African American Chamber to honor 10 local leaders
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- June
- 18
The African American Chamber of Commerce of Westchester and Rockland Counties Inc. begins its ninth annual Juneteenth Celebration for Westchester County this week with a kickoff event tomorrow evening in Peekskill to honor the 10 most influential black men and women in the Lower Hudson Valley.
A business-to-business reception for the awardees will be held at 6 p.m. at the Crystal Bay Restaurant.
Those to be honored are: Dawna Michelle Fields, national program manager, Colgate-Palmolive Co.; Garrison Jackson, president and chief executive, Circulation Experti Ltd.; Carole Jessup Morris, founder and chief executive, Mount Vernon Neighborhood Health Center; the Rev. Joel E. Mukhwana-Nafuma, pastor, Trinity Episcopal Church, Mount Vernon; W.L. (Tony) Sawyer, superintendent, Mount Vernon City School District; Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers; community activist Edith Washington Charles of Mount Vernon; Debra J. White, manager of supplier diversity, New York Power Authority; Winston Ross, executive director, Westchester Community Opportunity Program Inc.; and Sandra L. Richards, director — diversity specialist, Morgan Stanley.
The chamber’s three-day Juneteenth celebration commemorates the date in 1865, June 19, that enslaved blacks in Galveston, Texas, learned that President Abraham Lincoln had abolished slavery on Jan. 1, 1863, in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
Today, Juneteenth represents freedom and a call for education and achievement to many within the African American community.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 2:26 pm by David Schepp.
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