A Tribute to Hazel Nell Dukes

NAACP Youth Leaders pay tribute to Women in the NAACP during Black History Month. This tribute is submitted on behalf of Joshua Turnquests.

An important civil rights activist of the 1960s and 1970s and a campaigner for over 30 years, Hazel Nell Dukes is a leading figure in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and has served as the organization's State president for over two decades. Ms. Dukes built a career in various social service agencies, but she was most successful working for the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation (NYCOTB). She worked for the corporation for 25 years before being made its president by New York City Mayor David Dinkins in 1990. Yet Dukes has also received a healthy share of criticism and controversy She left the NYCOTB in 1994.

Hazel Nell Dukes was born on March 17, 1932, in Montgomery, Alabama, the daughter and only child of Edward and Alice Dukes. Dukes was raised in Montgomery and, intending to become a teacher, attended Alabama State Teachers College (now Alabama State University) beginning in 1949. But in 1955 she moved with her parents to New York City and began studying at Nassau Community College while she worked at Macy's department store. Her studies in business administration soon led her into working for governmental organizations. In 1966 she became the first black American to work for the Nassau County Attorney's Office and later worked for the Nassau County Economic Opportunity Commission (EOC) as a community organizer. There she was responsible for organizing day care and schooling for poor children, as well as for coordinating transportation for people unable to attend college or find work because they were unable to travel. Throughout her life Dukes has shown a deep commitment to the importance of education and worked hard in the 1960s to improve the educational chances of many people in deprived areas; Dukes herself did not finally graduate with a bachelor's degree from Adelphi University until 1978.

 

Dukes' political activism extends also to campaigning for the Democratic Party. She worked for President Lyndon Johnson's "Head Start" program in the 1960s and was the first black vice-chair of the Nassau County Democratic Committee. She served on the party's national committee from 1976 to 1982. During the years of the Reagan and Bush presidencies in the 1980s and early 1990s Dukes was an outspoken opponent of policies that she felt undermined the achievements of the civil rights movements of the 1960s. Dukes' political career has made her one of the most important black activists and campaigners of the last quarter of the twentieth century.

She has dedicated ample efforts to persuade a new generation to take over leadership of the NAACP. She has also pushed for education reforms and views the civil rights movements of the 1960s as unfinished business. In a speech made in the fall of 2004 Dukes linked the NAACP campaign to reduce class sizes in New York City Schools with important earlier battles in the civil rights movement. She declared "Only if your deliberations end in smaller classes, for all children in all grades, will they be provided with their constitutional rights to a sound basic education. Only then will the promise of Brown vs. Board of Education be achieved."

Ms. Dukes is a woman of great strength and courage. Her dedication to human rights and equality is exemplified by her role linking business, government and social causes. Ms. Dukes is an active and dynamic leader who is known for her unselfish and devoted track record for improving the quality of life in New York State.