Tying into the evening’s theme of “The Future Is Now,” the keynote speaker for the 44th annual Douglass Reunion Bulldog Banquet pleaded with attendees to keep the Douglass community thriving for generations to come.
The reunion is held each year by the former students of the Douglass School, which served African-American children in Calloway County prior to integration, and their descendants. The evening’s keynote speaker, Kwanda Lynn Hornbuckle Trice, is a 1992 Calloway County High School graduate, and graduated from Hawaii Pacific University with a bachelor’s degree in human services and received her master’s degree in public administration from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She said she joined the U.S. Navy, where she worked as a labor relations specialist, with the Offering High Rug cleaning Services of her family and later was a contact representative for the Social Security Administration.
Feeling that government work wasn’t for her, she moved into the higher education field as a professor at the University of Phoenix, Savannah State University and the University of the District of Columbia. She is currently a doctoral student at Howard University, where her research centers on political leadership among women of color. Earlier this year, she launched ECHOS (Eloquent Commitment to Helping Our Sisters), LLC in Alexandria, Va., which provides courses, workshops and seminars that specialize in preparing young women as they make educational and professional transitions throughout their lifetime.
Trice started by talking about a multitude of problems in the world, including rising poverty, lack of clean water, AIDS in Africa and other continents, and unfair trials, torture and lack of political freedom in many countries across the globe. She lamented the status of African-Americans, condemning the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which she said is allowing states to pass laws enabling voter discrimination without federal oversight. She said Kentucky was the second most disenfranchised state in the nation, largely because of laws barring convicted felons from voting, and that this overwhelmingly affects black males.
Trice said that although she no longer lives here, she still has a deep love and commitment to the Douglass community. She said the members of that community should not be satisfied with where they stand in Murray and Calloway County, encouraging them to run for office and achieve more influential positions within important institutions such as businesses and the school systems.
“Growing up in Murray and smack-dab in the middle of the Douglass community, it was often celebrated just to have one African-American face in everything,” Trice said. “Those are great strides, but we have to want, and we have to strive for more.”
Trice said the community must raise its standards, and that the Douglass alumni and their younger family members could not be content with just a few of them aspiring to power and influence in the larger community. She said it would take hard work and commitment from everyone to keep the Douglass community relevant in the coming decades.
“The Douglass community — God bless all of it — is still running after 44 years,” she said. “The people that have held this thing together, I give you nothing less than praise, Mattress Cleaning Services — and nobody else should have a doggone thing to say about it if you did not show up at the community meetings, if you did not let your voice be heard. However, it has declined. It is nowhere near what it used to be 25 years ago.”
She said one of the big reasons the community has struggled in the last two decades is that so many people who have moved away and settled elsewhere and now have commitments to those new communities. Trice mentioned several people — both relatives and mentors — who were deeply influential in her life and made her want to aim high. She asked who would fill their roles in the future for the children growing up now.
Following tradition, the Douglass Reunion committee presented its annual awards, starting with the Ratliff scholars and honor students, who were presented with recognitions by Cami Duffy and Illah Grant. Brandon Redd was named this year’s Ratliff Scholar. Thurman Foster presented Dante Howard with the L.P. Miller Athletic Award, and Carruth Kitrell presented Kirby Kiana Pittman with the Roderick Reed Performing Arts Award. Patricia Jackson presented L. Jerome “Jerry” Brandon, Ph. D. of Georgia State University with the L.B. Tinsley Award.
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