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Fog/Mist Leaders honored (and not just for Women’s History Month)
Baldwinite Johnnie Walker, 80, Councilwoman Dorothy Goosby, 83, and seven other women of distinction were honored for Women’s History Month “Women Leading the Way” event at the Baldwin Spartan Lodge 754.
In 1959, Walker was looking for an apartment in Great Neck. Calling the landlord to check the availability of an apartment, the landlord told her it was open for lease; however, she was later told no units were vacant. Suspecting racist motivations, she reached out to a friend--a white Jewish woman--who was able to get the apartment immediately.
Filling a lawsuit to fight the injustice done to her, she came out on top, winning the first housing discrimination case in Great Neck. The experience stuck with Walker who started to fight for equal housing opportunities, joining organizations such as the National Council of Negro Women, which she later expanded in 1994, by founding the Long Island Cross County Section chapter.
“I want this generation to know there is nothing [stopping them]--it’s long overdue for women of all races, creeds and colors to take their places,” she told the Herald. “They’re the ones. Why are we sitting back?”
Likewise, Goosby made history with her class action lawsuit in 1988 challenging the town’s racially discriminatory at-large voting system for the Town Board. And indeed, a 1997 ruling by a federal district judge agreed the voting method violated the Voting Rights Acts.
Goosby then left private life to join and diversify the previously white-dominated Hempstead Town Board. She became one of the first Democrats to be elected to public office in the Town of Hempstead since 1905 and is currently serving as the first and only African American woman in the Board. Plus, the town recently named the Hempstead Town Hall Plaza after her, their longest serving member on the board.
“We need to learn to work together…there are people who still have not learned to accept all of us as they should, [but] I believe it’s one world and we’re all one,” she stated enthusiastically. Then pondering the relationship of women to men, she questioned, “It’s important that we’re looked upon, and [men] realize they can’t do it without us.”
Another honoree, Amy Jerez-Flores, of the newer millennial generation, was lauded for her commitment to helping teach women about financial literacy. Flores, a first-generation college graduate, previously worked at the Office of Hispanic Affairs for former County Executive Laura Curran, “ensuring equal access to government resources,” said Flores.
Now she takes on another influential role as the Vice President Community Manager at JP Morgan Chase. She spoke to the room explaining how her role will help disadvantaged communities, “Unfortunately we have seen that the minority communities--African American and Hispanic--range very low in numbers of building intergenerational wealth, savings, money management, credit…,so this role is focused on financial education and literacy.”
Twenty-eight-year New York City Fire Department Emergency Medic Lashuun Knight was given also given accolades for treating and assisting many people. She even treated Michael Jackson in 1995 when he collapsed during a rehearsal.
Knight also spent eight months sifting through the rubble of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks, helping those trapped and collecting the remains of loved ones to send to families “so they’d have a part of their family members,” she told the room in a solaced moment.
Now in her retirement, Knight started the not-for-profit Feed the First Responders, which gives meals to post office workers, corrections officers, fire fighters and other essential workers during the pandemic. “People were unable to eat…people [were] working 16, 18, 24 hours,” she stated.
Also on a mission for her non-for-profit, Lisa Ray had her chance to shine while shining a light on multiple scoliosis. Angels Hearts for Hope Foundation Inc. raises awareness on her personal battles with the debilitating disease, fighting through the central nervous system pain to write her inspirational poetry book and other novels.
“I was fighting to live…I went from four inch heals to barley being able to put on a shoe” she told the audience over the microphone, continuing to say she’s “on a mission to encourage and inspire” with her work.
Worthy Matron W. Simone-Monet Wahls of the Nassau Chapter 718 then remembered Traci Braxton, who was a sister member of the Maryland chapter who passed on March 11. Best known for her reality TV role in the show “Braxton Family Values,” Braxton passed at 50 after her battle with esophageal cancer. Honoree Vanessa Braxton spoke of the inspiration her sister-in-law was to her and offered a moment of silence for the loss.
She then talked about “Black Momma Vodka,” her brand of liquor she started in 2013. Becoming the first African American woman distillery in the United States in Wyandanch and being awarded the New York State Proclamation for master distiller and master blender. She was honored for being a woman of industry and enterprise. She plans on making a Juneteenth blend of vodka in celebration of the liberation of enslaved people in the United States at the end of the Civil War.
