Author: WOAmemphis17

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Lucille DeVore Tucker

Lucille DeVore Tucker (left)
Women of Achievement
1999

HERITAGE
for a woman whose achievements still enrich our lives:

Lucille DeVore Tucker

Lucille DeVore Tucker discovered what was to become the passion of her life on a visit to friends in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1946.

The Girls Club of Bethlehem, a new affiliate of Girls Clubs of America, was the focus of her friends’ volunteer efforts. A visit there inspired her to return home to Memphis and begin a project that would eventually enrich the lives of more than 150,000 girls, and still counting.

She encouraged others to support this new project designed to change the lives of girls in Memphis. Girls Club of Memphis, which is now Girls Inc., was opened later that same year.

Throughout the club’s many changes, Lucille Tucker was always there, supporting the staff and girls with her time, talent and fundraising efforts. Even after she stepped down as president in 1964, she remained active and involved until her death in 1983.

She often mentioned the blessing that people missed by being concerned about color rather than hearts and minds, and she shared this philosophy with girls her entire life. She regularly shared her home with girls who needed a temporary place to stay and connected them to jobs and education.

She worked with New York Life Insurance Company for more than 50 years, and was so respected and loved that the top executives of the company flew to Memphis for her retirement party in 1971.

At the party, it was announced that the Girls’ Club center at Seventh and Keel was to be named the Lucille DeVore Tucker Center, in honor of a woman whose accomplishments have continued to enrich the lives of girls for more than 50 years.

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Lucie Campbell

Women of Achievement
1998

HERITAGE
for a woman whose achievements still enrich our lives:

Lucie Campbell

Lucie Campbell, the youngest of 11 children, was born to former slaves in Mississippi in 1885. Following her father’s death, Lucie’s mother moved the family to Memphis. Lucie graduated as the 1899 valedictorian from Kortrecht High School, which was later renamed Booker T. Washington High School. She returned there to teach until her retirement.

Lucie served five years as president of the Negro Teachers Association and was vice president at-large of the American Teachers Association. In 1916, she was one of nine founding members of the Baptist Training Union Congress of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. Shortly after its inception, she became the national music director. She was a self-taught musician who composed more than 80 hymns, many of which she did not copyright until 1950. The majority of her compositions were given to the Baptist denomination and helped to create and maintain an atmosphere of religious fervor and optimism necessary to keep the convention intact.

In 1943, she was invited by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to attend a conference in Washington on Negro Child Welfare. She was a member of the National Policy Planning Commission of the National Education Association in 1946. Lucie was considered an accomplished and dynamic orator and was a popular women’s day speaker. Like many black professional women of her time, she devoted much of her life to others. She married the Rev. C.B. Williams of Nashville in 1960 and died there in 1973 following a brief illness.

Lucie Campbell is one of many African-Americans, and few Memphians, featured in the exhibit, “Wade in the Water: African-American Sacred Music Traditions,” which was at the National Civil Rights Museum. This exhibit, organized by the National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit Service, opened in Washington, D.C., and traveled to more than a dozen U.S. cities.

Lucie Campbell made great contributions to a collective struggle. She was a committed and inspirational teacher, both in the academic and arts fields. She did critical community work within her profession that aimed to improve opportunities for teachers and students. She worked diligently to inspire people and to shape a musical tradition that spoke to the spiritual side of a people doing the daily and necessary work of resisting oppression, building family and community institutions that would enable them to take the struggle to another level, and openly challenge a system of inequality and injustice.

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Sara Roberta Church

Women of Achievement
1997

HERITAGE
for a woman whose achievements still enrich our lives:

Sara Roberta Church

Sara Roberta Church was a pioneer in social justice and political activism. With unstinting dedication, she worked to advance women’s leadership positions in local and national politics. With her aunts, Mary Church Terrell and Annette E. Church, Roberta Church was a champion of women’s rights.

In the fall of 1940, when it appeared the Republican candidate, Wendell Wilkie, might defeat President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the E. H. Crump organization moved to eliminate her father, Robert R. Church Jr., as a Republican political leader. They seized his property, including his home and office, allegedly for taxes. Church, campaigning in Pennsylvania, never returned to reside in Memphis. He spent much of his remaining life in Chicago and Washington.

After her father’s death in 1952, Roberta returned to Memphis. Despite her family’s enemies, she ran for public office, replacing her father on the ballot. She became the first African-American woman to be elected to the Republican State Executive Committee.

In 1953, following the election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Roberta was appointed Minority Groups Consultant in the Department of Labor. Her position as an African-American woman negotiating with company officials over fair employment practices required unusual skill and diplomacy. Roberta later accepted a career appointment with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare working as a consultant with the Rehabilitation Services Administration. In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Roberta Church to the President’s Advisory Council on Adult Education.

The author of many professional articles, Roberta wrote, with Annette E. Church, a family history, The Robert R. Churches American Memphians. Recognizing the dearth of historical materials on African-American Memphians, she and Ronald A. Walter wrote Nineteenth Century Memphis Families of Color, 1850-1900. Her last published works were Facts About Beale Street, 1849-1870 and Occupations of Women, 1855-1870.

Ebony magazine recognized Roberta in a feature story. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity presented her with a certificate of merit for promoting job opportunities for minority youth. The Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History selected her to be honored during Black History Month. She was included in the first edition of Who’s Who in American Women and was cited for high-quality performance of duties by the federal government.

Roberta Church loved Memphis deeply and returned to her home community following retirement. Her interest in local history involved active work in the Shelby County Historical Commission, especially the preservation of Church Park, at one time the largest park and entertainment center for African-Americans in the South.

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Marion Griffin

Women of Achievement
1996

HERITAGE
for a woman whose achievements still enrich our lives:

Marion Griffin

Marion Griffin was not only the first woman licensed to practice law in the State of Tennessee, she was also the first woman elected to the Tennessee General Assembly.

“Miss Marion” was born and raised in Greensboro, Georgia, but began her legal career in Memphis as a legal stenographer in the office of Judge Thomas M. Scruggs. She read law under Judge Scruggs, presented herself for examination of her knowledge of law to both Chancellor DeHaven and Circuit Court Judge Estes, was found eminently qualified to practice law by both of them and was so certified on Feb. 15, 1900.

It was the custom then and for many years afterward for an aspirant to the legal profession to study law under the tutelage of a practicing lawyer who, when he thought the aspirant sufficiently knowledgeable, referred him to a sitting judge of the local Circuit Court and to a sitting chancellor of the local Chancery Court. The judge and chancellor in turn tested the professional competency of the aspirant for admission to the bar. The Tennessee Supreme Court then issued a license to the aspirant and he was free to practice law throughout the state.

Although Marion was properly certified by two sitting judges of distinction as ready for admission to the bar, and although she petitioned the Tennessee Supreme Court in both 1900 and 1901, she was twice barred solely on the basis of her gender.

She then enrolled in the School of Law of the University of Michigan and in 1906 earned the degree of Bachelor of Laws. She was one of only two women in her class at the University of Michigan Law School. She would have preferred to enroll at the School of Law at the University of Virginia where members of her family had gone, but it did not accept women at that time or for many years thereafter.

Fortified by certification from two sitting judges and a law degree from one of America’s pre-eminent law schools, either of which would have been sufficient to get a male admitted to practice law, Marion Griffin then began the process of energizing the Tennessee Legislature to pass an act giving women the right to practice law in the jurisdiction. At first she was, in her words, “greeted with wisecracks and guffaws,” but she persisted and ultimately the bill was passed on Feb. 13, 1907 and approved by Governor Malcolm Patterson on Feb. 15, 1907.

On July 1, 1907, Marion Griffin became the first woman admitted to practice law by the Supreme Court of the State of Tennessee, and was sworn in and enrolled as a member of the local bar.

She practiced law in Memphis for more than 40 years from an office located variously on Main Street, on Court Avenue and for many years in the Goodwyn Institute Building on the southwest corner of Third and Madison, the present site of the First Tennessee Bank building.

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Mary Alice Hubbard McWilliams

Women of Achievement
2004

STEADFASTNESS
for a woman with a lifetime of achievement:

Mary Alice Hubbard McWilliams

Mary Alice Hubbard McWilliams crafted successful citizens and executives in many fields during more than 50 years as a senior high school mathematics teacher and leader in her church and community.

Teachers, engineers, legal and medical professionals, and government officials name her as the singular key influence in their education and success. Among them are Mayor W. W. Herenton, former city school Supt. Johnnie B. Watson, City Councilman Joe Brown, school principal Cassandra Smith and Spelman College professor Dr. Gloria Wade Gayles. They called her “difficult’’ and “tough as nails.’’ She says, “I’m firm. It must be right … I don’t play school.’’

Herenton has said, “What I loved about her was Mrs. McWilliams stayed after class with me and some of the other students who had difficulties. She would take her planning period and keep working through her lunch hour. She worked after school. She really cared about us.’’

Mary Alice grew up in Memphis in a family of nine children. She earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics at LeMoyne-Owen College and a master’s degree from the University of Illinois with post-graduate work at Memphis State College.

She began teaching at Magnolia School in 1950 but soon transferred to Booker T. Washington High School where she taught Herenton and former school board member Carl Johnson. In 1971, she was moved to Memphis Tech, but returned to Washington High at Herenton’s request in 1986 and retired from Carver High in 1999.

She is one of four generations of educators in her family. “I always loved working with children. I believed everybody could learn and deserved to be taught.’’ She was the first black woman elected president of the Memphis Education Association. It was during her term that teachers bought the building on Flicker and negotiated their first master contract with the city Board of Education.

She was a strong advocate, leader and spokesperson in the Civil Rights struggle. She was a member of Women on the Move for Equality and committees that dealt with discrimination and social equality.

At Second Congregational United Church of Christ and with the national denomination, she was at the forefront in the struggle to deal with racism and sexism. She served on numerous committees, boards and as panel moderator and spokesperson. She traveled extensively for the church as president of the UCC Black Women’s Caucus and as a member of the national UCC’s Task Force on Women in the Church and Society, and the Advisory Commission on Women. She was honored as an outstanding national leader.

Mary Alice Hubbard McWilliams held her students to rigorous standards and high expectations, boosting them toward achievement and success while working just as hard for change and progress in the larger community and her church.

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Nancy Bogatin

Women of Achievement
2003

STEADFASTNESS
for a woman with a lifetime of achievement:

Nancy Bogatin

When Nancy Bogatin opened the Studio of Advertising and Art in 1956, women who worked were called “working girls.’’ Those in advertising were expected to be models, not managing partners in their own agencies. Doing the expected was not on Nancy’s “to do” list, then or ever.

For more than 50 years, as a business, civic and volunteer leader, Nancy has made changes across Memphis.

Nancy graduated from Central High School in 1943 and earned her journalism and advertising degree at University of Missouri in 1946. She worked briefly as a copywriter and program personality on WMPS radio in Memphis before big-city lights lured her to a job as promotion director, and later as sportswear buyer, for Sears, Roebuck & Co. in New York City, her hometown.

In 1952, after, she says, “visiting my mother once too often,’’ Nancy returned to Memphis to marry Irvin Bogatin. Although most wives in their circle did not work, Nancy “got a little job’’ as director of special promotions as Lowenstein’s opened for business. A year later, her first entrepreneurial venture opened, a women’s ready-to-wear specialty shop called Casuals, Memphis. She was its owner, merchandiser and operator for three years, until she and Martha ‘Ham’ Embree opened the Studio. Eventually, as Nancy says, “we had the best retail roster in town,’’ among them Seessel’s, James Davis, Haas and Catherine’s.

After 25 years, in 1981, she sold her interest in Studio of Advertising and Art and formed NEB, Inc. For a decade, she continued working as an advertising consultant for clients while also performing the same service for not-for-profit groups on a pro bono basis.

She was the first woman to hold top leadership posts in several Memphis organizations. She headed the boards at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Goals for Memphis, Memphis Literacy Council and the Friends Foundation at Brooks Museum. Nancy was also vice president of the Memphis Arts Council board.

In recent years, despite a fight against cancer, Nancy has been an increasingly important leader in key education initiatives. She is especially devoted to Partners in Public Education, which she helped found. She has served as chair and continues to advocate and bolster the organization. She was a member of Mayor William Morris’ Task Force on Education, the Memphis Youth Initiative, the president’s councils at Rhodes and Christian Brothers University, the Governor’s Education Commission for Tennessee 2000 and was co-chair of Memphis 2000 education initiative.

She also is very involved in The Grant Center, whose mission is to strengthen non-profit organizations through education and support.

Nancy Bogatin’s consistent service, leadership, energy and creativity have made Memphis a more dynamic community. Even after a lifetime of achievement, and 12 years past her “retirement,’’ she continues to work steadfastly to give all Memphians a chance at a good future through a good education.

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Fannie Belle Burnett

Women of Achievement
2002

STEADFASTNESS
for a woman with a lifetime of achievement:

Fannie Belle Burnett

Fannie Belle Burnett has devoted her professional life to raising money for good causes – and raising the next generation of fundraisers.

When Fannie Belle became the fourth executive director of Girls Club of Memphis in 1964, her only work experience was as a volunteer church youth director and mother to her own four children. But she knew how to take charge. She had worked for an employment agency and rose to become regional manager for Tupperware. She later became the primary support to her children and shared her home with various cousins.

When she joined the Girls Club, the board had just purchased its first facility and assumed a mortgage of more than $30,000. That year’s audit funding was $11,000 and girls’ memberships totaled 100. During Fannie Belle’s 14-year stint, the agency paid off its mortgage, added two centers, diversified its clients and staff, produced girls who received national recognition and tackled serious issues of growing up female in our society.

Under her leadership, Girls Incorporated of Memphis earned a national reputation for program excellence in areas like sexuality, employment and discrimination. By the late 1970s, Girls Inc. of Memphis had a budget of more than $400,000 and served 3,000 young people in three centers. In 1978, Fannie Belle became the first National Director of Program Development for Girls Inc. Under her leadership, three program areas were developed – youth employment, juvenile justice, and family life education. In addition, she was a critical participant in planning and executing the first nationwide conference dedicated to exploring the needs of girls – The Wingspread Conference – “Today’s Girls, Tomorrow’s Women.” Since Fannie Belle had honed her skills in fundraising, especially grant writing, she led the team that secured the funding to build the Girls Incorporated National Resource Center in Indianapolis. Today this center serves as the hub of research, program development and training for Girls Inc.

In the 1980s, Fannie Belle returned to Memphis. She worked in development for Youth Service Memphis/USA, and then established the Support Center of Memphis to help foster nonprofits. She was cofounder of the Memphis Chapter of the National Society of Fund Raising Executives and helped raise millions of dollars for the Memphis Zoo, Memphis Theological Seminary and Memphis Botanic Garden. “She seems to have always been operating on two tracks,’’ her nominator said, “seeing to the needs of her organization and bringing along others in the field.’’ In 1992, she was named director of LeMoyne-Owen College’s capital campaign. Three years later she became interim vice president for investment and helped manage the school during a search for a new president.

Now retired, Fannie Belle volunteers her skills with many groups. Another nominator captured her legacy: “Fannie Belle has mentored children, youth and adults, ‘walking her talk’ with a firm but gentle manner. Indeed, Memphis is a different place, and a better place, because of her steadfast vision in a future that is brighter than our present.”

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Lois Freeman

Women of Achievement
2001

STEADFASTNESS
for a woman with a lifetime of achievement:

Lois Freeman

For decades, Lois Freeman has worked steadfastly for equal rights for women and minorities, for voters’ rights, for opportunities for individuals with disabilities, for better lives for children and for open community dialog and discussion.

Raised in segregated communities in a loving family environment in East Tennessee, Lois married and moved to West Tennessee in 1951. In Memphis she became conscious of the inequities of society and began what was to become a lifetime of activism. In 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights struggle, Lois was one of a biracial group of women who began the integration of restaurants in Memphis simply by showing up for lunch at a different location every Saturday. After the addition of women to the Civil Rights Act in 1972, she became active in voter registration drives in Mississippi. There was still an atmosphere of violence so workers drove unmarked cars and spent nights away from the communities in which they were working. More than 30 years later, she was recertified by the Department of Justice as an official election observer.

Recognizing that the way to change is through politics, Lois has served as president of the Memphis Women’s Political Caucus and has been active in the Democratic Party. Through these organizations she has worked on behalf of candidates who support the causes in which she deeply believes. Among those whom Lois has helped elect to public office are Judge Bernice Donald, U.S. Attorney Veronica Coleman, City Councilwomen Mary Rose McCormick and Barbara Swearingen-Holt and State Representatives Carol Chumney, Henri Brooks and Kathryn Bowers.

Throughout her career in human resources, Lois observed all kinds of discrimination in the workplace. In the late 1970s, Lois cofounded the Equal Employment Opportunity Council of Greater Memphis. This marked the beginning of a network referral system and exchange of job information, which resulted in improved job opportunities for minorities and women. She served as president of the organization and was a member of the Governor’s Committee for the Handicapped.

Always interested in women’s issues, Lois has worked with the YWCA since 1985. She chaired the 1991–1993 Abused Women’s Services Committee and oversaw the opening of a second shelter. Lois is a founding member of the Public Issues Forum, a group dedicated to providing a medium for the public discussion essential to a healthy and progressive society.

Believing that children are our future, Lois serves on the board of Tennessee Mentorship, a group that works with at-risk children ages 3–6. She also is active with EdPac, which promotes opportunities to improve public schools and endorses effective school board candidates.

When asked which of her many endeavors has been most meaningful, she identified her work during the Civil Rights movement. What Lois has learned from her life of activism is that our future lies in appreciating diversity and respecting cultures different from our own. Lois’ steadfast efforts over the decades are clear proof of that belief.

Lois Freeman passed away on May 17, 2018.

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Elizabeth Toles

Women of Achievement
2000

STEADFASTNESS
for a woman with a lifetime of achievement:

Elizabeth Toles

One of the quiet heroines in Memphis is Elizabeth Toles, a former schoolteacher who has been steadfast in her support for others for all of her 79 years. During her 32 years in the classroom, before retiring in 1975, she was highly regarded for her kindness, her emphasis on excellence, and her active community service.

Elizabeth was born blind and left motherless at three weeks of age when her mother died. Her sight in one eye returned at age nine and she has proceeded to spend a lifetime teaching others how to overcome obstacles. Elizabeth has received numerous awards, citations, and recognition from all walks of life. In 1969, during the days of heightened racial tensions, she donated half a commercial building at 1277 Mississippi for the Memphis Police Department to use as a community service center – because she saw the need.

She currently pastors the Church of Good Fellowship, which she began in 1985. She strongly advocates tithing so much that she gives 10 percent of her church’s monthly income to help college students. Her church donates another one percent of its monthly revenue to MIFA to help feed the hungry. She teaches Bible study at King’s Daughters and Sons Home and sponsors a Thanksgiving dinner there annually.

The praise for Elizabeth’s good works is voluminous. She has been written about in national publications and received recognition from mayors, governors and the U.S. Congress.

She has helped send young people to college, provided stability for children whose families were in crisis, and given money anonymously to help many people – young and old – with their dreams. At her church’s Pastor Appreciation Day, one young woman said, “When I was a little girl, I thought Elizabeth Toles was a millionaire. She helped everybody!”

Her life has been an example of steadfastness – devotion to God and devotion to helping others.

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Carlotta Stewart Watson

Women of Achievement
1999

STEADFASTNESS
for a woman with a lifetime of achievement:

Carlotta Stewart Watson

Carlotta Stewart Watson devoted her life to making a positive impact on children, particularly those she called “the forgotten students.”

Her 98 years have been marked by significant accomplishments including becoming the first woman of color certified as a guidance counselor in the Memphis City Schools where she served for 54 years. With a bachelor’s degree in education from LeMoyne-Owen College, she earned a master’s degree in education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and traveled to South America, Africa and Europe “to increase my ability to serve more effectively.”

She escorted high school and college students to Atlantic City in the 1940s for employment opportunities so they could gain work experience and money needed to fund their education. In the 1950s she launched the first job clinic/job fair for students, which later became known as Career Day. In the 1960s she established the Carlotta Stewart Scholarship Fund to help deserving students.

Carlotta played a significant role in the fundraising to purchase the first site for a branch YWCA in 1942 as well as the second site in 1962. She has served the YWCA in a variety of leadership positions. She also founded the first Basileus of Alpha Eta Zeta chapter of Zeta Phi Beta sorority in 1939. She later helped open the organization’s Stork’s Nest Center, a project with the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation seeking to provide assistance to women and their babies. Her volunteerism also extends to working at WDIA, helping to link community members with agencies to meet their needs, and playing the role of “Aunt Carrie,” giving advice to young people. She is an active member of Mt. Pisgah CME Church where the fellowship hall is named for her. For the past 15 years, she has read newspapers and books on Memphis Public Library radio.

In February 1999, she received the first Comforter Award from the Tennessee Black Heritage Celebration for a person who embodies dedication to the uplifting of the minds and spirit of young people.

Carlotta’s steadfast goal has been “to remain on the ‘stage’ until ‘the last curtain call’ while striving to keep involved in activities … that will make me worthy of being loved, respected – and not alone.”

Carlotta is 104 this year and continues to attend community events.