Author: WOAmemphis17

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.

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.

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.

Women of Achievement
1991

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

Rita Underhill

In 1985, at a time when few people understood or even knew about the disease, Rita Underhill learned that her younger brother Max had AIDS.

He called from New York to tell her and to ask that she not yet tell their family. Rita was stunned. For over a year and a half she kept the sadness and concern to herself. Rather than turn her back on him, as so many have done, Rita provided her brother with the support he desperately needed. As his health declined Max at last decided to tell the rest of his family.

Rita, although a nurse, could find little information on AIDS: only a few paragraphs in a textbook and only one book in all the Memphis bookstores. She learned through underground channels that the drug AZT, an antiretroviral medication, could help AIDS patients. But in 1985 AZT wasn’t legal in the United States. So she flew to Mexico and brought back a supply for her brother.

Rita also helped him enter the first experimental clinical study in this country. At great expense Rita made countless trips from Memphis to New York City to be with Max. And in 1988 she faced his death with all the courage she could find.

But Rita didn’t stop caring about people with AIDS when Max died. Less than a year later, she took a job with the Aid to End AIDS Committee (ATEAC). Rita has spent recent years educating people about the disease. Initially, many people assumed that Rita had AIDS and refused to be near her. When some friends were hostile and couldn’t accept her work, she had the courage to give them up. Rita has conducted outreach programs to the gay, the African-American and the Asian communities, and to IV drug abusers. She speaks wherever and whenever she is asked, and last year reached 4,000 people.

With great courage, Rita Underhill daily faces the lives and deaths of people who have contracted AIDS. She brings to these interactions the same strength, love and warmth that helped her cope with her brothers’ disease and death.

Rita Underhill passed away on July 3, 2022.

Women of Achievement
1990

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

Jocelyn Wurzburg

In 1968, Memphis was a focus of the nation’s turmoil following the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Jocelyn Dan Wurzburg stepped forward to take constructive, courageous action in our city.

Jocie became familiar with an organization in other cities called the Panel of American Women, and she single-handedly brought its services to Memphis. The Panel’s purpose was to eliminate racial and religious prejudice by going before groups to tell personal stories, answer questions and share outlooks. In 1990 this might seem tame, but in 1968 and the years thereafter, it was a tough assignment. Many groups took personal issue with the message and the messengers.

Jocie Wurzburg headed a group of about 40 women — black, white, Catholic, Jew, Protestant — who labored to learn new skills and educate each other on issues. Some of the Panel went with Jocie to the mayor’s office to lobby for reason in the volatile atmosphere. This effort made Time magazine, albeit derisively. The story reported on “housewives in white gloves …”

The Panel led her into other human rights work, including project director for the Memphis Martin Luther King Memorial 1976-77 and service on the Social Action Commission, Family Life Committee and Consultation on Conscience biennial sessions of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. She was appointed to the National Commission for the Observance of International Women’s Year and to the State Advisory Committee of the Civil Rights Commission.

Although the Panel of American Women ended service in 1980, Jocie Wurzburg’s work as a lecturer on equal employment and human relations continued and her career as a lawyer and divorce mediator began. Never one to stop organizing, she directed her love of music to the founding of the Jazz Society of Memphis.

It was not easy for this one-time East Memphis homemaker to become an activist — but an activist she was. The Panel of American Women was a courageous force in our city during those years. It was quoted, called upon, cited as a positive force. As her nominator said, “Jocie made all of that happen. She never got discouraged. She never let her energy flag.”

Jocelyn Wurzburg received the Shelby County Diversity Award in 2008. She also won the NAACP Life Time Achievement award in 2017. Later that year, Planned Parenthood awarded her the Judy Scharff Award for the Panel of American Women. The Tennessee Human Rights Commission established the Jocelyn Dan Wurzburg Civil Rights Award in her name. Today, she offers Mediation Services as a saner way of dealing with conflicts.

Women of Achievement
1989

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

Josephine Burson

Josephine W. Burson, the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants was taught by her parents that America is the land of freedom and opportunity and that there is an open door for everyone.

Josie’s involvement with the Democratic Party began in the traditional way — she did her share of telephoning and mailings. She went on to head the Democratic Women’s Committee to elect Senator Estes Kefauver. Despite opposition by the newspapers and with her hard work, Kefauver won the election, ending a long hold on politics in Memphis by the Crump forces. She also headed the Women’s Division of the Tennessee campaign for the national Kennedy-Johnson ticket.

Prior to 1960, political campaigns in Memphis had been just as segregated as water fountains and restaurants. The Kennedy-Johnson campaign signaled an end to that division. The campaign was being conducted by an integrated group, but when it was announced that Lady Bird Johnson would appear in Memphis, it was assumed that there would be two meetings as there had always been — one white, one black. Josie, however, refused to participate in a segregated event. At that time the only place that would accommodate an integrated meeting was the MWCA, which was too small. Challenged to find a larger location, she succeeded in signing the first contract for the newly-renovated Ellis Auditorium. Thus began a new, more open era in Memphis.

Josie was the first cabinet appointment announced by Gov. Buford Ellington and she served as Commissioner of Employment Security from 1967 to 1971. As a volunteer in Hadassah, Burson rose from chapter president to national vice-president. In these positions she has worked for the welfare of the State of Israel. Since 1981 she has been an employee of Senior Citizen Services, where she has worked with the deinstitutionalized elderly.

In 1975, Josie was selected National Mother of the Year by American Mothers. The 50th mother to make a presentation, she spoke movingly of being a first generation American. Her parents came to America seeking the American dream and their children achieved it. Taught by her family the history of persecution of European Jews, Josie Burson has worked with courage to live in a land where persecution of any segment of the population should never occur.

Josephine Burson passed away June 9, 2009.