Author: WOAmemphis17

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Virginia Dunaway

Women of Achievement
1990

DETERMINATION
for a woman who solved a glaring problem despite
widespread inertia, apathy or ignorance around her:

Virginia Dunaway

In 1981, Memphis had thousands of hungry people — and no way to feed them. Thanks to the diligence of Virginia Dunaway, the Memphis Food Bank now distributes more than three million pounds of donated, wholesome food to 226 charitable programs and food pantries that feed the needy across the Mid-South.

Virginia Dunaway was active in Balmoral Presbyterian Church in Christian education. She had raised two sons and worked in her husband’s dermatology office when she became a VISTA volunteer on a neighborhood history project. With a year of her five-year VISTA term left, the Metropolitan Interfaith Association sent her to a training session on food banks. When she returned and said it sounded like something MIFA could do, MIFA leaders replied, “Go do it.”

Do it, she did. She designed systems for efficient food distribution, identified sources of food from individuals and industry, and worked with volunteers who solicited donations and community support. For two years, she wore blue jeans to work and kept a suit in the trunk of her car. In the jeans, she drove a truck for food runs, unloaded the truck, sorted food or scrubbed floors. In the suit, she met with business and community leaders to build awareness for fighting hunger.

In 1985, Virginia was named director of MIFA food programs and project director of MIFA MEALS. In 1988, the Food Bank became an independent agency and Virginia became its executive director as it moved to a larger warehouse at 239 Dudley. She meanwhile has helped the Second Harvest National Food Bank Network establish food banks in Jackson, Tennessee; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Jackson, Mississippi.

The Memphis Food Bank provides food for 284,000 meals and snacks each month to the ill, the needy and to infants. Gid Smith, former MIFA executive director and a co-worker, summed up Virginia’s personal determination this way: “To my knowledge, she has done more to overcome hunger in Memphis than any other private citizen.”

 

Virginia retired from the Food Bank in September 1991. She received the DAR Medal of Honor in 1993. She travels as a consultant for Second Harvest National Food Bank Network.

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Joyce North

Women of Achievement
1989

DETERMINATION
for a woman who solved a glaring problem despite
widespread inertia, apathy or ignorance around her:

Joyce North

“It is an American characteristic not to confront any problem until it becomes insoluble, and then confront it by turning it over to the schools.”

Joyce North came to that conclusion through the direct personal experience of sending nine children in her combined family to the turbulent public schools of the 1970s.

When she married Dr. William North in 1971, the two had children ranging in age from seven to 19. Busing was just beginning, and in the next few years of changing ages and changing school boundaries, the children were in a total of seven schools. Joyce quickly observed that the quality of public schools varied greatly. Believing that public education is the backbone of a democratic society, and being determined that her children and all children receive the best education possible, she quit her paying job and began the unpaid work of improving the quality of education in our public schools.

By 1980, this former president of White Station PTA was chairperson of the Memphis Better Schools Committee. In 1984, she was appointed chair of the local Commission of Excellence, a group charged with studying city public schools and making recommendations to the Board of Education. The recommendations emphasized that education is a community prowess, a point Joyce North always has taken to heart. Cutting through miles of red tape, she succeeded in getting the funds remaining from the study released to set up a Model School Program at Georgia Avenue Elementary School.

Joyce visited every agency in Memphis that deals with children, and organized an informal committee that met for breakfasts and after work to discuss how to best meet children’s needs. Health was identified as a priority and — fighting opposition — the group worked with the Health Department to establish a clinic at Booker T. Washington High School. She currently works to keep pregnant and parenting teens in school.

Initially concerned that her own children receive an excellent public education, Joyce North’s unyielding determination led her to do everything in her power to see that all children get the same opportunity.

Joyce retired in 1993 with a $650,000 Kellogg grant and three day-care sites in place to support pregnant and parenting teens with the schools’ mental health department. She and her husband are involved in national wildlife volunteering.

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Edith Kelly-Green

Women of Achievement
1993

INITIATIVE
for a woman who seized the
opportunity to use her talents and created her own future:

Edith Kelly-Green

Edith Kelly grew from her grandmother’s house in Oxford, Mississippi to a position in senior management at Federal Express. Along the way, she is paving the road into corporate America for future generations of women.

Born into a poor family, Edith was raised by her grandmother, who worked as a maid at then all-white Ole Miss. She attended segregated high school until her senior year when the school system was integrated. Always an outstanding student, her interest in math led her into an accounting degree at the University of Mississippi.

With no professional role models in her family, she struggled to adjust in her first job in an accounting firm where she was the first black person and one of only three females on a professional staff of 60. She was once asked by a senior partner not to return to an audit because one of the firm’s clients did not want a black person working in his office.

In 1974 Edith sat for her CPA and became the youngest black person — and one of the first black women — to pass the exam in Tennessee. She became a leader in accountants’ professional organizations where she encouraged women to enter accounting and informed the public and the profession about the skills and achievements of women in accounting.

She joined Federal Express in 1977 as a senior accountant in the general accounting area, and moved to manager and then director. When she made a lateral move to manage Publishing Services, employees took bets that she wouldn’t last six months. She stayed 14 months, developing operational experience, and was promoted to vice president of internal audit and quality assurance.

Edith has been recognized by Dollars and Sense and Ebony magazines as an up-and-coming woman in corporate America. She remains the first and only black vice president at Federal Express. She speaks frequently to groups of working women and students to tell her story of success and to urge them on.

“I started from scratch, and many of them are,” she says. “At any point, on any day, or sometimes within any minute, discouragement can be such that it’s easier to give up … but the real importance of this to me will be an easier road for my children and other children to walk in Corporate America.”

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Peri Motamedi

Women of Achievement
1992

INITIATIVE
for a woman who seized the
opportunity to use her talents and created her own future:

Peri Motamedi

Parvenah “Peri” Motamedi was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1944 during the reign of the Shah. After graduation from high school she worked for the Shah, collecting and illustrating press clippings. But her picture of a woman’s future was very different from what Iran’s Muslim society dictated, and that is where her long struggle started.

After being humiliated by some family members and friends because of her ideas about life and the arts, she left her home country to come to the United States to build her dream. She could speak no English.

In 1965, she began three years of study at Monticello Junior College in Illinois, followed by a year at Washington University in St. Louis. After a marriage, a brief return to Iran and the birth of a daughter, she came to Memphis. In 1975, at age 31, she entered the Memphis College of Art, earning a B.F.A. in panting in 1977. She has not slowed down since.

Rather than be a “starving artist” and waiting for a gallery-goer to buy her work, Peri purposely identified a marketable craft that people would buy, freeing her to pursue her real love — fine art. Her commercial stained glass firm, Motamedi’s GlasArt, is now 15 years old and employs four other women. Her stained and leaded glass designs are found in homes, businesses and churches. But, she says, “I never tried to get big in business. My heart and effort was in fine art and teaching.” Her love for sculpture sends her out in her pickup truck to rescue junkyard metals for skillful transformation under her welding torch.

Yet Peri gives much more than her art to our community. She has taught art to children at the Jewish Community Center and YWCA, to adult mentally ill in a rehab program at Lowenstein House, to Girl Scout leaders, and students at Shelby State Community College and Memphis State University. Peri regularly contributes art for causes, such as WKNO, Playhouse On The Square, and the Orpheum. She also volunteers time with 12- and 13-year-old students at Rozelle Elementary School to encourage them to draw or paint their feelings to music.

In 1990 she conceived and funded a very special art project. The Memphis Arts Council administers the $3,000 Visualization of Music commission, which selects an artist or artists to create work based on a piece of music selected by the Memphis Symphony conductor. The art then is unveiled at a symphony art-and-music performance featuring the selected music.

Peri Motamedi travelled thousands of miles and across cultures to build her dream of a free life and artistic expression. The success of that dream is a tribute to her initiative and talent.

Peri Motamedi passed away on December 27th, 2024.

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Franketta Guinn

Women of Achievement
1991

INITIATIVE
for a woman who seized the
opportunity to use her talents and created her own future:

Franketta Guinn

In January 1984, at age 37, Franketta Guinn left her secure job with Shelby County Health Care Center to start Metro Home Health Care. Originally employing three people, the business now employs 58 and has in the past year doubled both patient visits and revenue.

One of nine children, Franketta has always “leaned toward non-traditional fields.” In the ‘60s she was active in the local civil rights movement. She graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, with a Bachelor’s degree in health, recreation and physical education. She coached high school basketball, taught elementary physical education, and was a swimming instructor.

In the late ‘70s, Franketta returned to school to become certified to teach health and discovered the growing need for health care administrators. She entered a Master’s program in that field and in 1977 joined the Shelby County Health Care Center. There Franketta met many older people and their families. She saw that when the elderly are taken from their homes they can become confused and that hospital environments are less conducive to healing than are familiar surroundings. She realized that staying in the home surrounded by family and friends could greatly improve the quality of life for a growing population of aging Americans.

Since Franketta always wanted to own her own business and continue her work with geriatrics, she put these ideas together and came up with Metro Home Health Care. After involved licensing procedures, the company was set up and Franketta obtained her first patient — her father. That first year, Metro Home Health Care made 1,200 visits. This past year, that number had grown to 15,000.

Franketta Guinn defines success as “being all you can be at any one point in life — every time there is an opportunity to do better, you should.” Her initiative to redirect her talents has meant more peace and freedom for hundreds of senior Memphians.

Franketta later was named the Small Business Person of the Year for Tennessee and the Southeast region by the Small Business Administration. She won the Black Business of the Year award from the Black Business Association in 1991 and Supplier of the Year Award from the Mid-South Minority Purchasing Council in 1992. In 1993 she was appointed to the board of MLGW, the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Beale Street Advisory Board.

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Elaine Lee Turner and Joan Lee Nelson

Joan Lee-Nelson
Elaine Lee-Turner
Women of Achievement
1990

INITIATIVE
for a woman who seized the
opportunity to use her talents and created her own future:

Elaine Lee Turner and Joan Lee Nelson

Late one night in 1983, Elaine Lee Turner and Joan Lee-Nelson sat up discussing the fact that African-American children in Memphis did not know their own history. For these two women, who were intensely aware of their own family’s trail five generations from the slave ship, that problem demanded a solution. They decided they could show children their roots. Within a matter of months, Heritage Tours was a reality.

First they took their idea to various local funding sources, all of which turned them down. Not to be defeated, the women invested their own savings. Joan resigned her position as a job counselor with the City of Memphis; Elaine, a former teacher, reentered the professional world. With a little money and a lot of energy, the two women started the first African-American-owned tour company in the state. Their mission: to discover, chronicle and share the past of the Mid-South’s African-American community.

The sisters grew up in North Memphis hearing their mother, the family historian, tell of her father who was a boy when the slaves were freed. In 1965, Jet magazine named the 14-member Lee clan “the most arrested civil rights family in America.” “We participated because our heritage had been instilled in us,” Elaine said. Said Joan, “We are letting young people know what had to be done to get them where they are now.”

Taking the initiative is not new to these sisters. Elaine and Joan took the lead in organizing the Ida B. Wells Society and helped rally national recognition of Wells’ struggle for racial justice. Their work has won them awards, including the Shelby County Historical Commission’s Robert R. Church Award in 1989 for outstanding contribution in researching and presenting black historical heritage to national and international travelers. Indeed, much of their work involves collecting information through original research that otherwise would have been lost. Their interviews have turned up so much information that they plan a book.

“You have nothing to hold onto without your history,” said Joan, explaining the initiative they took. “You don’t know who you are. You don’t know where you are. You can’t envision the future … We see children’s eyes light up, knowing, ‘I’ve got a future.’”

Elaine Lee Turner is still going strong. In 2025, she spoke at Cordova Unity Church’s celebration of Juneteenth and Black Music Month, highlighting the connection between freedom, hope and music. Pictured here with Cequita Monique, singer, actress and founder of Memphis International Culture House.

Elaine Lee Turner, left, and Cequita Monique, right.
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Carol Coletta

Women of Achievement
1989

INITIATIVE
for a woman who seized the
opportunity to use her talents and created her own future:

Carol Coletta

From writing assistant in the Sports Information Office at Memphis State University to president of Coletta Brewer & Company, Inc., Carol Coletta has successfully made a journey through the business world that many envy. Along the way, she used her contacts and position to benefit the community — especially downtown redevelopment, tourism, and the arts.

After experience in entry-level corporate and government positions, Carol went to work in 1975 as marketing director for the Mid-America Mall project. She conceived and produced public events to bring people back downtown, including Octoberfest, the Memphis Heritage Festival and celebrations in Tom Lee Park. At the same time she was co-developer of the Timpani condominiums, downtown’s first residential renovation project, and owned and operated Magazine, the first new boutique downtown.

Starting as a public relations staff person at First Tennessee Bank in 1977, she rose in less than eight years to senior vice president for marketing and public affairs. Carol initiated the bank’s First Bravo Award, which provided $300,000 in grants to local artists; founded the First Tennessee Heritage Collection, a traveling exhibit of Tennessee art, and she organized and coordinated hundreds of citizen participants in the 1980 and 1981 Memphis Jobs Conference programs that won a $20 million capital grant from the State of Tennessee. She also was instrumental in the establishment of the public-private “superfund” which targeted promotion of tourism and the Uniport to boost Memphis’ growth.

Carol is a summa cum laude graduate of Memphis State University, pursuing her degree over a 10-year period while building a career and parenting her young daughter. Her personal civic involvement includes service as president of Memphis Planned Parenthood; chairperson of Mayor William Morris’ Economics of Amenity Task Force, and member of the Tennessee Committee for the Humanities and the Memphis Arts Council board.

All the while, Carol Coletta’s energetic leadership and dedication to both her career and her community built a model of initiative that inspires us all.

Carol, principal of Coletta & Co., is coordinator of The Community Compact, appointed by Mayor W.W. Herenton and Mayor Bill Morris to plan for the 21st Century.

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Georgia King

Women of Achievement
1994

COURAGE
for a woman who, facing active opposition,
backed an unpopular cause in which she deeply believed:

Georgia King

Georgia Anna King has walked through hurricanes, disregarded barricades on the steps of our nation’s capital, and captured microphones from guards to give voice to the homeless.

In 1989, she was one of the leaders of the Southern contingency of the New Exodus Walkers. Her group walked more than 250 miles from Roanoke, Virginia to the steps of the capital to make the plight of the homeless a priority in Congress. Queen Akua (her African name means Sweet Messenger) led the group in greeting disapproving observers with “Praise the Lord.” Before reaching their destination, skies turned black, winds arose and rain pored down. But the spirit of God told Georgia to put on her sanctified sneakers and to continue. Putting her fear behind her, she led her group forward through what was Hurricane Hugo.

Ahead on the march she saw a man who in her words looked like “one of her children.” She shouted, “Are you homeless?” “Yes,” he replied. “Then come with us to Washington. We’re going to shake the Bust to get money restored to help you.” And one more joined the group.

That year $250 billion designated for programs to help the homeless had been cut from the national budget. Upon reaching D.C., marchers from the South met marchers from the North and busloads of activists from all over. The group now was over 200,000 strong when it reached the Capitol steps. Their efforts paid off and funds were restored.

This struggle is nothing new. Georgia Anna has been fighting on behalf of the homeless since 1960. That summer she went to New York and saw for the first time people trapped by homelessness. The daughter of a Union City, Tennessee entrepreneur, she had never seen people sleeping on the streets before. Driving through the Bowery with an old family friend, she kept questioning what she saw. And she didn’t like the answers she got.

So, at the age of 20, rescuing the homeless became one of her personal missions. Queen Akua’s efforts don’t end with the homeless. She’s a grassroots activist who work directly with the mentally ill and the chemically dependent. Her interests include the arts and work on the board of Africa in April as well as with Project 30,000 Homes. She’s been honored for more than 53,000 hours of community service. Currently she’s working to open the Miracles Mission for the Homeless on South Main Street. Her goal is to look for long-term solutions for problems.

“I plant seeds,” she says of her many interests and accomplishments. “And find my courage and direction from the Lord.”

 

Georgia is now known as “Mother King” and is one of Memphis’s biggest activists. She founded the Memphis Bus Riders Union in 2012 in order to monitor the MATA. In 2018 she was honored with the MLK 50 Award for Leadership and Activism in the Memphis community.

Georgia Anna King passed away on February 7, 2023.

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Eunice Wilson

Women of Achievement
1993

COURAGE
for a woman who, facing active opposition,
backed an unpopular cause in which she deeply believed:

Eunice Wilson

Eunice Wilson has worked tirelessly for reproductive rights. From 1988 to 1992 she served as executive director of the Memphis Center for Reproductive Health (MCRH).

She has displayed compassion towards women and girls who chose to terminate their pregnancies, as well as unimpeachable tact in dealing with anti-choice picketers and the local news media. She has met with anti-choice leaders to share her convictions and to try to understand theirs. She has spent many hours meeting with pro-choice groups to plan strategies for public relations, political actions and building a safe environment for Mid-South clinics. Eunice cares about the staff, volunteers and, most of all, clients at MCRH and is always encouraging and optimistic.

Eunice Wilson has a long history of caring for others. She married Willard Wilson in 1947 and over the next 13 years gave birth to six children. While the children were young the Wilsons began foster-parenting children handicapped as a result of abuse at home.

In 1960, the family moved to Humboldt, Tennessee. While continuing to care for foster children, Eunice began working nights as a nurse’s aide at a local hospital. In 1967, the family moved to Memphis where Eunice began to study nursing and was soon working at Baptist Hospital. She earned her RN at Memphis State University in 1969. Two years later, she began correspondence courses and subsequently received her Bachelor’s degree in psychology and counseling.

During this time she became charge nurse in the Baptist Hospital Emergency Room. It was work there that led Eunice to her current convictions concerning a woman’s right to a legal abortion. She saw women arriving for emergency treatment following complications from abortions done outside the state, and she questioned why women in Tennessee were unable to have safe, legal abortions. Without this experience, Eunice would have remained on the other side of the issue, instead of being the pro-choice activist that she is today.

Taking an early retirement in 1984, Eunice began part-time work with St. Peter Nursing Home. At the age of 60, she became clinic coordinator for MCRH. In 1988, she became director.

During her tenure as director she worked actively to preserve the rights of women to informed health care and a safe and legal abortion. All the while staff, clients and the clinic itself were subject to threats and abuse by anti-choice activists. Throughout it all this woman of courage remained a calm source of strength and resolve.

 

Eunice Wilson passed away after a battle with the results of a stroke.

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Teresa Rae Dowdy

Women of Achievement
1992

COURAGE
for a woman who, facing active opposition,
backed an unpopular cause in which she deeply believed:

Teresa Rae Dowdy

Teresa Raelene Dowdy went to work for Criminal Court Clerk J.A. “Bubba” Blackwell in 1974. The Equal Rights Amendment was being debated for ratification among the states and women were entering the workforce in record numbers. But Rae found that time had stood still in Bubba’s office.

Blackwell’s female clerks were not allowed in the courtroom because he said women should not hear language used in some trials. Men could leave early for sporting events or they could study on the job for courses they enrolled in. Men got pay raises if they married or became fathers. Yet a female clerk who wanted more time at home with her new twins was placed on part-time status with reduced pay while a male clerk who was sick for more than a year received several raises while he was off!

Although all 54 employees were technically deputy clerks, a five-level hierarchy from chief clerk to deputy clerk had been devised, with 49 different salaries. Guess who fell into the lowest-paying levels? Guess who was passed over for promotions and pay raises for years, simply because she was female? Guess who finally got mad and got a lawyer?

In November 1985, Rae and 13 other female clerks filed suit in federal court against Blackwell, Shelby County government and the County Commission. Represented by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, they charged sex discrimination. During the two-year wait for trial Rae’s employer saw to it that each day was as difficult as possible. Rae was verbally abused, constantly watched, denied her vacation time, questioned about her sick leave. They even tried to take away her parking space. Many fellow employees turned against her and tried to convince others to do the same.

In court before U.S. District Judge Julia S. Gibbons in February 1988, Blackwell testified that he paid men more because of their physical abilities and because they have families to support. Judge Gibbons found that lowest paid males earned more than the highest paid females. Such facts brought her to the conclusion this was “convincing evidence of unequal pay.” In September 1988, Gibbons ruled there was “willful” discrimination. She ordered the county to pay $445,000 to the women, including double back pay for three years. The judge also ordered raises for the women equal that of men performing the same duties — up to $400 a month in some cases. The county did not appeal, and Blackwell chose not to seek re-election in 1990.

Rae Dowdy stood up for herself, her female co-workers and every wage-earning American woman. She fought for equal rights and proved that that fight can be won, with courage.