| Norma Adams-Wade: Local civil-rights figures honored 02/14/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News Since she was a youth in the turbulent 1960s, Diane Ragsdale has been an unrelenting advocate for civil rights.
Her contributions will be permanently recorded when the former Dallas City Council member is inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Voting Rights Museum & Institute in Selma, Ala.
The induction will be part of the three-day Bridge Crossing Jubilee from March 2-4 in Selma. The jubilee will mark the 35th anniversary of the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge crossing.
The museum is at the base of the bridge where state troopers tear-gassed and beat with nightsticks hundreds of demonstrators who marched to gain voting rights on March 7, 1965. The event became known as "Bloody Sunday" and later that year led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Last year, Bill Clinton was the first president to participate in the annual re-enactment march.
Four others from the Dallas-Fort Worth area will be recognized as "invisible giants" for their civil-rights activities. The other honorees are:
• The Rev. Zan Holmes, pastor of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church.
• Maryellen Hicks, former state appeals court judge.
• Lee Alcorn, former NAACP Dallas branch president who founded and heads the Coalition for the Advancement of Civil Rights.
• Thomas Muhammad, community organizer and vice president and managing editor of the African-American News & Issues newspaper.
Attorney Rose Sanders, the museum's founder and president and a recognized voting organizer, selected the five individuals when she spoke at a fund-raiser here in January. She also toured Dallas and Fort Worth. The Coalition for the Advancement of Civil Rights and the African-American News & Issues sponsored her visit.
"[Ms. Sanders] led the grass-roots movement that helped elect James Perkins, Selma's first black mayor," Mr. Muhammad said. "And she has kept the march alive over the years."
Ms. Sanders praised Ms. Ragsdale for creating housing and economic development opportunities in South Dallas.
Other groups in recent months have cited Ms. Ragsdale's public service.
In October, the former deputy mayor pro tem received the African American Museum's distinguished community service award named in honor of the late Dallas businessman and community leader A. Maceo Smith. The award honored Ms. Ragsdale's work in bringing affordable housing and economic development to the South Dallas/Fair Park area.
"I'm not in office now, but I'm not ever going to be out of the [civil-rights] movement," Ms. Ragsdale said. "It gives me a lot of satisfaction to serve my community and to serve others."
The three-day commemoration will include separate conferences for women, men and youth, an entertainment festival, the re-enactment march and the induction ceremony. The popular Praise Dancers from St. Luke church in Dallas will perform during the activities.
For more information, call the Selma museum at 334-418-0800 or visit www.voterights.org.
Norma Adams-Wade can be reached at ; P. O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265; or by fax at 214-977-8319.
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