community.''
The reception was sponsored by NNPA, a federation of more than 215 Black-owned weekly newspapers, as an unofficial event of the CBC’s Annual Legislative Weekend. Major Sponsors included AT&T, Dickerson Employee Benefits, Greater Than, MillerCoors, National Black Economic Development Coalition, Northern Trust, SEIU and ULTCW SEIU.
A member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, Lee praised the Black Press during remarks, accepting her Champion Award. The Black Press plays a major role in keeping communities connected and aware of what’s going on in Congress, she added.
''I'd never be where I am today if it weren't for what you have done in terms of knocking down many of those barriers in the Black community, so thank you Danny Bakewell so much,'' Lee said. ''Members of the NNPA, you are our voice. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus often times are the lone voices in the wilderness crying out loudly about the issues that we have to tackle. Most of the time our voices are not heard correctly or are misrepresented. But, the Black Press has always from day one been our voice and has always provided the mechanism and vehicle to educate and inform our community in a fair way,'' she said.
Lee thanked the Rev. Jesse Jackson, also in the audience, for his work as a civil rights activist and his pioneering 1984 and 1988 campaigns for president that largely paved the way for President Obama. Besides Jackson, the crowd also included U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., (D-Mich.), a founding CBC member, known as the dean of the CBC; CBC Foundation Chairman Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), Rep Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, (D-Texas); CNN correspondent Roland Martin, Benjamin Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, and National Urban League President Marc Morial.
The NNPA New Leadership Reception was held to introduce the organization's newly elected leadership, including NNPA Chairman Bakewell, publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel; and Dorothy R. Leavell, the re-elected NNPA Foundation Chair.
Other NNPA officers are First Vice Chair John B. Smith Sr., Atlanta Inquirer; Second Vice Chair Mollie Finch Belt, Dallas Examiner; Treasurer Lenora ''Doll'' Carter, Houston Forward Times; and Secretary Natalie Cole, Our Weekly.
Other NNPAF officers are First Vice Chairman Karl Rodney, New York Carib News; Treasurer Lenora Alexander, Denver Weekly News; and Secretary Mary Alice Thatch, Wilmington Journal.
In an interview amidst the crowd of more than 700 people, Conyers discussed the role of NNPA as it seeks to strengthen its membership across the nation.
“The Black press is trying to regroup and reconsolidate. The conservative measures of the previous administration have literally decimated much of the Black media, as we know it,'' Conyers said. ''They’ve been bought out, sold out, taken over, merged into other operations, so it’s all in downwards spiral. It’s going to be up to this organization to help try to move it in another direction, and I want to be there to help.”
Large posters of NNPA member newspaper front pages hang on easels around the reception hall as the disc jockey played rhythm and blues and many danced to live entertainment of Ali Woodson, former member of The Temptations. Newspapers like the New York Beacon, Los Angeles Sentinel and the Chicago Defender showcased pictures of the Obama family as well as education, housing and other issues.
An atmosphere of nostalgia and accomplishment filled the room as people socialized, danced and sang along with Woodson on hits like “Just My Imagination,” “My Girl” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” Many headed to other late night CBC parties, each guest left with a gift bag that included a copy of Heart & Soul magazine a water bottle and mouse pad with a picture of the Obama family.
Rochelle Boykin Bey is a graduate student in the John H. Johnson School of Communications at Howard University.
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