Monday, October 18, 2010

Bloggers for Racial Justice


I hosted a table at the YWCA's Women for Racial Justice breakfast this morning.

With one exception, everybody at my table was a female Pasadena blogger.

Left to right on one side of the table (above): Rev. Susan Russell (Inch at a Time blog), Meredith McKenzie (Arroyo Lover blog), Thelma Reyna (Latina/o Writers Today blog), and Patt Diroll (On the Town writer, Pasadena Star-News).

On the other side of the table (below), left to right, Dianne Patrizzi (Mademoiselle Grammophone blog), Gina Mendolo (Mendolonium blog) and Debbi Swanson Patrick (Altadena Above It All blog).


The recipient of this year's Women for Racial Justice Award is Tony Stewart, who at the tender age of 9 picketed in her hometown of Pine Bluff, Ark., when the coloreds-only library didn't have the materials she needed for a school project and the whites-only library refused to let her in. Pine Bluff police escorted her off the premises.

After the family moved to Pasadena in 1930, she served as secretary of the Pasadena branch of the NAACP from 1934 to 1936, chaired a committee that petitioned the national NAACP headquarters to charter an Altadena branch, and worked with the League of Women Voters to draft the charter for the Altadena Town Council.

Now 93, she is president emeritus of the Altadena branch of the NAACP, which she led from 1984 to 1992.

Tony was too ill to be at the awards breakfast, so her family accepted for her:


Some participants in the YWCA's Just for Girls program were at the breakfast as well; all are students at Blair and Muir high schools.


The breakfast kicked off the YWCA's Week Without Violence.


Many thanks to the YWCA Pasadena-Foothill Valley Chapter.

4 comments:

Cafe Pasadena said...

I'm happy you invited Gina de Mendolonium, and that she was able to make it! And, Dianne de MG looks like she was on her proper, well-behaved behavior as usual.

Unfortunately, I didn't see any justice for canines in that hall.

Margaret said...

Sounds like a very worthy honoree. Wonderful.

Petrea Burchard said...

I enjoyed this event when I went last year. You had a worthy bunch of women at your table, Ann!

Those young women from Blair and Muir look so darling. I hope they had a good time.

Gina said...

Thank you so much for the invite.

I finally got around putting up a post inspired by the event:

http://www.mendolo.com/2010/10/22/choice/

It really got me thinking...