Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Lost Soldiers

We've been losing our greatest by the handfuls! But the recent deaths of Rev. Benjamin Hooks and Dorothy Height have hit me the hardest. My parents were lifetime members of the NAACP and I can remember them speaking about Rev. Hooks. My father who was diagnosed with cancer after he retired, had to have at least 20 major surgeries to try to get rid of the disease that was robbing him of his life. When we went to the hospital, the doctors and nurses could not wait to tell us about how Daddy was forever trying to recruit them to become members of the NAACP. When they wheeled Daddy into the operating room for each one of his surgeries, he would tell the attendees: doctors, nurses, surgical techs, etc that they couldn't work on him until they signed up to join the NAACP. He thought so much about the organization, he wanted everyone to belong.

My mother and I were both members of the National Council of Negro Women. Mary McLeod Bethune and Dorothy Height were two of my mother's role models. She in turn became the role model for hundreds of young women in and around the state of Indiana.

Both of these soldiers were instrumental in our home. They will be missed. R.I.P. Rev. Hooks and Dorothy Height.

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