More Top Picks Best Lightweight Rain Jackets Under 100
player ready...La Grange’s CommUNITY Diversity Group (CDG) held its 32nd Annual Race Unity Rally September 10.
“The Importance of belonging” was the theme for this year’s event staged by the group that first formed in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots in 1992.
The rally drew more than 100 people and was held at the La Grange Village Hall, 53 S. La Grange Road, running for about an hour and one-half.
“There is a need for equity awareness,” Bessie Emerson Boyd said in accepting CDG’s Minnie Carr Achievement Award, describing the concept as “giving me what I need to succeed.”
Minnie Carr was a La Grange resident from the 1930s-1950s, working as a community organizer and teaching music and Bible studies. She organized the first La Grange Children’s Parade in 1940 and wrote a column, “News From The Eastside,” for the La Grange Citizen.
Boyd, a lifelong La Grange resident, retired a few years ago after serving as school principal in Park Forest. She served for four years on the La Grange School District 102 Board of Education, where her biography from CDG noted “she was a strong voice for equity.”
Boyd also worked with CDG for many years and was instrumental in creating the after school program “Kids At Work,” and is involved in the La Grange youth group “LeaderShop.”
She currently works as an education consultant and as a real estate investment broker.
Boyd particularly emphasized equity in education, speaking of famous legal cases Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the legal doctrine of “separate but equal,” which held racial segregation constitutional, and the equally famous ruling of Brown v. The Board of Education, which ruled it unconstitutional.
“Separating children in public schools on he basis of race is unconstitutional,” she reminded the audience.
Michael Thomas, another lifelong La Grange resident, was honored with CDG’s Diversity Achievement Award.
Thomas, who holds an MBA, worked in corporate marketing for three decades and got involved in the community when his children attended school in La Grange District 102 and formed the parent’s group, the Committee for Equity and Minority Achievement, (CEMA).
He was then elected to the District 102 School Board in 2017, served on the Lyons Township Advisory Commission, was appointed to the Lyons Township High School Board of Education in 2020, after which he was elected himself. He expressed humility in accepting the award.
“I’m truly humbled by the people who inspired me,” he said.
Village President Mark Kuchler read a proclamation marking the day and spoke to the group’s efforts, saying there were villages that never celebrated diversity, “but we do it and we do it every day.”
Newly installed Police Chief Timothy Griffen spoke of the need for “community involvement and community policing.”
Park District Commissioner Brian Opyd noted that “diversity means the different points of view working together can make things happen.”
The Caring Place Youth Choir sang the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice,” diversity essays were read by grade school students, and three essays on the “importance of belonging” were read by seniors from LTHS.
Other activities during this year’s Diversity Days were the showing of the movie “Till” at the La Grange Library, 10 W. Cossitt Avenue on Sept. 8.
More information on CDG can be found at the group’s website, communitydiversity.org.
More Top Picks Best Coccyx Cushions For Sciatica
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.