The seventh annual National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Image Awards presented nine awards in the Reynolds Alumni Center on Sunday night. This awards ceremony recognized minority students, staff, faculty and organizations that contributed to MU’s campus and the Columbia community.
The Booker T. Washington Adviser of the Year was awarded to Donell Young. Young serves as the Office of Student Conduct senior coordinator as well as the adviser for the Legion of Black Collegians.
“He might not be the most visual adviser to the outside world, but to the students who get a chance to work with him, they know he is kind, compromising, supportive and enlightening,” LBC Political Chairwoman Whitney Williams said.
The Rosa Parks Community Involvement Award was awarded to Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.. Alpha Phi Alpha has participated in projects to benefit the Columbia community through programs that assist the underprivileged.
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, which has recorded over 244 hours of community service during the past two semesters, won the Coretta Scott King Organization of the Year Award.
The Mary White Ovington Outstanding Freshman was awarded to Darrack Stephens, a member of the Mizzou Black Men’s Initiative and Black Business Students Association, as well as a LBC and Missouri Students Association senator.
Junior Dreana Johnson received the Dr. Medgar Evers Political Award. Johnson tutors children at the Blind Boone County Center and A Way with Words. She also recently coordinated Black Women Rock, which honored 26 women that are making a change in the community.
LySaundra Campbell won the Langston Hughes Creative Arts Award. Campbell created a non-profit organization Keys, whose mission is to provide underprivileged children the opportunity to learn how to play instruments for free.
Nadie Dubose was awarded the Roy Wilkins Staff Member of the Year.
“This award requires the staff member to have perseverance, diligence and geniuses in all their endeavors,” student Janay Stephens said. “Ms. Nadie Dubose has demonstrated these qualities and more.”
Cidney King was awarded as the Myrlie Evers-Williams Black Student Leader of the Year. King serves as vice president of two student organizations and worked on the King of Hearts scholarship program, which raised funds for multiple sclerosis and gave community service and scholarship opportunities to men on campus.
The Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson Education Awareness Award was given to Dream Outside the Box.
“We never thought that we would be honored for doing something that these children actually need,” senior Alicia Davis said. “We enjoy expanding their horizons and letting them know that a rapper or athlete is not the only option to becoming successful.”
Theater professor Clyde Ruffin said the African-American community has changed identification more than any other minority group he knows, from black to Afro-American to African-American.
“I am grateful today that we have reached a place where we are loosening those parameters of what it means to be black, to be African-American, to be colored, to be Negro in this country,” Ruffin said. “Now, we can say that yes, I am black, I am proud, I like country music and I will eat Chinese food.”
