FIRST: Legends Who Made a Difference

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 Known as The Legends, the twelve women’s stories and lives are documented in an exhibition of pictures, historical documents and artifacts.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

Legend Alta Cooke (standing) & eldest Legend Maycie Herrington

Long Beach Port Commissioner Lou Anne Bynum Interviews Legend Wilma Powell at a recent Press Conference

Legends Wilma Powell, Bobbie Smith, Evelyn Knight at a recent Press Conference

You can find more information about BREAKING THROUGH Lighting the Way at breakingthroughlightingtheway.blogspot.com

African American Women