BREAKING THROUGH Lighting the Way

FIRST: Legends Who Made a Difference

4 years ago Feature

BREAKING THROUGH Lighting the Way represents 700+ collective years of the lives of twelve African American women in Long Beach who blazed important trails. Known as The Legends, the twelve women’s stories and lives are documented in an exhibition of pictures, historical documents and artifacts. The project was co-curated by award-winning author, photojournalist and producer Sunny Nash and Community Leader and activist Carolyn Smith Watts. The exhibit recently completed its two week run at the Main Public Library downtown.

Nash and Watts organized the exhibit based on a collection of historical profiles that was published in 2007. That book led to a signature project and exhibition of historic portraiture and photographic restorations, document reproductions, artifacts, and ancestral papers. The project documenting the lives of these African American Legends also includes oral history, new photo capture and newly discovered images and that will also be included in a series of television programs on LBTV, the cable station owned and operated by the City of Long Beach.

Six of the Legends with former Mayor Beverly O’Neill at a recent press conference

The exhibition is now scheduled to return next February 5-7, 2016 to the Expo Building in Bixby Knolls. According to the accompanying press material, the exhibition is meant to “dynamically add to the understanding of the roles of African American female leaders and their individual triumphs with the racial and cultural history of Long Beach.” The co-curators want audiences to know the difference the twelve Legends “made in the lives of all the residents of the City of Long Beach.”

The Legends are:

Carrie Bryant

First African American private K-5 school owner/operator
Creative Arts elementary feeder school to Long Beach Unified School District

Alta Cooke

First African American Long Beach High School Principal (1987)
Honorary Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff while Principal at Jordan High School

Dale Clinton

First African American Long Beach civil rights activist to write letter to President Lyndon Johnson
Clinton letter to Johnson in Library of Congress (1968)

Maycie Herrington

First African American Long Beach recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal (2005 George W. Bush)
Longest standing historian and secretary, Tuskegee Airmen Archive
Maycie Herrington official papers collected by the University of California, Riverside

Evelyn Knight

First African American Long Beach civil rights marcher to join Dr. Martin Luther King, Selma to Montgomery, Alabama (March 1965)
First African American woman appointed by the Governor to the California State Licensing Contracts Board (Jerry Brown 1982)

Legend Dale Clinton

Legend Vera Mulkey

Legend Evelyn Knight

Legend Alta Cooke

Patricia Lofland

First African American elected to the Long Beach College Board of Trustees and Board President
First African American Long Beach Representative and President, Personnel Commissioners Association of Southern California
Member and Secretary of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury

Vera Mulkey

First African American female Chief of Staff, City of Long Beach
15-year member and multi-year chair, Long Beach Unified School District Personnel Commission
2009 Humanitarian Award winner, California Conference for Equality and Justice

Wilma Powell

First female and African American Chief Wharfinger (Manager of a commercial wharf) in U.S.
First Female and African American Director of Maritime and Trade Services, Port of Long Beach
First African American President, Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service

Autrilla Scott

First African American Long Beach resident honored with street name, Autrilla Scott Lane.
History Scholar
Twice published author

Bobbie Smith

First African American and Woman Elected official in Long Beach
First African American female Long Beach Unified School Board President
First African American Long Beach City College Librarian
First African American Long Beach College Faculty Senate member and President
School named in her honor, Bobbie Smith Elementary School

Doris Topsy-Elvord

First African American member and President of the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission
First African American female Long Beach City Council member
First African American female Vice Mayor of Long Beach

Lillie Mae Wesley

First African American to challenge disciminatory burial policy, Sunnyside Cemetery, Long Beach
1980 City of Long Beach Employee of the Year
Creative Options Youth Commission Lifetime Achievement Award