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Thank YouRuby Hurley Image Awards
Ruby Hurley HumanitarianDejuan S. Jordan, executive director of Stop the Madness National Inc.James R. Mapp “Citizen of the Year” AwardRonald Harris, vice-president of diversity and inclusion at BlueCross BlueShieldEducator of the YearDr. Elaine Swafford, executive director of Chattanooga Girls Leadership AcademyRalph Cothran Police Civil ServicePedro Bacon, Chattanooga Police DepartmentRalph Cothran Fire-Fighter Civil ServiceCecil Barber, Chattanooga Fire DepartmentViola Mapp Membership AwardDwight Smith, Chattanooga Hamilton NAACP Membership CommitteeHannah Martin “Through the Storm”Ruth Auls, Tennessee Social Service
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For more information call George Calhoun at 423-645-1140.
Dr. Horace Traylor, the first black graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and president of the now-defunct Zion College, will speak at the NAACP's 29th Annual Ruby Hurley Image Awards banquet at 6 p.m. today at Stratton Hall.
"Black Power Reloaded Through the Vote," is the theme of the event, said George Calhoun, third vice president of the local NAACP and chairman of the Ruby Hurley committee.
"This is election time, and we thought we needed to bring in some big guns to talk about the importance of voting in terms of getting out to vote and all of the sacrifices that have been made," Calhoun said.
This election marks the first in 50 years in which there will be a presidential election without the full protection of the voting rights act, said Jeralyn Cave, senior communications associate for a Washington, D.C.-based social justice organization, Advancement Project. Local NAACP members, churches, neighborhood groups and community leaders have organized transportation to the polls. CARTA is also offering free transportation on election day in hopes of removing all barriers for eligible citizens to vote.
Better housing, better neighborhoods and better schools could all be influenced by voting, Calhoun said.
Traylor encourages people to vote because the struggle for all people to be treated equally has not ended, he said.
The civil rights struggle is not over, he said. It has intensified, and if potential voters sit as spectators and do nothing, people will find that the country that people love is not going to be the country that will continue to exist.
"This is the most critical period in the history of civil rights. This election will set us back years beyond the Emancipation Proclamation, and I mean a few years. This situation today reminds me of [Andrew] Johnson, the worst president we ever had, following Abraham Lincoln, the best president we ever had," said Traylor.
"Anybody who has ever read that story knows we regressed. And that's my greatest fear today. That we black and white and everybody else who is a citizen of the United States of America, the greatest nation on earth, [are] now in the process of regression.
"Our thoughts are regressed, and if we're not careful our action will take us back," he said.
Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.